Four Daughters

"Four Daughters" introduced John Garfield to audiences, and that is what is remembered most about this film today.

Unlike some actors who appear in several films before their screen image gels, Garfield established his immediately, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and talk of the fates being against him.

It's actually the story of four girls, their widowed musician father (Claude Rains) and their various suitors, one of whom, Felix, is played by handsome Jeffrey Lynn. He's the one they all have a crush on, but he's in love with Buff (Priscilla Lane).

Then she meets ne'er-do-well Mickey Borden, who falls for her as well. When Buff realizes that one of her sisters is in love with Felix, she leaves him at the altar and marries Mickey.

This is a fairly formulaic story given life (and sequels) by the acting. Garfield has already been mentioned, but Priscilla Lane was by far the strongest of the daughters, the most interesting, and the best actress.

Jeffrey Lynn was a fresh and good-looking leading man, and this film got him off on the right foot with Warners. However, true stardom was not to be.

Like many others of the era, he went into the service, and when he came out, he had a Bronze Star but not much of a career. He later went into television and real estate.

Claude Rains is warm and wonderful as the patriarch.

So popular was "Four Daughters" that it inspired "Four Wives" and "Four Mothers," as well as reuniting much of the cast again in "Daughters Courageous" where the actors played different characters.

Very enjoyable, a nice remembrance of simpler and probably happier times, and a chance to see John Garfield in his first film.

A slovenly John Garfield tarnishes the rosy glow radiated by this chick flick when he drifts in midway through (like a Noir-character in an Andy Hardy comedy) to provide a welcome antidote to all the nonsense about sisters sharing clothes and gently dissing their old man. This was supposed to be a little something for Michael Curtiz to do between The Adventures of Robin Hood and Angels with Dirty Faces, but he turned it into a box office hit and made a star out of Garfield.

...usually I find such films icky sweet, but this one I would give an 8/10 if not for one particularly impossible thing we are expected to believe. But I'll get back to that later.

Often I'll run across a film I didn't expect to amount to much and be pleasantly surprised, and this is one of them. Then I see the director is Michael Curtiz who was saddled with directing such diverse films - and quite frankly challenged plots and actors - during his Warner Brothers career, and some of the mystery is unraveled.

The film is about the family of Adam Lemp (Claude Rains), Dean of the Briarwood Music Foundation (nice work if you can get it during the Depression), who apparently makes so much money that he can afford a house that would go for half a million these days, can support four grown daughters, and his sister who never married (May Robson as Aunt Etta). In fact Rains is thirty years younger than Robson, so that would be some age difference for siblings, and what is an esteemed music foundation doing out in Pleasantville, USA?...but I digress.

So the film goes into the relationship between the four sisters - actually three of them ARE sisters - in particular, Emma (Gail Page) and Ann (Priscilla Lane). They vow to be "old maids" together and seem to have a very strong bond. But then enters upbeat composer Felix Deitz (Jeffrey Lynn) into their lives, along with his downbeat friend Mickey Borden (John Garfield), who is doing orchestration for him. That impossible thing we are expected to believe? That Ann falls head over heals for Lynn's character when he projects all of the romantic appeal of a workboot. She seems to feel like Mickey is a work in progress as she tries to lift his IMHO justified downbeat view on life, particularly, his life. So I am expected to believe a vibrant young woman would prefer Lynn's scarecrow like demeanor over the dark brooding Garfield? Well, this was Garfield's first film, so who knew what kind of charisma he would have.

Mickey falls for Ann, Emma falls for Felix (again, why??), and then on the day of her wedding to Felix, Ann finds out Emma loves Felix. Complications ensue.

This film is saved by some really good warm moments between the characters, and Robson always entertains, although it does waste the talents of one of the great actors of the 20th century, Claude Rains. Anybody could have played this part as little as he has to do. It does give you an idea of the kind of burden women had before the 1970s - that it was only acceptable to first live with your parents and then a husband, and if you never married you are forever fifth wheel and housekeeper in your brother's household, and if you temporarily have a career it has to be in something "lady like". How would this film have turned out if the girls had wanted to put on a hard hat and design buildings rather than sing and play instruments? You'll have to wait until the 1970s for THAT kind of film!

Recommended and well acted in spite of it all. And why are the top three billed actors in a film entitled "Four Daughters" all men? Inquiring minds want to know.

Lovingly crafted and terribly interesting to watch Garfield's gritty, breakthrough performance (introducing a new kind of rebellious acting style that would carry over to the Brandos and Clifts and so on after the war) but all that sisterly affection is a bit suffocating. Priscilla Lane is a bright, engaging performer but the other sisters don't really register (though they're all allowed to be tart and witty) and I just had a hard time buying any of the other male characters besides Garfield. Jeffrey Lynn is a pleasant enough actor, but he lacks the movie star weight to match up with Garfield's hard luck Mickey Borden and that throws the film a bit out of whack. (Imagine a Jimmy Stewart or someone in the part.) Also, I was not convinced that Garfield would make the pivotal (to say the least) final decision that he made. The film needed another half hour of running time to better explain that action; it feels awfully rushed and under-motivated.

Still, it's not hard to understand how anybody who grew up with this picture would remember it fondly. It falls short of being a classic, but it does contain a few classic moments. The two gate swinging scenes are pure movie magic.

It isn't hard to see why frequent moviegoers in 1938, wise to the formulas of most movies, would have found FOUR DAUGHTERS a fresh and surprising picture. The story of four musical sisters and their romantic problems begins as conventionally as any Deanna Durbin musical but quickly evolves into an absorbing romantic melodrama.

Director Michael Curtiz keeps all four actresses bubbling sweetly and predictably, but when Jeffrey Lynn enters the picture trouble begins. Though one sister is engaged and another nearly so, all four in some way become smitten by this young musician. Then the script tops itself (and electrified audiences) by introducing a further complication named John Garfield. Cynical, depressive, darkly attractive and clearly a New York 'ethnic' type, Garfield is in every way the opposite of tall, handsome, WASPy Jeffrey Lynn, who in any other picture would probably have made more of an impression. Though friends, the men vie for Priscilla Lane, whose unaffected acting style creates a nice tension with both actors. Believing it best for her sister, Priscilla marries the wrong man, at once confounding and satisfying audience expectations. Halfway through this film you are apt to wonder what will happen next and how events will play out, which is not what you expect from the sunny opening.

Garfield's success overshadowed every other good thing about this film. Clearly Warners' thought they had a successor to Jimmy Cagney. In fact they had the forerunner of Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Montgomery Clift, Brando and James Dean, though Garfield was warmer and more likable than any of those.

This movie was remade in 1955 as a Technicolor musical called YOUNG AT HEART starring Doris Day and Frank Sinatra. Though not a bad idea in theory, the original is a better film.