Cuatro esposas

An air of melancholy runs through FOUR WIVES because Priscilla Lane is still haunted by the memory of her dead husband (John Garfield, seen briefly in a cameo role), while engaged to Jeffrey Lynn who doesn't know she's carrying Garfield's child.

But through all the dramatic twists and turns, the family unit remains strong, supportive and determined to move in the direction of a happy ending for all. Frank McHugh is on hand for some levity, Rosemary Lane makes a very beautiful Kay, Claude Rains is the musician father, and Priscilla Lane and Jeffrey Lynn carry the romantic leads in a pleasant enough manner. Lynn even gets to conduct Max Steiner's stirring "Symphonie Moderne" which wraps up the story with musical finesse.

I actually found Rosemary Lane to be the most natural beauty of the Lane sisters and her acting here is more than competent. But the Warners evidently groomed Priscilla Lane for stardom instead. She gets all the best close-ups, including her hospital scene listening to the radio concert with tearful pride.

It's enjoyable enough without being really special. Julius J. Epstein has written a graceful script and the Steiner score is a gem. Director Michael Curtiz keeps the camera flowing smoothly through many a detailed scene.

I like this family overall. It's a rich blend of some vital elements. In this particular series, as with others, the savor seems to diminish a little as it goes along. But, with that, the core group is always there and I find it a winner. The first is the best, this one weakens with script, and the last one has a real problem script-wise. While some are impressed with the portrayal of Ann as the disturbed widow and reluctant fiancé, I find that a rewrite of history from the initial film. I wanted Ann to throw that junk off and get with it. Jeffrey Lynn's character should have gotten a purple heart for long suffering in this one. It's a reversal of what they had going. In the first film, Ann was realistic as the overly sympathetic young woman who went so far as to marry a guy who needed her, when the one she really loved was seemingly not available to her. Okay, all that got fixed and fixed well. This film seems to moot the turnaround, and we find her more focused on her unsatisfactory dead husband and pushing away the true love who is readily available to her now. Yes, she does find she is carrying the first husband's child, and becomes emotionally vulnerable in her memory of him. That can happen, but it just wore on me. However, I still valued the film because of the winning ensemble and overall premise.

Follow-up to Four Daughters is okay but pushes the mawkish sentimentality pretty hard.

Most of the cast perform well. Frank McHugh is most appealing as Lola's flummoxed husband and Priscilla Lane is good in her bruised sadness unable to move on or get over her guilt after her sudden loss in the original. Claude Rains and May Robson add their special brand of enjoyment but really are wasted in small supporting parts.

The one actor who is terrible and throws the whole enterprise off is Jeffrey Lynn, supposedly an ideal man he is attractive but a dull, bland presence and the constant comparison to the magnetic John Garfield who is superimposed throughout only makes him worse. Plus he must be the most unconvincing orchestra conductor ever!

Curtiz gets the job done direction wise but he must have recognized the mediocre quality of the script and just moves the story from point A to point Z with none of the flourish he could infuse into a superior project like The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Four Wives (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Sequel to Four Daughters has father Claude Rains hands full when his daughters (Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane, Gale Page) are out of the house and married. All except for Ann (P. Lane), who lost her husband at the end of the last film and now tries to start up her relationship with the man (Jeffrey Lynn) she left in the first film. Only problem is she's pregnant by her dead husband. Okay, this sequel actually isn't too bad on a technical level and the performances are all very good but the story really bothered me and kept me from caring too much about the main character Ann. This film goes against her feelings for her husband from the first film so that they can set up the romance here. The father and sisters make long speeches about how she never really loved her husband and this certainly wasn't the case so that's part of the reason this film bothered me. Another point that bothered me is that she was started up a relationship perhaps weeks after her husband died. There's a lot of situations here, which I'm shocked got past the ratings code, although something might have been cut since the version I saw ran 99-minutes, which the IMDb lists another version running 110-minutes.

a silly movie from the 30's that show how much we have changed. Today, no such movie would ever be produced, but then again one never watched a movie from that era for social understanding. the acting is .....well....bad, the plot, convoluted. Mothers having babies, adopting babies, getting bored with adopted babies and giving them again to someone else. But the gowns are gorgeous, so that is important. I have only seen the first two of the series, and am only familiar with one of the actors. this is classic Hollywood, happy stories with Oh so happy endings that bear little resemblance to reality. So if you are bored on a Sunday afternoon, and want to see something frothy and silly, this series is right up your ally. Just don't be surprised if you go into diabetic shock.I guess because they made three of these movies they must have been popular in the 30's. thank God we grew up.