Four Daughters (1938)

[Mr. Arkadin]

Comes up on Tuesday. One of my personal favorites. Thoughts on this film?

[moira finnie]

"The fates, the destinies, whoever they are that decide what we do or don't get...They've been at me now nearly a quarter of a century."-Mickey Borden in Four Daughters (1938)

Four Daughters, being shown on Tuesday, Apr 17th at 9:30AM ET on TCM, might've been just another Warner Brothers' programmer. Under the guidance of genre-master Michael Curtiz, graced by the presence of Claude Rains, as the patriarch of the 4 girls in question, some better than usual snippets of classical music, and a few reliable WB stock players such as Frank McHugh, it could've been quickly forgotten as yet another idealized valentine to a longed-for, largely mythical hearth and home, a filler meant to distract Depression era audiences from some very harsh realities.

Yet the casting of a child of New York's meaner streets, John Garfield, in the role of a cynical, doomed yet likable musician, was truly a breath of fresh air. Coming from the legendary Group Theatre, Garfield's bracing lack of sentimentality, raffish blend of boyishness & danger, and frank ethnicity was, for its time, pretty startling and endearing to audiences. It's one of the better introductions of an actor on film that I've seen, and remains touching to this day. In addition to offering a bracing jolt of rough charm, Garfield paved the way for those more realistic actors who followed him--notably, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, and James Dean. Given the fact that this film came during the Production Code era, it's interesting that Garfield's character has an obvious, if muted, interest in s-e-x and that his character ultimately chooses to pursue a fate that was anathema to the Hays Office boys.

Another feature of Garfield's performance here was the chemistry he exhibited with the underrated Priscilla Lane, as the daughter drawn to him, despite her instincts. Miss Lane, who went on to work with Raoul Walsh in The Roaring Twenties and Alfred Hitchcock in Saboteur, has always seemed an ideal partner to Garfield to me, and in addition to her sweet, yet conventional singing talent, she had a warmth and simplicity that is still engaging. I liked her appearance opposite Garfield in the touchingly dark melodrama, Dust Be My Destiny (1939) the following year as well.

Even more than the pairing with Lane, I like the scenes in which Garfield interacts with Claude Rains in this film. Their apparently contrasting acting styles blended well together, and while both labored in Warner's vineyard, they went on to appear in five other films together. In addition to a lame sequel to Four Daughters, Four Wives (1939)—in which Garfield appears mostly in flashbacks—they acted opposite one another in a good, if not great film, Saturday's Children (1940). The role played by Garfield in the latter film offered him a chance to play a more polished, bespectacled and earnest young husband and Rains played an empathetic father-in-law to Garfield. Both men gave good performances as characters struggled down the economic blind alleys that were the lot of many Americans' daily grind. Garfield and Rains both worked on the historical drama Juarez (1939), (though not together in any scenes, since Rains played a corrupt Louis Napoleon and Garfield a Mexican revolutionary), and also appeared in the unfortunate, formulaic crime drama, They Made Me a Criminal (1939) with the East Side Kids.

Below is a link to a TCM article that gives some background to the film, and even mentions that the Jeffrey Lynn character was originally intended for Errol Flynn. Wow, what were they thinking?
http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=17904

[JulieMarch4th]

I LOVE this film. I even saw it after the remake made with Doris Day and Frank Sinatra (also not bad, IMHO), but Garfield just blows me away. (Actually, I don't think that I've ever seen a bad Garfield picture -- after all he and I share a birthday ).

I also like his pairing with Anne Shirley in Saturday's children.

I always find it interesting to see the tenderness beneath the tough guy.

Julie

[ken123]

John Garfield was one of a kind that's for sure. Curtiz directed a wide variety of films. My favorite is " The Sea Wolf ".