Four Mothers

The last of the Warner Brothers movies about the Lemp sisters has three of the four mothers. And they are carrying on the family tradition of having daughters. With four daughters, three daughters and his sister May Robson around will Claude Rains ever get a grandson.

Some of the usual family problems are there as the daughters go through the adjustment to marriage. Jeffrey Lynn and Priscilla Lane aren't sure Lynn should take a job offered him in Chicago. Dr. Eddie Albert is just too busy at the research lab and Rosemary Lane is feeling neglected. Dick Foran and Gale Page seem on an even keel. Most successful is Frank McHugh and Lola Lane who got in on a real estate boom and sold a lot of shares to townsfolk through Claude Rains's good name.

While McHugh and Lola Lane are visiting from Florida a hurricane and tidal wave wipe out that community McHugh was talking up. McHugh is flat broke and a lot of the town 's citizens have taken it on the chin.

As is usual for the Lemps daughters and sons-in-law band together to get the family through the crises, big and small.

Family patriarch Claude Rains who in his career played an astonishing range of roles that included two members of the Bonaparte family and Julius Caesar has the most normal part in his career that of Adam Lemp. I'm sure he must have liked the change of pace.

After almost 80 years Four Mothers still holds up well as good family entertainment.

Here we are with a "Well, Doctor, here I am again!" movie, following FOUR DAUGHTERS and FOUR WIVES. Claude Raines is back as daddy, with four grand daughters -- two of them twins -- and everyone is very happy as Frank McHugh's Florida development is making them all rich. But then there's a hurricane and tidal wave down south, the development is wiped out, and everyone in town turns against them for their lost speculation. The family has lost everything, and Raines is fired from his job at the music institute.

It's certainly pleasant to see them back again, but they've lost the A talent behind the camera, with the screenplay written by Stephen Morehouse Avery -- one Oscar nomination, but mostly forgotten -- and William Keighley directing. It's one of those movies that makes use of the old saying that if you want G*d to laugh, make plans, and requires a deus ex machina to sort out the problems. Essentially, it's a B series movie with a fine cast that you can forget as soon as the movie ends.

Four Mothers (1941)

** (out of 4)

Claude Rains along with Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane and Gale Page return for this second sequel to Four Daughters but it's clear the studio was desperate for cash. This time out the family finds themselves falling apart after they lose all their money due to a hurricane. WIll they end up broke or will things work out for them? I'm pretty sure you already know the answer to that so in the end this is a pretty worthless film that only has some strong acting for it. Rains delivers his strongest performance of the series and the Lane girls do just fine as well. The supporting plays like May Robson, Dick Foran and Jeffrey Lynn are also back and they too do fine work but the screenplay gives them very little to do.

Really liked 'Four Daughters', which could have been overly-soapy, cliched and stereotypical, but turned out to be very warm, human, charming and well written and performed. Also liked 'Four Wives', if not quite as much, it had a lot of the previous film's good qualities with one or two improvements but also a couple of underused cast members and one unintentionally creepy scene. So 'Four Mothers', which also saw a good deal of the cast return, was seen with quite high expectations with no bias for or against intended.

Sadly, 'Four Mothers' left me quite disappointed. It is not a terrible film, far from it. To me it actually takes a lot for a film to fit that distinction, regardless of how it may seem from some of my reviews (which aim to be balanced, un-biased and encouraging and hope it comes over that way, enormous effort has always been made to be so) It also could and should have been a lot better, and it is quite infuriating actually that it wasn't better.

'Four Mothers' does have good things. It is nicely filmed and although Heinz Roemheld is no Max Steiner (a huge ask) his music score at least fits nicely and is appealing to listen to.

There are some amusing and charming moments, May Robson having some of the best material, and some cosiness that is true to the previous films. Regardless of the material, the acting is more than serviceable on the most part. Claude Rains, despite deserving more and better material, is charming and humorous despite the character being nowhere near as likeable and Priscilla Lane brings a lot of heart to Ann.

However, 'Four Mothers' mostly lacks the warmth, humanity and charm of the previous films, somewhat too dark and mean-spirited for the series, which makes it feel very bland excepting the fleeting cosiness. It doesn't deal with the subject with as much subtlety and at times too simple. In terms of individual scenes, nothing stands out really. Also found the story quite cobbled together and not as cohesive from trying to throw in too much and underdeveloping most of it, also with not as much energy, and although William Keighley's direction is competent it is also not particularly distinguished. Michael Curtiz is missed.

Jeffrey Lynn again like with 'Four Wives', whose role gets more underwritten and duller with each film (liked him actually in 'Four Daughters', since then he lost his spark), is bland. Did feel it did get contrived towards the end.

Overall, underwhelming but worth a one-time watch. 5/10

Pet Peeve: miss-using and over-using the phrase, "had very little to do." Someone picked that up from a professional critic and it keeps getting passed around. It's not a catchall phrase. Does that really apply here? This is the same group carrying the movie as before. It's a big family, and the immediate members are the focal points. There are four daughters, after all. The husbands are naturally lesser support figures. There is a problem with this one in particular, but let's s try to be accurate about it. Actually, most take issue with this particular script. It's not the distribution of labor; it's what the writers did this time. Perhaps there was criticism that the family was too squeaky clean or something along that line. They just seemed to disassemble everyone, only to put them back together again - quite artificially in both cases. Whatever it was, it was not effective.

If you like hanging out with the gang in general, you might enjoy this one for that reason. But, if you want to remember them pretty much as they were, best to skip this one.