Customer Reviews

Adam Had Four Sons [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While this film may be predictable as to its events and conclusion, it is a warm and enjoyable film to watch. After the death of his wife (Fay Wray), a father (Warner Baxer) raises his four sons with the help of a devoted governess (Ingrid Bergman). When one of the sons marries, it is to an evil shrew (Susan Hayward), and the battle between good and evil, Bergman and Hayward, is joined.

Bergman and Hayward turn in memorable performances. Also watch for a sweet performance by a young June Lockhart.

This is a family saga of a huband (Warren Baxter) and wife (Fay Wray) who have four sons. As they are quite well to do, they hire a French governess (Ingrid Bergman) for the boys. Several years later, the wife falls ill and dies. The governess becomes the mother figure. Shortly after, the stock market crashes and the father loses everything and is forced to send the governess away with a promise to send for her as soon as he can.

This is where the movie becomes somewhat implausible. The father sends for her years later, but the boys are fully grown young men. They obviously do not need a governess. Yet, she lives with them. It is obvious to all that the father and the governess are in love, but nary a word of such passes between them.

Out of the clear blue, one of the sons marries a beautiful, but loose woman (Susan Hayward). The governess does not like this son's wife and with good reason. The wife soon commences an affair with one of her husband's brothers. Soon, this serene household become a hot bed of angst. After her husband discovers the affair with his brother, who has since repudiated this vixen, she is ordered to leave the house. She does so, and the father finally asks the long suffering governess to marry him.

The performances by the cast are strong, but the screenplay falters. This is a predictable, though somewhat mediocre film that one may find mildly enjoyable, if one loves old films in general. If not, skip it.

Emilie (Ingrid Bergman), a french governess, is hired by wealthy Adam Stoppard (Warner Baxter) and his wife Molly to look after their four sons. Following the untimely death of their mother, the boys grow to depend on Emilie more.

When the boys are older they join the army. When they return home one of them brings home a beautiful wife Hester (Susan Hayward). It soon becomes clear that Hester is trouble. She's a heartless gold-digger that nearly splits the family apart. Can Emilie hold the family together with Hester around causing trouble?

Over the years Emilie's feelings for Adam grow deeper and she falls in love with him. Even the though the boys are now men at this point, Adam insists that she come and live with them again as part of the family....

I don't understand why this film doesn't get better ratings than it does. Everyone seems to think it an overly saccharine piece of cinema. Personally, I find it very nice - tasteful, romantic, and not too heavy. Sure, maybe it was weird to have Emilie come back after the boys were grown up. But if I remember correctly, they wanted her to come back and she had promised she would. Anything wrong with keeping a promise?

That aside... The only complaints that I have is that the end IS a bit abrupt - suddenly everything is cleared up, Adam proposes and before they even kiss the words "The End" appear. And Susan Hayward's character is really annoying. Hester. Who in their right mind would name their girl Hester? Anyway. Helen Westley is a minor character here, Aunt Phillipa. June Lockhart is the neighbour girl who falls in love with Adam's youngest son. I liked her better as the Praslin daughter in All This and Heaven Too, but she fit the part finely here all the same.

My favourite scene is the one when Emilie decides that Hester is going to leave. Very rarely do you ever get to see sweet, pretty Ingrid taking command like she does in that scene.

My recommendation is to give this movie a chance at least and make a rational judgement about it before believing that it's only second-rate sugar.

*** Possible Spoilers***
When Adam needs a new governess for his four sons, he and his wife hire a French governess to take care of them. The wife soon dies and over the years she becomes the mainstay of the home, in spite of a stock market crash, World War I and the straying wife of one of the boys. A good effort by all, including a young and manipulative Susan Hayward. Given the era, some of the content was surprising and the story was by no means a conventional epic.

In this, Ingrid Bergman's second American film, she once again plays the nubile love interest of a much older man (as she did with Leslie Howard in INTERMEZZO, which was a remake of her Swedish film by the same name). This is a period film, made in the 1940s, it is set back before WWI, so it has that "old world" feel about it, and her accent is used to great advantage, as she plays a nanny from "the old country." In the 1940s many many films had a rosy remembrance of the 1890s and early 1900s, just as today we have sweetened remembrances of the 70s, like " Almsost Famous" - a film that turns a band-following sleeze into some mythological dream girl/woman of easy sex and maternal sweetness. (Ah yes, the early 2000s, they will be saying in the future, where once again, the only purpose of a girl in a film is to be a willing vessel for a man.)

But I digress... which your mind might do during this film, because it is a pretty bland and predictable story, despite the catty game playing of a young Susan Hayward. It's also a little ikky by today's standards, when we realize that we are supposed to be rooting for Ingrid to pair up with a man who looks at least 30 years older than she is. But we must remember what financial stability meant in a post depression era world.

Susan Hayward has a very interesting role here. It became a prototype for her later roles, sexually and personally aggressive, and morally bankrupt. It is also interesting because you can see her acting never really changed or progressed. She had everything here in this powerhouse performance that she had as an older actress. Lots of strength and pizzazz, not much nuance. (Watch VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, and she is interchangeable - just older, with a better script.)

Consequently, this film gives us a stark contrast between Hayward & Bergman, heightened by this contrast in acting style. Susan Hayward hits you over the head while you're on the doorstep. Ingrid quietly lets you come inside. This makes their scenes like fire and ice, and wisely, the filmmakers let the story build to a confrontation between them. That is the best part of this film - at heart a woman's story.

Being that this is essentially a woman's story, it is oddly overrun with little boys and men, older men and little boys who need to be looked after and catered to, young men in uniform who parade in like colorful birds - who need to be looked after and catered to. Ah yes, the war years.

One real irony here is that Susan Hayward's character is introduced in uniform. It is not commented on at all, but instead of this conferring respect on her, we know immediately that this shorthand means she is hard, aggressive and probably sexually promiscuous. Definitely NOT what those boys were fighting for; they may have wanted Susan in the field, but they wanted Ingrid to come home to. Amusing in retrospect, and also a frustrating reminder that women who give their lives in service to their country are still regarded with an odd mixture of intangible suspicions.

Somewhere in this mix is Fay Wray (I didn't recognize her)... She played the sainted, oddly healthy looking mother of the boys who dies. In the titles she is identified only by her first name, and the mother is never called by the first name within the film, it is "mother" or "Mrs.". I can only assume that audiences at this time would have known her on sight, so they couldn't conceive that one day people would be trying to figure out which one she was. Wray did a lot of work on the stage, and actually kept pace with the times, acting-wise she grew, and her work fits nicely with the more subtle work of Bergman. It is her features and profile that pinpoint her as a beauty of the silents and early talkies. Very similar build and look to Gloria Swanson. (I second the kudos for the adorable small role of young June Lockhart! She just makes you smile.)

Solid, studio bound production from this period, with some unexplainable gaps of logic in the story and large gaps of time left unmentioned. This period of films was a little suffocating even for those who like it, so you can probably skip it unless you really want to see the early work of Bergman and Hayward.

This truly was such a lovely movie. My how I love the classics. Very enjoyable and of course the actors are terrific, especially Susan Hayward and Ingrid Bergman.

A must buy!! The Dvd was in excellent condition!!

You can tell when someone is a truly great actor, because they can bring some life to even the most tepid, uninvolving movies. That's the case with "Adam Had Four Sons," a predictable and rather artificial melodrama, which is only given life by the legendary Ingrid Bergman. Nothing else really stands out except her.

Bergman is Emilie Gallatin, a young governess who comes to work for the Stoddard family's four young boys. But then the mother (Fay Wray) dies of cancer, the family loses all their money, and Emilie must be sent back to France. But the father Adam (Warner Baxter) promises that when the fortunes change, she can come back.

About ten years later, he keeps his word. But while all four young men still adore her, one of them has impulsively gotten married to a young nurse (Susan Hayward). But when Hester starts seducing her new brothers-in-law, Emilie becomes determined to somehow protect the family of the man she loves.

"Adam Had Four Sons" is not so much a terrible movie as it is a tepid, predictable one. You know who's a slut, who's a sweetie, who'll die tragically, and that good guys will live happily ever after while the nastier ones will Get What They Justly Deserve. There are even the eager young men Going To War.

The plot is a fairly straightforward one, with average dialogue and average direction. The problem is that the plot has some very artificial plot twists, such Hester "protecting" the family by not telling them about Hester sleeping with her brother-in-law. Credulity is stretched to the breaking point too -- I mean, would Emilie just sit around for ten years, waiting to be summoned?

The cast is rather hit-and-miss: all four young men are virtually interchangeable, and Baxter looks kind of uneasy. The women of this movie are what keep it from sinking: Bergman sparkles as the loving young governess, in every scene she's in, while Hayworth is a very credible skank. Seeing them clash is the high point of the movie.

Bergman is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise forgettable family melodrama, and remains the only reason to see "Adam Had Four Sons." Tepid, but Bergman and Hayworth are excellent.

I loved this movie. Ingrid Bergman comes from Sweden to be a nanny to four boys in a wealthy family. I loved the time period and how the characters meshed. My only criticism is I don't think it is believable for her to have hushed up the goings on in the house.

This movie is a True Classic and I found it just as enjoyable as watching the Original, I was Very Pleased:)