THE LITTLE FOXES

Not the most cinematic of Wyler's films "The Little Foxes"betrays it's theatrical origins at every turn, despite Gregg Toland's superb cinematography, but since the material is so rich and so richly melodramatic that hardly matters. Lillian Hellman adapted her own play, with a little help from Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell, and it's certainly a classic of the American stage. Here it's cast to something close to perfection. Bette Davis, too young for the part, nevertheless makes Regina Giddens entirely her own while Dan Duryea, Charles Dingle, Carl Benton Reid and most especially the great Patricia Collinge, (her Miss Birdie is surely one of the screen's great supporting performances), were never better. The young lovers, Teresa Wright and Richard Carlson, are a miscalculation but the scene in which Davis watches husband Herbert Marshall breathe his last is unforgettable.