The Fox | |
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Directed by | Mark Rydell |
Screenplay by | Lewis John Carlino Howard Koch |
Based on | The Fox 1922 story in The Dial by D. H. Lawrence |
Produced by | Raymond Stross |
Starring | Sandy Dennis Anne Heywood Keir Dullea |
Cinematography | William A. Fraker |
Edited by | Thomas Stanford |
Music by | Lalo Schifrin |
Distributed by | Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Claridge Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 110 minutes |
Country | Canada |
Language | English |
Box office | $19.1 million [1] |
The Fox is a 1967 Canadian drama film directed by Mark Rydell. The screenplay by Lewis John Carlino and Howard Koch is loosely based on the 1923 novella of the same title by D. H. Lawrence. The film marked Rydell's feature film directorial debut.
Jill Banford and Ellen March struggle to support themselves by raising chickens on an isolated farm in rural Canada. Dependent Jill tends to household chores and finances while the self-sufficient Ellen deals with heavier work, such as chopping wood, repairing fences, and stalking the fox that keeps raiding their coops, although she is hesitant about killing it. Jill seems content with their secluded existence, but the frustrated Ellen is less enchanted by the solitude.
In the dead of winter, merchant seaman Paul Grenfel arrives in search of his grandfather, the former owner of the farm who died one year earlier. With nowhere else to go while on leave, he persuades the women to allow him to stay with them for a few weeks in exchange for helping with the work. Tension among the three slowly escalates when his attention to Ellen arouses Jill's resentment and jealousy. When he proposes marriage to Ellen, Jill is first outraged, then hysterically fearful, even trying to bribe Paul to leave.
Eventually Paul tracks and kills the fox. Just before his departure, he makes love to Ellen and asks her to elope with him, but she confesses she would feel guilty if she abandoned Jill. After Paul returns to his ship, Jill confesses her feelings for Ellen, and the two women make love. Ellen writes to Paul, explaining that her place is with Jill and that she cannot marry him.
Several weeks later, Paul returns unexpectedly as the two women are chopping down a dying oak. He offers to complete the job and warns Jill to move away from the tree's potential path. In a standoff of wills, Jill refuses to move as Paul continues to chop at the tree. The falling tree crushes Jill, and she dies.
As spring begins, Ellen sells the farm, and she and Paul set off to start a new life together. Knowing that she is silently mourning the loss of Jill, Paul assures Ellen that she will be happy in her new life. She replies, "Will I?"
In adapting Lawrence's novella for the screen, Lewis John Carlino and Howard Koch opted to change the setting from 1918 England to contemporary Canada in an effort to make the plot more relevant for late-1960s audiences. [2]
The film was shot on location on a farm in Laskay, Ontario, the train station at Unionville, Ontario, and at Cinespace Film Studios in Kleinburg, Ontario.
The song "That Night," with music by Lalo Schifrin and lyrics by Norman Gimbel, is performed by Sally Stevens.
The film was released soon after the dissolution of the Motion Picture Association of America Production Code and includes scenes of nudity, masturbation, sexual activity involving Paul and Ellen, and physical relations between two women. Rated R at the time of its original release, it was re-edited and rated PG in 1973. [3]
Renata Adler of The New York Times called the film "a good and interesting movie" and continued, "The pace and the quality of the color, muted and unnatural, with many scenes photographed in shadows of various kinds, convey a brooding sense of something not quite right with everyone, rather like the tone of Reflections in a Golden Eye ." [4]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film "a quiet, powerful masterpiece" and added, "Do not go to see The Fox because of its subject matter, and do not stay away for that reason. The scenes which disturbed Chicago's reactionary censors are filmed with quiet taste and an intuitive knowledge of human nature. And they are only a small part of a wholly natural film. Indeed, it is the natural ease of the film that is so appealing . . . The delicately constructed atmosphere of cold and snow, of early sunsets and chill lingering in the corners, establishes the tone . . . Miss Dennis has a difficult role [that] . . . could have become ridiculous, but [she] manages it well. Dullea is also stronger than he has been in other recent performances. Since David and Lisa , he has been trapped into playing a series of insecure, weak characters; this time, as the dominant personality, he is altogether successful. And he meets his match in Miss Heywood." [5]
TV Guide called it "an uneven adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's novella" and rated it three out of five stars. [6]
The Fox was the fifth most popular film in general release in Britain in 1968. [7]
Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
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Academy Awards | Best Original Score for a Motion Picture (Not a Musical) | Lalo Schifrin | Nominated | [8] |
Golden Globe Awards | Best English-Language Foreign Film | Won | [9] | |
Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama | Anne Heywood | Nominated | ||
Best Director – Motion Picture | Mark Rydell | Nominated | ||
Best Screenplay – Motion Picture | Lewis John Carlino and Howard Koch | Nominated | ||
Grammy Awards | Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special | Lalo Schifrin | Nominated | [10] |
Laurel Awards | Top Female Dramatic Performance | Anne Heywood | 5th Place | [11] |
The Fox | ||||
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Soundtrack album by | ||||
Released |
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Recorded | January 1968 Hollywood, California | |||
Genre | Film score | |||
Length | 32:08 | |||
Label | Warner Bros. WS 1738 | |||
Producer | Jimmy Hilliard | |||
Lalo Schifrin chronology | ||||
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The film score was composed, arranged and conducted by Lalo Schifrin and the soundtrack album was released on the Warner Bros. label in 1968. [12] The main theme has since acquired notoriety in France as the music for Dim tights commercials. [13]
All compositions by Lalo Schifrin except as indicated
The film was the subject of McGrew v. City of Jackson, Mississippi, a federal case on the constitutionality of the state of Mississippi’s obscenity statute. The statute prohibited any “exhibit to public view on a screen or otherwise, any obscene, indecent, or immoral picture,” and authorizes an officer to make an arrest at any time without a warrant for a misdemeanor committed in his presence. In 1968, two police officers and the city prosecuting attorney as paid guests visited a local theater in Jackson during a showing of The Fox. At the conclusion of the showing, the police officers arrested the theater owner, Irene McGrew, and seized the entire film.
McGrew appealed the conviction, claiming that the Mississippi statute violated the first and fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression. In a 2-1 vote, the judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi upheld the conviction, saying the statute was constitutional. The majority said, "The dominant theme of The Fox film is sex in a raw state in a product which the producers have attempted to whitewash and clean up just sufficiently to possibly escape condemnation as utter filth." The dissenting judge said, "I think that the applicable Mississippi obscenity statute fails to meet the constitutional requirements of the first and fourteenth amendments guaranteeing freedom of expression." [14]
Keir Atwood Dullea is an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of astronaut David Bowman in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey and its 1984 sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact. His other film roles include David and Lisa (1962), Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) and Black Christmas (1974). Dullea studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City. He has also performed on stage in New York City and in regional theaters; he has said that, despite being more recognized for his film work, he prefers the stage.
Robert Louis Ridarelli, known by the stage name Bobby Rydell, was an American singer and actor who mainly performed rock and roll and traditional pop music. In the early 1960s, he was considered a teen idol. His most well-known songs include "Wildwood Days", "Wild One" and "Volare" ; in 1963 he appeared in the musical film Bye Bye Birdie.
The Fox is a novella by D. H. Lawrence which first appeared in The Dial in 1922. Set in Berkshire, England, during World War I, The Fox, like many of D. H. Lawrence's other major works, deals with the psychological relationships of three protagonists in a triangle of love and hatred. Without the help of any male laborers, Nellie March and Jill Banford struggle to maintain a marginal livelihood at the Bailey Farm. A fox has raged through the poultry, and although the women—particularly the more masculine Nellie—have tried to shoot the intruder, he seems always to elude traps or gunshot.
"Killing Me Softly with His Song" is a song composed by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel. The lyrics were written in collaboration with Lori Lieberman after she was inspired by a Don McLean performance in late 1971. Denied writing credit by Fox and Gimbel, Lieberman released her version of the song in 1972, but it did not chart. The song has been covered by many other artists.
Planet of the Apes is a 1974 American science fiction television series that was broadcast on CBS. The series features Roddy McDowall, Ron Harper, James Naughton, and Mark Lenard. It is based on the 1968 film of the same name and its sequels, which were, in turn, based on the 1963 novel Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle.
The Fox may refer to:
Che! is a 1969 American biographical film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Omar Sharif as Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. It follows Guevara from when he first landed in Cuba in 1956 to his death in Bolivia in 1967, although the film does not portray the formative pre-Cuban revolution sections of Che's life as described in the autobiographical book The Motorcycle Diaries (1993).
Holiday is a British television programme, which aired mainly on BBC One, and sometimes on BBC Two. It is the longest running travel review series on UK television, showing every year from 1969 until its demise in 2007.
Norman Gimbel was an American lyricist and songwriter of popular songs and themes to television shows and films. He wrote the lyrics for songs including "Ready to Take a Chance Again" and "Canadian Sunset". He also co-wrote "Killing Me Softly With His Song". He wrote English-language lyrics for many international hits, including "Sway", "Summer Samba", "The Girl from Ipanema", "How Insensitive", "Drinking-Water", "Meditation", "I Will Wait for You" and "Watch What Happens". Of the movie themes he co-wrote, five were nominated for Academy Awards and/or Golden Globe Awards, including "It Goes Like It Goes", from the film Norma Rae, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for 1979. Gimbel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.
Charles Ira Fox is an American composer for film and television. His compositions include the sunshine pop musical backgrounds which accompanied every episode of the 1970s ABC-TV show Love, American Style; the theme song for the late 1970s ABC series The Love Boat; and the dramatic theme music to ABC's Wide World of Sports and the original Monday Night Football; as well as the Grammy-winning hit song "Killing Me Softly with His Song", written in collaboration with Fox's longtime writing partner, Norman Gimbel.
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Anne Heywood was a British film actress, who is best known for her Golden Globe-nominated performance in the 1967 film version of D.H. Lawrence's The Fox.
The Sweet Ride is a 1968 American drama film with a few surfer/biker exploitation film elements. It stars Tony Franciosa, Michael Sarrazin and Jacqueline Bisset in an early starring role. The film also features Bob Denver in the role of Choo-Choo, a Beatnik piano-playing draft dodger. Sarrazin and Bisset were nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer, Male and Female respectively.
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Lewis John Carlino was an American screenwriter and director. His career spanned five decades and included such works as The Fox, The Brotherhood, The Mechanic, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Resurrection, and The Great Santini. Carlino was nominated for many awards, including the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Ellen Douglas was the pen name of Josephine Ayres Haxton, an American author. Her 1973 novel Apostles of Light was a National Book Award nominee.
There's a Whole Lalo Schifrin Goin' On is an album by Argentine composer, pianist and conductor Lalo Schifrin recorded in 1968 and released on the Dot label.
Happening '68 was a rock-and-roll variety show produced by Dick Clark Productions, which aired on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) network. The show followed American Bandstand on Saturday afternoons. Happening '68 premiered on January 6, 1968 and was popular enough that ABC added a weekday spin-off. It's Happening ran on Mondays through Fridays from July 15, 1968 through October 25, 1968. When 1968 ended, Happening '68 became just Happening, which was canceled in October 1969.
Laura Anne Bossert is a violinist, violist, and pedagogue. She is a current faculty member at the Longy School of Music of Bard College and Wellesley College and, during the summer, the Castleman Quartet Program. She is co-director and founder of LyricaFest in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
This is the discography of Argentine-American jazz musician Lalo Schifrin.