Four Daughters 1938



The wife and I watched this movie the other day and it was very good.  Just like you can't judge a book by its cover, you really shouldn't judge a movie by the short synopsis provided by pressing the info button on your Direct TV remote.  I thought I was in for a long night, but was pleasantly surprised.

Four Daughters stars Priscilla Lane as Ann Lemp, Rosemary Lane as Kay Lemp, Lola Lane as Thea Lemp, Gale Page as Emma Lemp, Claude Rains as Adam Lemp, Jeffrey Lynn as Felix Deitz, John Garfield as Mickey Borden,  Dick Foran as Ernest Talbot,  Frank McHugh as Ben Crowley and May Robson as Aunt Etta and is based on a short story by Fannie Hurst titled A Sister Act

Four Daughters is a story about, believe it or not, four daughters.  Adam Lemp is a musician who is raising four musical daughters.  Three of the four sisters are actually sisters in real life.  The only non lane is Gale Page who plays Emma Lemp.

The Lemps run a boarding house in addition to being musical.  They live a rather normal life until Felix Deitz comes to town.  Felix is there and is participating in a musical competition.  Ann Lemp is the first to meet him and you can tell they will soon fall in love.  Thea and Kay are already practically married if not engaged, yet all the sisters develop a crush on Felix.

Eventually Mickey Borden comes to town to help Felix in the competition.  He is a piano player and despite being morose and a bit crass, the Lemps see through his rough exterior.  Borden develops a crush on Ann Lemp.  So when Felix and Ann announce that they are engaged it isn't a surprise that it creates such a stir.  If you want to know what happens next, watch the movie.  I don't want to ruin it for anyone.

This movie was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director and John Garfield was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his role as Mickey Borden.  I am going to start with Garfield, because he received great acclaim for this role, which from what I can tell was his first major role.  Garfield was up against the following for the Best Supporting Actor.

• Walter Brennan as Peter Goodwin in Kentucky
• Gene Lockhart as Regis in Algiers
• Robet Morley as King Louis XVI in Marie Antoinette
• Basil Rathbone as Louis XI in If I Were King

I have yet to see any of these movies so I can't say for sure that Walter Brennan who ultimately won, deserved it more than Garfield.  However, I found Jeffrey Lynn's performance as Felix better than Garfield's.  Garfield played a much more cynical and dark character than Lynn did, so perhaps that is why he got the nomination.  It seems to me that the more positive and upbeat you are as a character or in your role, the less likely you are to earn a nomination.  For some reason the Academy goes for dark and disturbed.  I guess they feel it is harder to act morose than it is happy.

Maybe it is a likability thing.  Felix is a far more like able character than Mickey so maybe that is clouding my judgement, but I don't think that is it.  Of course I didn't take acting classes and think a lot of analyzation to be pretentious bullshit.  Either way, Garfield got the nomination and Lynn didn't. While I think Lynn was better, I can't say that Garfield didn't deserve a nomination, because he was superb as well.

Garfield would get one more nomination in 1948, this time a Best Actor role.  He would not win.  He would die four years later but not before he was black balled as a result of Senator Joe McCarthy. 

Michael Curtiz directed Four Daughters and gained an Oscar nomination for his job.  Curtiz is probably best known for Casablanca.  He also does not get as much mention as other directors of his time mainly because he was one of the directors that was coined a studio director.  He would take on many jobs that others had shunned.  He directed well over 150 movies in his career and for this he took some criticism.  He is credited with three Best Director nominations, one for Casablanca and not only was he nominated for Four Daughters in '38 but for Angels With Dirty Faces as well.  In 35' he came in second but was a write in nomination for the movie Captain Blood.

The other nominees in 1938 for Best Director were.

• Michael Curtiz for Angels with Dirty Faces
• Norman Taurog for Boys Town
• King Vidor for The Citadel
• Frank Capra for You Can't Take it with You

If you read my blog on The Citadel you would know that Frank Capra ended up winning the Oscar in this category.  I haven't seen it yet but look forward to it because I have heard many good things about the film.

Finally we get to Best Picture.  Four Daughters was up against the following.

• The Adventures of Robin Hood
• Alexanders Rag Time Band
• Boys Town
• The Citadel
• Grand Illusion
• Jezebel
• Pygmallion
• Test Pilot
• You Can't Take It With You

As often happens when a film wins the Best Director award, so too comes the Best Picture award.  1938 was no different with You Can't Take It With You earning the honor.  After watching Four Daughter I have seen three of the ten nominees.  I have yet to blog about Test Pilot, but that will be coming soon.  Test Pilot was easily the best of the three, so I can't say Four Daughters got the shaft. 

As I mentioned earlier I found the movie very entertaining and definitely enjoyed Jeffrey Lynn's performance.  All of the daughters were good as well, but Priscilla Lane as Ann was clearly my favortie as well.  The thing I love about these old movies is to see how things have changed.

One of the final scenes takes place in a hospital and my wife and I both found it amusing that while standing over a hospital bed, they thought nothing of lighting up a cigarette.  When the doctor comes in to console the character he carefully takes her cigarette and hold it for her.  He has no intention of putting it out never mind damaging it.  You can't even smoke in Central Park anymore and God knows if some of these film makers have their characters smoking too much or even glorifying it these day, they are dragged over the coals for it.

Now don't get me wrong I am not advocating smoking, but it amazes me how much smoking was a part of cinema back then.  At least one character in all of these black and white movies I watch smokes.  Although I don't really pay much attention to it unless I see them smoking in a place like the hospital or a doctors waiting room.

To conclude I would give Four Daughters 4 out of 5 stars.  I will say though that despite the fact that I enjoyed the movie, I am not sure I would agree that it was a best picture canidate.  Although, I think sometimes I am basing that on todays standards.