The Fox

The Fox (1967)

The Fox ... symbol of the male.

Jill Banford and Ellen March have built a good life together on a hardscrabble Canadian farm. Then handsome Paul Grenfell enters their isolated world, and sets friend against friend. But is Paul the real trouble between Jill and Ellen? Or has his presence merely awakened the unspoken, unexplored sexual tension that always existed between the women?

Date of release
1967-12-13
TMDB
6.2 / 10 (22)
Runtime
1h 50m
Genres
Drama
Director
Mark Rydell

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

The Fox is a 1967 drama film directed by Mark Rydell in his feature directorial debut, adapted by Lewis John Carlino and Howard Koch from the 1923 novella of the same title by D. H. Lawrence. It stars Sandy Dennis and Anne Heywood as two women living in rural Ontario, and Keir Dullea as the sailor who comes between them. The film was an international co-production between Canada and the United States.

Production

Howard Koch says his wife Anne read the novella while Koch was working on The War Lover and thought it might make a good film. They optioned the rights from D.H. Lawrence's estate and approached Victor Saville to produce. Vivien Leigh and Patricia Neal agreed to play the leads, Alan Bates tentatively agreed to play the male lead and John Schlesinger was approached to direct.

Koch tried seeking funding for the film in Hollywood but had no luck until he met Anne Heywood who, along with her husband Raymond Stross, was looking for a film to launch her in the United States. Both Heywood and Stross liked the script and optioned it from Koch, although the writer felt Heywood was too young. Stross cast Sandy Dennis and Keir Dullea and hired Mark Rydell to direct.

In adapting Lawrence's novella for the screen, Carlino and 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. The film was shot on location on a farm in Laskay, Ontario, the train station at Unionville, and at Cinespace Film Studios in Kleinburg.

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.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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