Four Daughters (Warner Bros.) (1938)

FOUR DAUGHTERS BASED ON STORY BY FANNIE HURST What happens when four devoted sisters fall in love with the same man? “Four Daughters,” the Warner Bros. picture based on a Fannie Hurst story, which opens at the Strand Theatre today, takes that as its theme and develops it into a richly human story. The four daughters of an elderly musician all give their hearts unanimously to a captivating young man who comes to live at their home, and he in turn is enraptured by the youngest of them. And it is this girl, scarcely more than a child, who bravely sacrifices her own happiness because of a mistaken notion that by so doing she will insure the happiness of her oldest sister. More by chance than by design, the tangle into which the lives of the four girls is thrown is eventually unravelled so that each achieves the destiny that makes her happiest. The cast of “Four Daughters” is of unusual interest in itself. In the first place, three of the four sisters are played by three girls who are sisters in actuality, Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola Lane —the fourth sister being enacted by Gale Page. In the second place, two young actors of emphatic promise are both given their first big film roles in this picture. They are Jeffrey Lynn, a handsome youth who exudes so much charm that he is expected to win immediate fan favor, and John Garfield, considered the best young character actor developed on the New #7 Fork stage since Cagney, Muni and Robinson came to Hollywood. The substantial base of tried and proven acting ability is provided by such reliable troupers as Claude Rains, May Robson, Frank McHugh and Dick Foran. The Fannie Hurst original was turned into a screen play by Julius J. Epstein and Lenore Coffee, and the production was directed by Michael Curtiz. LANE GIRLS ADOPT ANOTHER SISTER Not often does it happen that three sisters in real life play the parts of three sisters in a motion picture. Maybe it never happened before. But now it has happened, as the Lane girls—Lola, Rosemary and Priscilla — play Thea, Ann and Kay Lemp in “Four Daughters,” the Warner Bros. picture opening today at the Strand Theatre. There’s a fourth Lane sister, Leota, who was to have played Emma Lemp, but a stage engagement forbade, and so Gale Page got the part. She was forthwith unofficially adopted into the Lane family. Just before Director Michael Curtiz ordered the picture to start, on its opening day, there was an odd little gathering on the sideline of the set. Lola, Rosemary and Priscilla were there, clustered about their mother, Mrs. Cora Lane, who had driven them to the studio and had insisted upon seeing their take-off in the first film in which all three had worked together. But when she kissed them each, and wished them luck, she didn’t forget to include pretty dark-haired Gale. Besides the four girls, the cast of “Four Daughters” also includes Jeffrey Lynn and John Garfield, two sensational new screen “finds”; Claude Rains, May Robson, Dick Foran and Frank McHugh. The story was adapted from a famous Fannie Hurst story. Current PUBLICITY PPPS SDL SL LSS SSG GS GFF FPF SFG FGFS FGFFGFFWIII 9 9 vvvy (Review) Mat 301—45¢ STEP UP AND MEET THE FAMILY—(left to right) Lola Lane brings home boy friend Frank McHugh to meet papa Claude Rains, auntie May Robson, and sisters Rosemary Lane, Gale Page and Priscilla Lane in “Four Daughters,” the Warner Bros. film opening today at the Strand. Year’s Best Sereen Entertainment Is **Four Daughters’’ at the Strand A charming, heartbreakingly human comedy drama about life in a musical family of lovely daughters, occasionally ruffled by the masculine world outside, “Four Daughters,” which opened yesterday at the Strand Theatre, is one of the finest pictures ever made, and one of which the entire motion picture industry must be justifiably proud. Based on a story by Fannie Hurst from which Julius J. Epstein and Lenore Coffee wrote the screen play, the picture has all the ingredients that make for grand cinema—superb acting, the inspired direction of Michael Curtiz and exquisite photography. A marvelously meaningful character played by John Garfield, recently of the Broadway stage, is one of the greatest contributions the film offers to screen history. He is a fascinating fatalist, reckless, poor and unhappy, who is insufferably rude to everybody, except Priscilla Lane, (whom he loves), and who assumes as a matter of course that all of Fate’s cards are stacked against him. The picture is alsoa Gale Page Got Boost For Giving A Boost If Gale Page had not agreed to help out her brother who was operating KFBY, a small radio station in Spokane, by broadcasting songs for him, right after graduating from a private school near San Francisco, the brunette actress might not now be on her rapid climb to film fame at the Warner Bros. Studio. From her brother’s small radio station, Gale progressed to stock, and then became a featured performer for Chicago radio programs. Warner Bros. imported Miss Page to Hollywood when her radio contract in Chicago expired last New Year’s Day, and she has already acted leading roles in three Warner Bros. pictures, the latest of which, “Four Daughters,” opens today at the Strand Theatre. She plays the fourth sister to the Lane girls, Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola, who are, of course, sisters in real life as well as in the screen story, which is based on a famous tale by Fannie Hurst. Film audiences saw her previously in “Crime School” and in “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse.” STORY SYNOPSIS: (Not for publication) —When Jeffrey Lynn comes to Claude Rains’ home to board, the four daughters of the house—Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola Lane and Gale Page—immediately fall in love with him. It is Priscilla, however, who captures his heart, and they are to be married. But when she learns from John Garfield that Gale is heart-broken, she marries John instead. Her sacrifice is useless, however, as Jeffrey goes away and Gale finds other happiness. It is Priscilla who has to face tragedy before she can have the man she really loves. triumph for Priscilla Lane, who is animated, attractive and intelligent and infuses her role of the youngest daughter with a deep and human warmth; for Jeffrey Lynn, another screen newcomer, destined to set femin ine hearts a-flutter, and who knows how to be handsome without being offensive; for Claude Rains, as the musical father; for Rosemary Lane as the singer of the family; for Lola Lane as the ambitious daughter; for Gale Page as the quiet homebody; and for May Robson as the old aunt. Into the Garden of Eden household of Rains and his four daughters, which is presided over by May Robson, come four suitors for his four girls. First to come is Lynn, a young musician with whom they all fall in love. Then comes John Garfield, as the cynical young arranger, Frank McHugh, a stuffy business man and Dick Foran, a florist. And the story tells of the romances, the joys and sorrows of the four girls, who are intensely devoted to each other and willing to make any sacrifices to insure each other’s happiness. And when the storm and strife of their tangled romances are over, the family—a little wiser, a little older, a little sadder— settle back into the normal even tenor of their lives. Mat 202—30c TWO STARS ARE BORN—Priscilla Lane and John Garfield who play top roles in “Four Daughters,” Warner Bros. film version of a famous Fannie Hurst story, now at the Strand, have been hailed by the nation’s critics as most promising of the year’s new crop of stars. ® Motion Pictures Are Your Best Entertainment @ [8] ROSEMARY LANE, who used to sing popular songs with Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians, sings portions of four songs from the classics in her featured role in, “Four Daughters,” the Warner Bros. picture at the Strand Theatre. Playing the role of a girl who becomes famous as a singer during the time covered by the film story, Rosemary sings Mendelssohn’s “On Wings of Song,’ Schubert’s “Serenade,” Brahms’ “Lullaby” and Brahms’ “Hedgerose”—and very beautifully! * * * JEFFREY LYNN was guest of Rosemary Lane and _ her mother, Mrs. Cora Lane, at a tea and swimming party at the Lanes’ home the first Sunday after he started working in “Four Daughters,” the Warner Bros. picture now showing at the Strand Theatre. After swimming, Rosemary and her sister, Priscilla, took Jeff for a canter on horseback trails in the nearby foothills. Lynn and the two sisters met when all were cast in featured roles in “Four Daughters.” * * * When PRISCILLA LANE was 15, she joined Fred Waring’s band, because Waring had heard her singing gaily while she tried to make up her mind what records she would purchase in a New York phonograph shop. She has become established as so talented an actress since coming to Hollywood scarcely a year ago that she has done several straight acting roles, with not a note of vocalizing, her latest of that sort being in “Four Daughters” at the Strand Theatre. * * * In “Four Daughters” at the Strand Theatre, the three Lane girls, and Gale Page, who plays the fourth sister in the story, wear several dresses which fall into the spectator sports category. LOLA and PRISCILLA LANE both wear full white linen blouses with black wool skirts in the Gibson Girl mode with which go such sporty accessories as broadtoed, medium-heeled shoes and vagabondish felt hats. Gale has a pleated print worn with matching Eton jacket. * * * ROSEMARY LANE and Jeffrey Lynn, who have grown quite friendly since they played together in “Four Daughters,” the Warner Bros. picture at the Strand Theatre, acknowledge one grudge that irritates a beautiful friendship. It is the matter of ping-pong supremacy. Rosemary beats Jeff at the game, and Jeff, who prides himself on being an athletic young man, dislikes it. * * * After making his motion picture debut in “Four Daughters,” the Warner Bros. picture coming next Friday to the Strand Theatre, JOHN GARFIELD received and rejected an offer to go to London to appear in his original role in “Golden Boy,” the same vehicle in which he made his greatest hit on Broadway. * * * JEFFREY LYNN, new young film leading man who was chosen by Warner Bros. to play the male lead in “Four Daughters,” which is now showing at the Strand Theatre, was recently named an honorary member of the Swedish American Society of Los Angeles. Young Lynn’s real name, before he went on the stage with Walter Hampden in New York, was Ragnar Godfrey Lind, and his father was a Swedish immigrant.