Entertaining Warners romantic drama. Gruff but lovable musician Claude Rains has four unmarried daughters, played by Priscilla, Rosemary and Lola Lane (a popular singing trio) and Gale Page. Into their lives come boyish charmer Jeffrey Lynn, square but solid Frank McHugh (who I literally only just found out was editor Dorothy Spencer's husband), dependable Dick Foran and methody self-hating John Garfield, whose presence and performance quite unsettle the film. May Robson is Aunt Etta.
It's got a sweet ending. Written by Julius Epstein and Lenore Coffee, from Fannie Hurst story. Couldn't make up my mind whether this is a censor-dodging joke about sex:
"How do you know Mr Ridgefield?"
"I've never heard of him."
"But I don't understand. How did you know his back was bothering him?"
"Well, Mrs Ridgefield looks like the sort of woman whose husband would have trouble with his back."
Photographed by Ernie Haller and scored by Max Steiner.
It was Garfield's debut. Raised by father after mother died when he was seven. Problem kid, took up boxing and acting. He's best known in this house for films noir like The Postman Always Rings Twice, Body and Soul, Force of Evil, Out of the Fog (actually, not sure I've heard of that one before; with Ida Lupino), though Eddie Mueller points us also in the direction of We Were Strangers (1949, Cuban revolution in the thirties, John Huston, with Jennifer Jones), The Breaking Point (1950) a tough version of Hemingway's 'To Have and Have Not', with Patricia Neal, and He Ran All the Way (1951, with Shelley Winters) "an overlooked noir classic that features Garfield's best performance" (most of these titles are now difficult to get hold of). Run afoul of HUAC, refused to name names, was exiled from Hollywood. Died prematurely of heart problems aged 39. Director Abe Polonsky: "He had defended his streetboy's honor and they killed him for it."
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