|
DUMBED DOWN Juxtapositions can be a bad movie’s best friend. In Mark Rydell’s unambiguous adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s craftily implicit The Fox, one of the story’s two hens—March, played by Anne Heywood—is in audible ecstasy as the fox Keir Dullea is putting it to her. At the same time the other hen, March’s roomy Jill, in full court affectation by Sandy Dennis, is wandering through the cold night snow searching for her and just as March is climaxing, Jill starts sobbing her eyes out. Beyond embarrassment, even beyond unintentionally funny—it’s absolutely ludicrous. But let’s be grateful for small favors. This movie is a diagrammatic demonstration of what is a dumbed-down interpretation of a classic. Yet, as Eliza sings in My Fair Lady, “Somehow Keats will survive” and so will Lawrence. It’s Dullea and Heywood who pretty much tumbled into obscurity afterwards; Dennis, on the other hand, went on to earn her place in movie history as a seasoned ticster. Text COPYRIGHT © 2007 RALPH BENNER All Rights Reserved.
|