UnowPriceless hyped garbage

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

GManfred How refreshing it is to see America as it was, once upon a time. A depiction of family life that no longer exists, a design for living that would seem alien in the 21st century. Dressing up for dinner. An entire family with a cultural background. And no one seems to own a car, to say nothing of a television - they gather around the living room radio! Director Michael Curtiz has created a look back at what may be an idealized version of 30's americana and leaves us elated and uplifted, which might have been the point during the depression era. Three of the four Lane sisters are the title characters and get immeasurable help from a stellar supporting cast including Claude Rains, May Robson and Frank McHugh. Long story short, you can't go wrong here. It's an entertaining 90 minutes, taken cum grano salis and allowing for a lapse of 80 years.7/10 - The website no longer prints my star ratings.

liehtzu At the end of this one, the debut of John Garfield, directed by the great, underrated Michael Curtiz, I felt real irritation and loathing. It's a frustrating, maddening movie. A music teacher (Claude Rains) is the father of four spoiled little princesses who all play musical instruments, but who read movie gossip magazines and would rather play jazz music during every Beethoven session. One of the girls is early on in the picture married to a bumbling middle-aged fellow who she treats with gentle condescension, but he was worth marrying because he's wealthy. The two other sisters are the best of friends and make a vow that neither of them will ever marry, so that they can be together always. Of these two the elder has a boyfriend, but doesn't think terribly much of him. The youngest sister (Priscilla Lane) is the only blonde of the bunch and is the female star of the film. There's a final sister who remains a curious nonentity throughout and never has any romantic interests, so for all practical purposes there are only three sisters. So: Into their lives steps a handsome young dandy who is a composer of "modern" music and professes his disdain of Beethoven to Father. Even though Father disagrees with the young fellow's views, he's a generous old chap and allows him to board in the big house so that he can finish his prize entry composition on the grand piano. The girls are all quite taken with the young man: Isn't he dreamy? The composer has a pal, a down-on-his-luck working-class guy, John Garfield, who's far more talented than the composer but has had a lifetime of bad breaks and is very much rough around the edges. He enjoys nothing more than recounting his bad breaks and bemoaning the unlucky star he was born beneath. The composer hires him to "help" with the composition, but one gets the impression that Garfield writes the better part of it. Garfield falls for the youngest sister, because, though she's a spoiled little modern girl she's the only one who shows him much kindness. But the composer asks her to marry him and she, all in a swoon, immediately says yes. However, on the eve of the wedding the girl realizes that her best-friend-sister has secretly "loved" the composer all the while and, in a gesture of self-sacrificing nobility, leaves him at the alter and marries Garfield, who she doesn't love. However - and this is the truly hilarious bit - it turns out that the best-friend-sister realizes all of a sudden that the old boyfriend who she never thought terribly much of is the guy she "really" loves, and, the composer forgotten, marries him. The composer, dejected, moves far away. Fortunately Garfield, married to a girl he knows doesn't love him, and financially exhausted, kills himself in a car on an icy road. The composer comes back to town, meets the youngest sister, now happily single, and they're all smiles, smiles.The girls are all no doubt supposed to be "charming," as is the composer. But they mostly strike one as a rather repugnant, narcissistic lot. The only real sympathetic character in the film is Garfield's character, who has endless bad luck and has to die so that the two vain little bunnies can rekindle their romance before the end credits. But after I turned the movie off, it occurred to me that this is what the attentive viewer is SUPPOSED to think. For the popcorn-chomping non-thinkers in the audience - the target audience - it is a nice little movie about four "charming" sisters and their romantic lives, all shot in the pleasant, anonymous style that would years later become the standard for TV sitcoms. But there are enough hints of what socially-conscious director Curtiz really felt about the scenario, enough seemingly throw-away lines of dialogue; there's enough wretchedness and anger in John Garfield's character (who feels like he's from a different movie) to hint at the film's deeper interests. The sisters and the composer are monsters, the kind of dim-witted, unfeeling people with money and "charm" that keep a guy from Garfield's class in his place, no matter how much talent he may have, by either ignoring him (the sisters) or exploiting him for their own ends (the composer, off to glorious career on Garfield's back). The movie's brilliance is in its quietly subversive intentions.

Neil Doyle The sisterly affection is almost insufferable in FOUR DAUGHTERS, so wishy-washy is the script that has them treating each other with such tender care. One sister (PRISCILLA LANE) even runs off with the wrong man in an effort to spare her sister's feelings about the man she truly loves. This noble act eventually goes unrewarded, since the man she runs off with (JOHN GARFIELD) decides to end his life--which then makes it possible for Priscilla Lane to end up with the handsome suitor she originally loved--JEFFREY LYNN.If this all sounds like sentimental tripe, it is--but at least Michael Curtiz gets three fine performances from the cast. JOHN GARFIELD made the biggest impression on critics at the time of release, since nobody had seen an actor of his ilk before, contemptuously tossing off lines in a manner that would later suit Marlon Brando or James Dean. He became an overnight star with his Oscar-nominated supporting role.PRISCILLA LANE, as the youngest sister who makes the noble sacrifice, is refreshingly natural and extremely sensitive as the only Lane sister who is really given a part that she can grab hold of. The other sisters, ROSEMARY and LOLA LANE, have roles that are so underwritten that they're unplayable. JEFFREY LYNN is fine as the handsome and carefree young man that all of the sisters are attracted to.Unfortunately, CLAUDE RAINS seems miscast as the girls' father, giving the role none of the distinctive Rains traits that always made his supporting roles so memorable. He just fades into the background, as do GALE PAGE, DICK FORAN, MAY ROBSON, FRANK McHUGH and others among the Warner contract players, while Garfield and Lane hold the spotlight.A musical version called YOUNG AT HEART starring DORIS DAY and FRANK SINATRA used pretty much the same script, word for word, with the addition of WarnerColor and music. Not bad at all and Sinatra was just as good as Garfield in the role of the sullen songwriter who saw himself as victimized by fate. The musical version changed the ending, the only big difference.

kyle_furr I had heard a lot about this movie but the only good thing in it was John Garfield, even Claude Rains wasn't very good. This was Garfield's first big role and he was nominated for best supporting actor but he lost. After this movie, the next couple of years he made a lot of crappy movies. He was also turned down for Golden Boy, a movie he really wanted to do but was given to William Holden. This movie has four sisters living in the same house with their father, played by Claude Rains. The oldest one is the first to get engaged, and when Jeffrey Lynn comes to stay at their house, the other three girls fall for him. It isn't until John Garfield comes to stay that he falls for the youngest but then Jeffrey gets engaged to her. Their's more to the plot but it isn't very interesting and you should only watch if your a big John Garfield fan.