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Post by topbilled on Apr 21, 2024 20:26:55 GMT
So let me get this straight -- The whole town practically runs Adam out on a rail because their investments failed, but when he gets a job they throw a parade? Ridiculous!
Edit -- Not to mention "practically the whole town" moved his house? Far fetched.
And the inside of the house looks exactly the same. Everything was put back in the exact same spot as before? Nothing broke or lost in the move???
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Post by BunnyWhit on Apr 21, 2024 20:27:36 GMT
Kay's pregnant. Hmm, somebody better start counting backwards to when Kay and Felix were in Chicago together. I think we've all always been a bit suspicious that they really stopped with just a kiss. We're all going to choose to believe that Clint made it home from his office, right, gang? Right!
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Post by Andrea Doria on Apr 21, 2024 20:28:00 GMT
Well it did have a happy ending and Rusty made it through the transition, so I'll forgive them the bad bits.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 21, 2024 20:28:33 GMT
Four families
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Post by BunnyWhit on Apr 21, 2024 20:33:50 GMT
Thanks for being here today, everyone! It was great fun!
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Post by topbilled on Apr 21, 2024 20:37:36 GMT
Yes, thank you Andrea...looking forward to YOUNG AT HEART next weekend!
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 21, 2024 20:41:49 GMT
I'm going to miss the Lemps next week. Great choice, Andrea. Even if the series lost its mojo in this one, I still enjoyed seeing all the characters again.
Somewhere down the line, we all have to watch "Daughters Courageous" together. It's like another Lemp movies, just under a different title.
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Post by BunnyWhit on Apr 21, 2024 20:57:26 GMT
I meant, right after the kiss happened. He seemed to enjoy it and would have done it again. He had no real qualms about making out with his sister-in-law. I agree. I thought his view that it was okay because they were just lonely was a lousy excuse, and he seemed none too affected by it. Had she not run away, more would have happened. And another thing.....
Kay and Felix both told Ann, but did anybody tell Clint? I have the feeling he was left in the dark on this one.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 21, 2024 21:02:50 GMT
I agree. I thought his view that it was okay because they were just lonely was a lousy excuse, and he seemed none too affected by it. Had she not run away, more would have happened. And another thing.....
Kay and Felix both told Ann, but did anybody tell Clint? I have the feeling he was left in the dark on this one. He was too busy basking in his victory against pneumonococohoclosis.
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Post by topbilled on Apr 21, 2024 22:42:00 GMT
I said I would provide some comments after watching the third part of this trilogy. I will focus on FOUR MOTHERS since it goes off track...First, the initial story was written by a woman (Fannie Hurst) and the initial screenplay, for FOUR DAUGHTERS, was co-written by Lenore Coffee, a woman. FOUR WIVES was written by the Epsteins and a third gentleman. FOUR MOTHERS was written by a different male writer. It's not that the problem is men writing the sequels, since the Epsteins did fairly well with the second installment. But I think by the time we reach the third film, there is no female perspective at all in the writing. The second film was basically reworking some ideas from Hurst's original story. But those plot threads were wrapped up, so the third movie required some new ideas.
However, the ideas that Stephen Avery came up with were pretty lackluster. It's not enough the original characters are still intact...they need meaningful things to do. Having Aunt Etta bark orders and melt down over the sale of the house is not meaningful. Also, the focus in this third film is wrong by making everything revolve around Adam. This is not called ONE FATHER.
It's called FOUR DAUGHTERS/WIVES/MOTHERS. The women should continue to be the main focus. Adam works best as a character supporting his girls. Yet in this installment, the women are all secondary to him.
It's not enough that he lost his nest egg in an investment scheme...he also goes and loses his job then loses his house. So he basically is given all the main plots; and the daughters are relegated to the background as his crises play out. One of the daughters, the one played by Gale Page, is barely featured. Whole chunks of the film go by without her or her husband (Dick Foran) or their child on screen. It's easy to see why when the studio remade this properly as YOUNG AT HEART, they cut one of the daughters and just featured three of them...because as this film indicates, the fourth one is redundant.
Here is what I think should have happened plot-wise, to keep the focus on the Lemp girls...with Priscilla Lane's character Ann in the 'spotlight'...
Since Ann was mostly defined in Hurst's original story by her relationship to Mickey Borden, I think that needed to continue. By this point she is over Mickey's death and has wed Felix and they are raising little Ellen together. But I think it would be entirely logical for Ann to still feel a connection to Mickey through their daughter. Mickey's mother or a sister of Mickey's could have been brought in to visit the baby, providing photos of when Mickey was a baby.
Why do this? So that Felix again feels edged out and it is Felix who is having trouble fully committing to the marriage. If the side story involving Felix and Kay is retained, then it could be Felix getting drunk and kissing Kay (not Kay being lonely) because Felix is fed up with Ann's ongoing connection to Mickey. Of course, this would build to a climax in which Felix sees the light and comes to his senses. In fact, it would be very ironic if after kissing Kay, Felix drove home drunk and smashed up his car. Then when Ann rushes to the hospital, it stirs up memories of how Mickey died. Only this time, her husband doesn't die...Felix will survive, but they have to pull together as a unit and make the marriage work.
As for the other sisters, I don't think they all needed to have infants. We could have seen Emma & Ernest (Page & Foran) adopt another child, one that maybe was the age of 5 and starting school. The point is these gals are becoming mothers and building families. To have them all dealing with babies seems monotonous.
I guess the subplot with Clint (Eddie Albert) and his medical practice could have remained, but he needed to absorb some of the fallout from Kay's being kissed by Felix. As for Thea (Lola Lane) and Ben (Frank McHugh) I didn't really buy them losing their fortune then regaining their wealth so quickly. It was like Ben learned nothing about money or the importance of things. If Thea was going to be the richest of Adam Lemp's daughters, then maybe we needed to see how she and Ben were already saving for their kids' college funds and that their kids' clothes were a bit nicer, until they lost their fortune and were forced to refocus on what really mattered in life.
Regarding Mrs. Ridgefield (Vera Lewis), it was nice that she was still marginally involved, but I found it quite unbelievable that she bought a home next to Adam's in the new subdivision. What were the odds of that happening!
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Post by Andrea Doria on Apr 22, 2024 0:20:07 GMT
I like Topbilled's version much better. When I read that Ben and Thea were going to have money troubles, I was looking forward to a scenario just as you describe. Thea was an interesting character to me from the very first scene in the first film when she said she planned to marry for money and marrying for love was old fashioned. We did get a tiny bit of Thea telling Ben she would live anywhere with him, but I wanted that story drawn out and developed so we knew for sure that she had grown to really love Ben.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 22, 2024 9:18:39 GMT
I like Topbilled's version much better. When I read that Ben and Thea were going to have money troubles, I was looking forward to a scenario just as you describe. Thea was an interesting character to me from the very first scene in the first film when she said she planned to marry for money and marrying for love was old fashioned. We did get a tiny bit of Thea telling Ben she would live anywhere with him, but I wanted that story drawn out and developed so we knew for sure that she had grown to really love Ben. I caught Thea's line to Ben, too, and immediately remembered her passioned argument about marrying for money not love from the first movie. It could have been the most-interesting character development in the series if Thea went from liking/loving her husband for his money to liking/loving him because he's a decent man. It can happen and it would have been moving had they developed this storyline.
I forget which daughter, but one also noted that Ben's entire identity was tied up with his financial success. "He's not like the rest of us," was what she said (or something close to that). I liked that her comment wasn't petty or spiteful as in "he final got his," but kind as in "this man is really hurting."
They had some real human emotion and pain to work with, with Thea and Ben, but they never explored it seriously.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 22, 2024 9:34:29 GMT
Four Mothers from 1941 with Priscilla, Lola and Rosemary Lane, Gale Page, Claude Rains, Frank McHugh, Jeffrey Lynn, Dick Foran, May Robson and Eddie Albert
This third and final entry in the "Lemp family" saga succumbed to the challenges of most sequels as its story is forced and the dramatic moments obviously constructed, but darn it, if you've made it this far with these likable characters, you'll forgive them a lot.
Four Mothers includes most of the cast of the other two - Priscilla, Lola and Rosemary Lane, Gale Page, Claude Rains, Frank McHugh, Jeffrey Lynn, Dick Foran and May Robson, plus Eddie Albert, from the second movie - returning for more Lemp family challenges.
This time the Lemps quickly find themselves facing financial and marital problems as a Florida land development Frank McHugh's character is building - and Lemp paterfamilias Raines has promoted around town - is wiped out by a hurricane.
The idea cupboard was clearly a bit bare in the writers room for this one. With the townsfolk unfairly blaming Rains over the money they lost, the family is under intense pressure.
With money concerns weighing on them, a couple of the adorable Lemp girls' marriages buckle. Rosemary's marriage to Albert, an idealistic doctor, is stressed because she wants him to quit research and join a practice to make money to help the family.
Priscilla's husband, played by Lynn, takes a better paying job in Chicago, making them a long-distance couple. This creates the tamest "is my husband having an affair with my sister" penumbra ever.
The main story, though, is really on Rains as he sells the beloved Lemp family homestead - the nexus of all the Lemp wonderfulness - to pay back the investors. A subsequent career setback, then, has Rains and Robson living in a city tenement.
That brings us to the end of "act two" of the three-act story, with act three a rushed and not-that-believable happy resolution to all these Lemp problems (you know all along happy endings are coming in these movies). The homestead Hail Mary is a real truth stretcher.
It's too much hyper melodrama for a movie series whose magic is the closeness of a family who solve their real-life-ish problems with love. If you hadn't seen the prior two movies in the series, this one would be a slog.
But if you have seen them, there's still enough charm and goodwill to carry you through. The daughters are adorable, sincere and loyal in a way that makes you just love them. They are the wonderfully imperfect sisters you wish you had.
Rains and Robinson are the father and aunt you also want. They argue, but it means nothing as their love for each other and the family is an unbreakable bond. Both, unfortunately, are given some forced dialogue in this one, but they deliver it admirably.
The husbands - Lynn, Albert, McHugh and Foran - are all likeable characters and likable actors who know they are in supporting roles here in service to the girls. And in truth, there are families like that.
Some movies are a true time capsule of their era, others create a world dreamed up by Hollywood. All the "Four Something" movies are in the latter category. They don't portray a real family, but a family created in Tinseltown for movie-going audiences to enjoy.
Four Mothers, despite its forced and exaggerated plot, is pleasant escapism. It's escapism that still works today if you just put your cynicism aside for an hour and half, which is a quite pleasant thing to do.
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Post by Andrea Doria on Apr 22, 2024 11:10:33 GMT
Well done, Fading Fast. I'm liking it better now, and I can look back and say I enjoyed all three movies, a great suggestion for all of us from Topbilled.
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Post by Fading Fast on Apr 22, 2024 11:43:14 GMT
A few pictures from 1939's "Daughters Courageous." Anything or anyone look familiar?
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