Four Mothers (1941)

ridiculous rating

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

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.

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.

Very disappointing film after the wonderful "Four Daughters" made in 1938.Claude Rains and May Robson do well in their parts as brother and sister. They are given little help but some weak written material.Everyone seems to be investing in Florida land and when a hurricane ravages the land, everyone is wiped out. Rains is forced to sell the family house of 40+ years and move with Robson to a small apartment.The sisters sulk, three of them have become mothers and two have been somewhat unfaithful with the other sister's husband.Everything seems to get conveniently tied in as Rains is called upon to conduct an orchestra playing Beethoven. It's just a little too neat of a package, especially when they find their house intact in another part of the neighborhood. The builder who bought it from them just needed the land.Robson delivers the best lines here.

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.