Four Mothers (Warner Bros.) (1941)

“Four Mothers” On Strand Screen Starting Friday “Four Mothers,” the latest of the gay, charming ‘Four Daughters” series will make its local debut at the Strand Theatre on Friday. All the favorites of the Lemp family are back in this newest adventure. The story is more dramatic than its predecessors because now the Four Daughters are Four Mothers, yet it contains much sparkling humor. The cast stars the Lane sisters Priscilla, Rosemary, and Lola together with Gale Page as the Four Mothers. Adam Lemp, honest, respected citizen of Briarwood and devotee of Beethoven, is played by that grand actor, Claude Rains. His wise, philosophical sister, Aunt Etta, is portrayed by May Robson. Jeffrey Lynn, Eddie Albert, Frank McHugh and Dick Foran are cast as the husbands who are ideally suited to their wives. Adam Lemp persuaded many of the townfolk to invest in some property in Florida that his son-in-law Ben (Frank McHugh) owned. When a hurricane came along and devastated the area, Adam felt as if he were responsible for the loss and sells his property in Briarwood in order to repay his friends. This warm story of how a great family helped themselves escape the disheartening results of adversity by working together will always be remembered. It is not only. the story of a family’s sacrifice. It is the story of a doctor’s search for cure that will rid the town of a certain disease. It is the story of how a man’s love for great music is kept alive. Above all it is a story of faith in the little man. Director William Keighley has whipped the fine screenplay by Stephen Morehouse Avery into a grand film, losing none of the little human touches that give it such warmth. The story was suggested by Fannie Hurst’s novel, “Sister Act.” ‘Four Mothers" Brings Lemp Family to Strand Opening shot of the new Strand film “Four Mothers,” which reunites the famed Lemp family for the third time, is the scene that has come to be the trademark of the pictures. It is the long camera shot that moves from the street to the Lemp house, nears the front window then continues inside where Claude Rains is playing the flute and conducting his “daughters” (Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola Lane and Gale Page) in a music session. This time, however, the concert is interrupted by Priscilla’s oneyear-old “daughter” who joins the group by banging the piano. Director William Keighley thinks it is the first time that an identical camera shot has been purposely used in a group of pictures to trademark their relationship. Still FM 111; 303—45c THEY'RE BACK IN THEIR BEST HIT YET! The Lemp family (remember them in "Four Daughters" and "Four Wives''?) will invade the Strand on Friday with their new hit, "Four Mothers.’ (Left to right) Priscilla Lane, Eddie Albert, Lola Lane, Claude Rains, May Robson, Frank McHugh, Rosemary Lane, Dick Foran, Gale Page, Jeffrey Lynn and Vera Lewis. “Four Mothers” Coming Friday, Biggest Production of “Four Daughters” Series Men and women behind the making of motion pictures delight in making “big” productions. The more complicated such pictures are in number of tricky sets, location trips and costumes, the happier it makes the six to seven hundred people who are involved in the filming of every big production. That is why ‘Four Mothers,” 3 the new picture opening Friday at the Strand, gladdened hearts of Warner Bros. workers who felt severely repressed by the production simplicity of preceding Lemp family pictures. ‘Four Daughters” was made in a very few, simple sets. “Four Wives” expanded but little in this respect. But the newest adventure of the Lemps really goes to town in sets and varied locales. The heart of the film, in the matter of locale, is still the old Lemp house, a rather substantial semi-colonial dwelling that represents the composite of the sort of house people have in mind when they speak of the “old homestead.” In contrast to the 16 and 18 sets of its predecessors, the new Lemp family film has 42. Some of them are elaborate. There is, for example, a tile and stone products factory set on the big studio’s rear lot. It reproduces a real factory, the largest in California, and many _ scenes were actually taken there. In addition to the factory, a row of factory-worker dwellings was built in a shanty-town near railroad tracks and the Los Angeles River, 7 miles from the studio. At the studio, sets built outside and on huge sound stages represent the laboratory § in which Eddie Albert, as factory physician, toils with microscopes and test tubes. There is also a cottage where he lives with his wife, Rosemary Lane. Drug stores, offices, banks and the stately ivy-clad home of the Briarwood Foundation of Music where Adam Lemp _ (Claude Rains) teaches are the same as those in preceding films of the series. In “Four Mothers,” however, there is an entire sequence between Jeffrey Lynn and Rosemary Lane against a Chicago background. The Lemp home is in New England. During the Still FM71; Mat 105—15c SWEETHEARTS AGAIN — Jeffrey Lynn and Priscilla Lane, gate-swinging sweethearts of ''Four Daughters," are married and still in love in ‘Four Mothers" opening Friday at the Strand. Chicago episodes, the lonesome in-laws go swimming at a beach ‘Jocation,” go dining, dancing and night clubbing. All that takes more sets. While this is going on, the now jobless Adam and Aunt Etta (May Robson) go to New York City, take an apartment. More sets! Then Adam is given the chance to conduct a symphony orchestra at a Beethoven festival in Cincinnati. More sets, in still another city, including a great natural amphitheatre (Hollywood Bowl) and a studio set for closer shots of a huge orchestra playing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and his bril liant Egmont Overture, with Adam proudly conducting. Finally, much going and coming at the Briarwood Depot, represented by the depot in the town of San Gabriel, 20 miles from Warner Bros. Studio. All of this only touches the highlights of the set and location problems which gladdened the hearts of Art Director Robert Haas and his assistants, while doubtless adding to their grey hairs. Even the music department was busier, though “Four Daughters” and “Four Wives” had much to do with the tuneful activities of the various Lemps. A 100-piece orchestra playing Beethoven’s Fifth, after all, is something to talk about, even in Hollywood! Even the cast has grown in number. In addition to Priscilla Lane, Lola Lane, Gale Page, Dick Foran and the other cast members already mentioned, all the mother’s babies make their appearance. That includes one pair of twins. The 671 workers who made “Four Mothers” had to do almost twice as much work on it as either of the earlier pictures. And they’re proud of it. Apparently film folk really like their work! THE MUSIC IN ‘FOUR MOTHERS' Beethoven's Fur Elise, Piano Sonata and the Egmont Overture are featured throughout the film as background music, with the Overture coming to the fore in the final scene in which Adam Lemp (Claude Rains) conducts a 100piece symphony orchestra at the Beethoven Music Festival. In a somewhat lighter vein is the song "Moonlight and Tears" which is featured during one of the romantic love scenes, and vocalized by Rosemary Lane. The music was written by Heinz Roem held and the lyrics by Jack Scholl. Lemp Sisters in “Four Mothers” Film Mirror Lane Sisters Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola Lane might easily be mistaken for a clannish sister trio, because they stay so close together on a film set, talk more to each other than to non-related folk. They huddle. They chatter. They giggle. There’s an air of telling each other deep secrets the world shouldn’t hear. <A fellow-worker who approaches is liable to withdraw again hastily, for fear of evesdropping. That is, unless one of the sisters chances to look up from the huddle just then, and give one of those typically Lane family, heart-warming smiles which says, “Come on over and join the party.” “The whole thing is, we see so little of each other off the set that we don’t get time to gossip with each other,” Priscilla explains. Priscilla and Rosemary live with their mother. Lola has a ranch, but it’s not far away. The three manage to get together a good deal, despite what they say about never having time to talk. It’s a family solidarity of a sort not often found in American homes today, their friends remark, that keeps the Lanes so close to each other. William Keighley, directing “Four Mothers,’ wonders whether that picture and others of the Lemp family series doesn’t mirror the Lane sisters even more than the Lane sisters mirror the fictional characters they play. From “Four Daughters” to the current production in which daughters become young mothers, the family solidarity is highly stressed. Keighley believes that is the element of the series which struck a responsive chord in American audiences, and accounts for the great popularity of the Lemps on the screen. “Of course, we have Gale Page as the fourth daughter, and non-relatives such as Claude Rains, Jeffrey Lynn, Eddie Albert, Frank McHugh, May Robson and so on in the pictures, who may avoid each other like a plague in real life, for all I know,” Keighley admits. “The Lane family life, however, untess I’m vastly mistaken, has had a lot to do with moulding the Lemp family life.” “a \ \ | j SA ty, ees n Vr Yh p, (@ HI ee (ty : oy) ost y "Four Mothers" Delightful Family Film, For Strand “Four Mothers,” the latest of the Four Daughter series will be shown locally at the Strand Theatre starting this Friday. It is a warm, human story of a family who know how to make sacrifices. The film has the same delightful cast that were in the other Lemp family pictures. The four Lemp girls are portrayed by the Lane sisters Priscilla, Rosemary, Lola, and Gale Page. Adam Lemp is played by Claude Rains and the role of his sister is played by that grand old lady of the screen, May Robson. Jeffrey Lynn, Eddie Albert, Frank McHugh and Dick Foran play the respective husbands of the four girls.