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Post by topbilled on Apr 14, 2024 20:38:18 GMT
Four wives to become four mothers.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 14, 2024 20:40:02 GMT
I could nitpick this or that about the story - didn't like the "she never really loved him" line - but I really enjoyed the movie, with a big part of it being sharing with all of you. Thank you for another fun afternoon.
Great choice, Andrea.
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Post by BunnyWhit on Apr 14, 2024 20:41:46 GMT
Wait. WHAT?! Are they going to give that baby away? Just like that?
What. Is. Happening! They even ask to have Caroline.
That whole thing feels a lot like "sure-I'll-go-to-the-prom-with-you-until-someone-better-comes-along."
All of that being said....I have to think perhaps this sort of thing was not viewed then as I'm viewing it now. My mother lived with her aunt for a couple years while my grandmother took care of Mom's brother, and Aunt Nettie wanted to adopt Mom.
That brings it back to what FadingFast said -- it's nice when the whole family loves the baby that much.
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Post by Andrea Doria on Apr 14, 2024 20:42:37 GMT
I'm glad Mrs. Ridgefield's friend had a quick scene. Her little chicken face was a highlight for me both times.
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Post by BunnyWhit on Apr 14, 2024 20:43:31 GMT
That's, AndreaDoria, for choosing this series. It's great to get the entire story like this.
Thanks for the company this afternoon everyone!
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Post by galacticgirrrl on Apr 14, 2024 20:44:45 GMT
I concur FF. You know I find the fact that Claude is still single to be very suspect - he does housework, loves music, has his own business - yes money is still owing on the piano but other than that he seems like a dreamboat. A man in touch with his daughters!? In that era!? He would have been snapped up in a heartbeat.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 14, 2024 21:03:19 GMT
I concur FF. You know I find the fact that Claude is still single to be very suspect - he does housework, loves music, has his own business - yes money is still owing on the piano but other than that he seems like a dreamboat. A man in touch with his daughters!? In that era!? He would have been snapped up in a heartbeat. In the New York metro region, single men in their 40s and 50s - divorcees or widowers - are snapped up very, very quickly - the competition is fierce. If he lived here, Claude would be married by now whether he wanted to or not.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 15, 2024 10:53:03 GMT
I wrote the below comments on "Four Wives" a few years ago, but having just seen the movie again, if I wrote them now, I'd probably add in a note about how John Garfield's character from the first movie in the series, Four Daughters, was "brought back" in a few dream or reverie sequences, but I didn't feel strongly enough about it to edit the comments.
Four Wives from 1939 with Priscilla Lane, Lola Lane and Rosemary Lane (all sisters), plus Gale Page, Claude Rains, Frank McHugh, Jeffrey Lynn and May Robson
If Hallmark today had the budget for the behind- and in-front-of-the-camera talent that Warner Bros. had in the 1930s, then Hallmark would be making pleasantly harmless but enjoyable movies like Four Wives.
Most of the cast of the original movie in the series, Four Daughters - Priscilla, Lola and Rosemary Lane, plus Gale Page, Claude Rains, Frank McHugh, Jeffrey Lynn and May Robson - is back along with "newcomer" Eddie Albert for more Lemp family challenges and love.
The fictional daughter-laden Lemp family (the three Lane girls, plus Page) is motherless, but headed by a kind, if somewhat bumbling, music professor, played by Rains, and the "keeps the household working" aunt Etta, played by the wonderful Robson.
In this sequel, daughter Priscilla has moved back home after her musically talented but angry-at-the-world husband, played in Four Daughters by John Garfield, passed away. Priscilla is struggling to adjust to being a widow, even before she gets some bombshell news.
On a trip to the doctor to see if one of her sisters is pregnant, Priscilla discovers that she is pregnant with her deceased husband's baby. This ups her sadness over his passing and also creates a hurdle for her new relationship with her old boyfriend, played by Lynn.
There are several small storylines in this one - one sister loses a baby and is told she can't have children, which gets tangled up in another sister's crazy adoption event, while yet another sister is trying hard to rope in a young idealistic doctor - but the focus is Priscilla's depression.
Despite the heavy sounding theme - and at times the picture is sad, almost morose - the general vibe is that the good-natured and loving Lemp family will rally around any injured member and see him or her (it's usually a her, with all those daughters) through.
It works if you are in the mood to see a large family be kind to each other as they meddle in each other's lives, sometimes, annoyingly so, but always with good intent.
Dinners for boyfriends are over engineered to make the dating sister look like the perfect wife. The sisters show up en masse whenever any one of them goes to a doctor. Mail and phone calls are rarely private. You get a wedding party whether you want one or not.
These are nice, attractive people living an idealized version of America's middle class, but with enough trials and travails to give the movie a plot and the story some relevance. The actors are pretty much all appealing. There are no "heavies" in these movies.
The sisters, the Lane girls plus Page, are pretty and sweet; who wouldn't want to marry one? The father, Rains, is never really stern and always kind. The "bossy" aunt deeply loves all the girls. The male suitors can be stupid now and then, but they are all good men.
Four Wives is pleasant escapism of the kind that Hallmark tries to pull off but rarely does as it lacks the talented cast, reasonable budget and behind the scenes level of skill that Warner Bros. had back in the studio days.
N.B. 1930s Movie hack: Warners made one more movie in this series, Four Mothers. Inexplicably, right in the middle of the series, it also made a movie with most of the same actors playing similar characters in a movie called Daughters Courageous. It's not part of the "Lemp" series, but it is, possibly, the best one of these light family drama efforts.
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Post by Andrea Doria on Apr 15, 2024 14:32:46 GMT
Thanks Fading Fast for your usual great review. It always helps me make sense of it all, even though I'm still a bit bewildered by the adoption story. No real woman with enough maternal instincts to want a child in the first place, would care for her baby for months and then be willing to give it up. I, myself, suffer from Instant Bonding Syndrome. I can barely stand to babysit and then walk away.
We also found out that we're all secret clean freaks and none of us would have been able to leave that mess of food and broken china on the kitchen floor simply because a train was leaving and a wonderful, loving relationship might fail. Priorities!
I hope Fawn isn't too upset about losing Kay to the young doctor, but he was tough competition, even I was falling for Eddie Albert for the first time ever.
I'm going to have to run through this one again. I think I might have missed some Irish Setter footage and I want to look at the nursery some more.
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Post by BunnyWhit on Apr 15, 2024 14:48:00 GMT
I think I might have missed some Irish Setter footage My favorite bit with the Setter was near the end when there was a pan across the family sitting together listening to the radio. They were all very attentive -- even the dog.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 15, 2024 15:05:10 GMT
Thanks Fading Fast for your usual great review. It always helps me make sense of it all, even though I'm still a bit bewildered by the adoption story. No real woman with enough maternal instincts to want a child in the first place, would care for her baby for months and then be willing to give it up. I, myself, suffer from Instant Bonding Syndrome. I can barely stand to babysit and then walk away.
We also found out that we're all secret clean freaks and none of us would have been able to leave that mess of food and broken china on the kitchen floor simply because a train was leaving and a wonderful, loving relationship might fail. Priorities!
I hope Fawn isn't too upset about losing Kay to the young doctor, but he was tough competition, even I was falling for Eddie Albert for the first time ever.
I'm going to have to run through this one again. I think I might have missed some Irish Setter footage and I want to look at the nursery some more. I feel like I missed the essence of "Four Wives" with my older comments, but didn't have it in me to do it from scratch again. It's not so much that I disagreed with what I wrote, I just don't think it captured the verve and specialness of the Lemp family.
I would not enjoy one minute of that romantic reunion at the train station knowing there was a mess on the kitchen floor at home. And don't even get me started on how some people can take laundry out of the dryer and not immediately fold it.
Fawn has been moping around today. I just gave him a salt lick to cheer him up. "Four Mothers" will be challenging for him, but we'll help him get through it. I think seeing the pictures of Kay and him together yesterday really got to him - he saw a small house with a white picket fence in his future at that moment.
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