Daughters Courageous (Warner Bros.) (1939)

ADVANCE PUBLICITY for “DAU GHTERS COURAGEOUS” Mat 211—30c THEY'RE IN LOVE AGAIN — John Garfield and Priscilla Lane, the love team who made history in ‘Four Daughters," are under the spell of romance in their new co-starring hit, Daughters Courageous,"" coming to the Strand. New ‘Daughters’ film poses an absorbing family problem The “four daughters” and _ their mother have runaway papa to deal with in drama opening at the Strand Bringing together again the east and director which made “Four Daughters” such a memorable event on last season’s screen program, Warner Bros.’ “Daughters Courageous” will open a local engagement on Friday at the Strand Theatre. Adapted for the sereen by Julius and Philip Epstein from the play “Fly Away Home,” by Dorothy Bennett and Irving White, “Daughters Courageous” was directed by Michael Curtiz. Heading its cast are John Garfield and Priscilla Lane, with a notable supporting group of players including the two other Lane girls, Rosemary and Lola, Gale Page, Fay Bainter, Jeffrey Lynn, Claude Rains, Frank MeHugh, May Robson and Dick Foran. All of the cast of “Four Daughters” are present again in short, with the delightful addition of Fay Bainter in the role of the young and modern mother of the four girls, and Donald Crisp, as her solid, middle-aged fiance. The story of “Daughters Courageous,” however, deals with an entirely different family than last year’s screen play, and while the two films share the same charming, heart-warming quality, the new one has a good deal more humor interspersed with the romance. This time, as noted above, the girls have a mother, and it is the mother’s problem which primarily concerns the family. Woven into the story is a modern version of the Enoch Arden theme, which introduces a real problem in human relationship, for as the mother is about to remarry, her first husband and the father of the girls, turns up after a twenty year absence. Shall she weleome back the father of her four girls, the irresponsible but charming husband who deserted her when the children were babies? Shall she give up the steady, respectable business man who loves and wants to marry her and has promised to give the girls the financial help they need for happy futures? This is the problem which the story poses and it is answered in, a manner that will interest eveky anember of any family. But there’s no lack of romance in the lives of the girls, as well. Much of the comedy is concerned with the engagement of the oldest daughter to a very budget conscious young man, played by Frank McHugh, and with the football player played by Dick Foran who is trying to decide which of the two “middle” daughters he is most in love with. The yougest daughter falls in love with John Garfield, as the vagabond son of a Portuguese fisherman, thereby causing her family some consternation, for he is a youthful counterpart of her father, and there is every indication that she will suffer the same heartaches that her mother has known, if she marries the vital, erratic chap who considers that he has a “rendezvous with the universe.” Meanwhile the young playwright (Jeffrey Lynn) who is in love with her, stands by to pick up the pieces in case of a broken heart. How this family affair is eventually resolved into a happy conclusion, will be a matter of absorbing interest to all Donald Crisp Gets That Girl At Last Donald Crisp had his first sereen love affair in seven years and twenty-four pictures in Warner Bros” “Daughters Courageous,’”’ which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. His affair of the heart was with Fay Bainter. The last time he heard words of love from the lips of an actress was when playing with Olivia de Havilland three years ago. Rosemary Lane gave him one quick peck of the lips on one cheek in the recent “The Oklahoma Kid.” Name The Town — She’s Played It! Lola Lane counted the number of states of the union in which she played on a stage tour or a personal appearance and found there were only eight. Claude Rains, who plays with her in “Daughters Courageous,” the Warner Bros. picture opening Friday at the Strand Theatre, also counted and found that he had missed only four states. May Robson, who is with both of them in “Daughters Courageous,” then cited her own record on the stage in every state but North Dakota. Priscilla Resumes Her Singing Career Priscilla Lane sings in a film for the first time in a year when she warbles “They Say” to John Garfield’s accordion accompaniment, in their latest Warner Bros. picture, “Daughters Courageous,” which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. Priscilla’s last film songs were “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” in “Love, Honor and_ Behave” and ‘Ride, Tenderfoot Ride” in “Cowboy from Brooklyn.’ Both pictures were released over a year ago. Priscilla originally came to films as a singer from Fred Waring’s orchestra. Fay Bainter Rates — High In Hollywood For Ability, Charm Hollywood has various ways of rating its actresses. One is on their acting ability. This is of course the foundation of any player’s prestige. Another slant at the actresses is taken by their co-workers and concerns their good nature on the sets. Some of the actresses who fill Mat 111—15e FAY BAINTER the bill in one way don’t fill it in the other. But often the same _ actress rates tops on both counts. Fay Bainter is one of these. She is a professional joy to her directors, and she is also a favorite with every one else who works on the sets of her pictures, the latest of which is “Daughters Courageous,’ the Warner Bros. domestic comedy opening next Friday at the Strand Theatre. Fay loves a good laugh and she has been known to wear an odd hat, just in order to study the face of the assistant director who is laboring to find the diplomatic words to tell her to change it. And some of her seemingly most innocent questions cause the greatest confusion. There was the time, midway of production on “Daughters Courageous,” when she reminded the two scenarist brothers, Julius and Phillip Epstein, that while one portion of the script made it clear that her long lost husband, Claude Rains, had wandered away from the home fires twenty years previously, and never came back, yet another part of the same script stated that the youngest of Fay’s brood of four daughters, Priscilla Lane, was only eighteen years of age. Other samples of Miss Bainter’s sharp wit came to light when members of the company got hold of a questionnaire which that actress filled out with certain biographical data. “Tf you left the screen or the stage, what would you do to earn a living?” the questionnaire asked. Miss Bainter’s reply was: “T would deal blackjack.” [7] Curtiz has that magie touch that makes whole world kin Director of “Daughters Courageous” contends that families are about the same in all parts of the globe There’s a hard-headed, gruffspoken fellow whom they call an ‘face’? in Hollywood. He’s doing a big job of acting, although he’s not an actor. This gentleman, who looks so serious and acts so stony, and whom everybody calls an ‘‘ace’’ is Michael Curtiz, the director, and he is acting hard-boiled all the time so he won’t betray his sentimental heart. But now and then the sentimental heart that really molds this one-time Hungarian World War artillery officer, gets the better of his film work. Those are the times when Curtiz, the director of such powerful action pictures as ‘‘Dodge City,’’ ““The Adventures of Robin Hood’’ and ‘‘ Angels With Dirty Faces,’’ comes out with pictures like ‘‘ Four Daughters’’ and ‘‘Daughters Courageous.’? Big, blunt spoken Mike, who has caused the expression, ‘‘the Curtiz touch,’’ to become a byword for delicate and dramatic handling of a film situation, made motion picture history in 1938 with the famous ‘‘Four Daughters.’’?’ With that picture he elevated three prior unknowns to film celebrity, namely John Garfield, Jeffrey Lynn and Gale Page. ‘‘The Curtiz touch’? has now been applied to another picture of American middle class family life. The heartbeat of sentiment which pulsed through ‘‘Four Daughters,’’ also is evident in Mike’s new Warner Bros. picture, ‘*Daughters Courageous,’’ opening next Friday at the Strand Theatre with the same cast and the same homey, genuine, family feeling as that in ‘‘ Four Daughters. ’’ When a visiting film critic commented to Curtiz on the success of his famous ‘‘Four Daughters,’’ whose scene was laid in a Connecticut small town, and followed up with questions about his knowledge of small town life and American family affairs such as Curtiz has mirrored with his screen family in the little city of Monterey, Calif., in ‘‘Daughters Courageous,’’ Curtiz responded by asking the film critic a simple question: ““Ts there any difference in the heart between American families and families in Eurepe where I came from?’’ he demanded. ‘‘There are certain feelings and sentiments which are uwuniversal,’’ Mr. Curtiz says. ‘‘We put them in my pictures. There is no special American way of being in love with a boy, or of talking over girlish secrets with one’s sister. Such things are the same everywhere. We just show what real people do, when we make our pieture, and then they say ‘it is a wonderful touch’.’? New Hit ‘Daughters Courageous’ Has Same 4 Daughters The first day of camera work on Warner Bros.’ ‘‘Daughters Courageous,’’ which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre, was a jolly reunion of the alumni of ““Four Daughters,’’ a First-Tenner among 1938’s foremost pictures. The ‘‘Daughters Courageous’? cast includes every principal of the ‘‘Four Daughters’’ cast, its director, Michael Curtiz is the same, and the screen play was written by the same scenarists, Julius Epstein, with his brother, Phillip. May Robson hurried back from an interrupted vacation with her son and grandson in New York in order to resume her film work with the rest of the cast. Lola Lane broke off a profitable personal appearance swing around the country. Jeffrey Lynn cancelled his trip to be the guest of honor at a sports carnival in Maine. Dick Foran postponed one of his cowboy pictures for another screen producer; Claude Rains wired his wife to come on from Philadelphia and visit him, instead of going east as scheduled; and Frank MeHugh unpacked the old black derby which he wears in his occasional roles as a steady going young business man. Rosemary and Priscilla Lane reveled in three weeks of advance wardrobe fittings with Designer Howard Shoup; and Gale Page, hurried back from a vacation so that she, too, could join them. Mat 203—30e “DAUGHTERS COURAGEOUS''— Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola Lane and Gale Page, the girls everybody loved as the "Four Daughters,"' are back in the new romantic drama which will open at the Strand Theatre on Friday.