작은 여우들

The Little Foxes - a comparison between the play and the film

Lillian Hellman was both a renowned dramatist and an excellent screenwriter in Hollywood's great period. The Little Foxes is a rapacious melodrama set in the genteel South in 1900. It is a shrewd look into the deceitful lives of the Hubbard family. It was transformed into the film with all its original maliciousness unchanged and with the Director, William Wyler's, relentless camerawork. In the film Bette Davis' performance which Tallulah Bankhead played so boldly on the stage was an impressive portrayal of self-willed Regina's captivation. Most important of all is the subplot involving Regina's daughter Alexandra and a newly added newspaper writer, David Hewitt. The film insinuates that they will make a good couple trying to fight against the Hubbards' avarice to make the world a better place to live in. Finally it seems fitting to conclude that this comparative study between the play and the film has borne out an assumption, i. e., the heightened status of women and women playwrights. Indeed the growing popularity of and critical attention to Lilian Hellman can be viewed as not only a sign of socio-cultural change but also an assertion of the immortality of Hellman's career.