Holstra Boring, long, and too preachy.

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

cdcrb ms. davis says this is her worst performance on screen. don't you just love great actors. you all probably know the story being told. bette wants more and gets it. the direction by Wyler is really superb. it's interesting to see what he had to do to stop ms. davis from flinging her arms around, which she often did with abandon. she has doilies sewn to her cuffs and her hands are almost always wrapped around each other when she has to react to the other actors. Wyler must have said "the arms ms. davis....the arms." most of the cast came from Broadway, including patricia collinge as bertie. I have wondered what they were thinking on the train from nyc to warner brothers. they really don't make movies like this anymore. that's too bad.

jacklmauro I know this film backwards and, like 'The Heiress,' it's testimony to the greatness sometimes achieved in yesterday's Hollywood. The screenplay is faithful to Hellman, and the opening-up scenes have no forced feeling. However - and as melodramatically wonderful as the story is - it's mostly about Davis. Her Regina is exquisitely perfect, with a lifetime of bitterness as subtext always. The climax in which she sits as her husband dies is breathtaking, time after time; she becomes a fixated, horrified and horrifying, porcelain doll. But do NOT fail to appreciate the beauty of Patricia Collinge's Birdie. In fact, keep your eye on her as the vile Hubbards scheme and she occupies a background corner. I honestly can't think of a supporting performance as brilliant, with the possible exception of Hopkins in 'Heiress.'

TheLittleSongbird While not quite one of my favourite William Wyler films like Roman Holiday, Ben-Hur, The Best Years of Our Lives, Wuthering Heights, Mrs. Miniver and Dodsworth (also remember great things about The Heiress), The Little Foxes is an excellent film and another one of his near-classics).The Little Foxes, as always with Wyler's films, looks great with photography that is both sumptuous and clever (like Jezebel, one does feel like they are not just surveying the action but are being part of it), atmospherically shadowy lighting and elegant costuming and sets. Meredith Wilson's score is effectively haunting and induces some suspense that adds a lot to the atmosphere of the story, while never overbearing the drama. The Little Foxes is superlatively directed by Wyler, his use of the camera is relentless, he keeps the drama taut and does such a great job engrossing the audience into the story and its atmosphere to the extent it's like being there.Incredibly powerful writing, with razor sharp and chillingly vicious dialogue, and a story that's paced smoothly, darkly cruel, acutely dramatic without being melodramatic or ham-fisted but still entertaining and very compelling in its realism are also great assets, and there are scenes that stay with you for a long time like Regina and Alexandra's climactic scene on the staircase, the interaction between the characters and especially Horace's death scene (and that was mostly because of some chilling acting from Davis). The characters are interesting and well-written if mostly unsympathetic apart from Alexandra, David and Horace, and like the story compellingly realistic.Herbert Marshall is on excellent form, bringing poignant tragedy to the role, while Patricia Collinge is heart-breaking, Teresa Wright is radiant and touching with a touch of feisty spirit in her later scenes and Richard Carlson makes for a sympathetic boyfriend. On the other end of the spectrum, there is also Carl Benton Reid and Dan Duryea is greedily calculating brothers and Charles Dingle is entertainingly devious and intelligently deceptive as a scheming character. Best of all is the towering portrayal by Bette Davis, playing one of the most monstrous characters of her career along with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and The Anniversary, even her appearance is enough to give you the creeps.Only the somewhat abrupt and not quite resolved enough ending isn't so good, other than that The Little Foxes is an excellent film, that while not among Wyler's best it does deserve to be seen more. 9/10 Bethany Cox

dlbhina622 Incomparable in the cinematography, the lighting effects, the close-ups, the work of a true master. It's hard to imagine how long ago this film was made, yet has managed to keep its integrity. Intelligent, sardonic, with a brilliant performance by Bette Davis, I for one consider this one of the greatest films ever made.I think that Herbert Marshall underplayed his role to give more stage to Ms. Davis, which may not have been his choosing. He didn't seem to be as sick as he was supposed to be, and seemed distant at times, as if acknowledging to be second fiddle. Even so, as a drama, as a story about a dysfunctional wealthy family, no cast today could outshine this one. Could any actress have done better to capture the moment when she refuses to give him his medicine as he lay on the staircase begging, and the close-up of her eyes, dark and cold, yet uncertain. Amazing.