Jun. 19, 2003 - 4:14 pm
i had been wanting to see this one for quite a while now. it was Teresa Wright's very first film and she was nominated for her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress with it. various people had been watching our laserdisc copy at the media center recently, so that kept pointing it out to me. i still need to see quite a bit of her stuff. i think this is only the 6th film that i've seen her in. The Little Foxes was nominated for 9 Oscars total, but did not win any of them. it's amazing how many people were sometimes nominated for the same award in the early days of the Oscars. i don't think i've ever seen it as evident as it was in this particular year though. for instance, there were 10 nominees for Best Picture and 20 nominees for Best Musical Score. why were they so inconsistent? i guess they just hadn't made the standard 5 nominee system yet and no one could make up their minds as to what they wanted to nominate. anyway, so yeah there was a lot of competition for the awards at the 1942 ceremony anyway.
it centers on a rich family living in the deep south around 1900. the matriarch (Bette Davis) and her two brothers plan on going in together on a new cotton mill business venture, but they're lacking $75,000 of the money they need to start the business. so they try to bring back Davis' frail husband from the hospital and convince him that he needs to put down the cash. after he refuses, the quite frightening Davis will stop at nothing to get all of the fortunes she's always wished for. her evil ways seem to be pushing her inexperienced daughter further and further away from her though, and putting her poor husband on his last leg.
another thing that made me think of seeing this film recently was that Bette Davis' Regina Giddens character was voted as one of the top film villains of all time on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes & Villains (2003) tv special. she was quite excellent as a villainous mother in this one. she seems to care little for anyone except herself and her own desires and she's willing to destroy people's lives in order to get what she wants. quite demented actually.
there's some really cool cinematography used in this picture, and it was done by Gregg Toland, of Citizen Kane (1941) fame. it's not quite as risky, but it is quite stunning to look at. there are many great shots of Bette Davis at the top of the family staircase, with everyone else below, showing her power over the other characters. and also some great reflection shots used, like Teresa Wright and the housekeeper in a carriage reflected off of her father's plaque outside his bank during a conversation with the property caretaker. it's good stuff, and a great addition to the long list of good Teresa Wright films that i'm slowly slowly working on whittling down.