JohnHowardReid Producer: Robert Sherwood. Copyright 18 February 1941 by Columbia Pictures Corp. New York release at the Radio City Music Hall: 27 March 1941 (ran one week). U.S. release: 18 February 1941. U.K. release: 4 August 1941. Sydney release at the State: 3 October 1941. Australian release: 9 October 1941. 9 reels. 7,215 feet. 80 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Couple hire French governess to look after their four sons. Wife dies…COMMENT: A boring and screamingly dull women's picture, enlivened only by the get-up-and-go of Susan Hayward's incredible impersonation of a mindlessly evil vamp. Her tenth film appearance and her first characteristic role — she begged Ratoff for the part. Mind you, her performance does not carry with it the smallest atom of conviction — and its realism is further vitiated by her ludicrous hair style and general gawkiness of figure. It's obvious that photographer Peverell Marley has taken no great pains with her. (Marley's particular forte was making plain girls look glamorous). Instead he has lavished all his attention on Miss Bergman, who is made to shine like a statue of modest and radiant womanhood.Adam Had Four Sons, the second of Bergman's U.S. films, re-enforced the screen image established by her first, Intermezzo, also directed by Ratoff. She followed with Rage in Heaven, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Casablanca, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gaslight, Spellbound, Saratoga Trunk, The Bells of St Mary's and Notorious — a remarkable succession of hit films — not a single box office dud among the lot of them — until her luck changed completely with Arch of Triumph (1948), the even more disastrous Joan of Arc, the equally unpopular Under Capricorn (Hitchcock's only box office failure), and finally Stromboli and the affair Rossellini put paid to the first decade of her Hollywood career.For Ingrid Bergman, Adam Had Four Sons was the stepping-stone to glory. For co-star Warner Baxter, it was almost the end. He made but one more "A" feature, Lady in the Dark. After playing Adam he suffered a complete nervous breakdown. Thereafter he was signed by Columbia for the low-budget Crime Doctor series which he continued until his death in 1951. His performance as Adam is colorless, to say the least.The other players are rather overshadowed by the three principals. Fay "King Kong" Wray has a particularly small and unimportant role, but Helen Westley is effective in her brief scenes as the matriarchal Philippa. Of the sons, Richard Denning and Johnny Downs come off the best. The others make little impression.As in Intermezzo, Ratoff's direction is slow, heavy-handed and ruthlessly routine. Ratoff is undoubtedly the most uneven director who ever handled a megaphone, his work varying from the heights of Rose of Washington Square, the style and flair of Irish Eyes Are Smiling, the inventively quirky Where Do We Go Form Here?, the suspenseful Moss Rose and the virtuoso brilliance of Black Magic, to the mediocre The Corsican Brothers; to the wasted opportunities of The Heat's On and The Men in Her Life; to the downright crass and embarrassing Song of Russia. The remarkable thing is that Ratoff's dizzying ups and downs follow no discernible pattern. All we can say with confidence is that Adam Had Four Sons is not one of his livelier efforts. In fact, he does nothing. He just plonks the camera down and lets the players give us full-blast all the patriotic platitudes ("It's a great privilege to be living in America") and sentimental clichés ("I am afraid I will have to let you go") of a trite and familiar script.Aside from Marley's soft photography and some attractive sets, the other behind-the-camera credits are equally unimpressive. The film editor could certainly have trimmed a lot of the footage; the music score is pedestrian; the montages strictly routine.The film was produced by Robert C. Sherwood (not the playwright Robert E. Sherwood) on a very modest budget.

Michael O'Keefe Gregory Ratoff directs this drama set in the early 1900's. Emilie Gallitan(Ingrid Bergman)is a French governess for the wealthy Stodddard family taking care of running the splendid mansion and caring for four boys. The stock market takes a dive wiping out Adam Stoddard's(Warner Baxter)riches. Leaving for France, Emilie is saddened leaving the boys(Robert Shaw, Richard Denning, Johnny Dowds and Charles Lind).As the economy improves, Emilie returns at the beginning of the great World War. The businessman's wife Molly(Fay Wray)has died and the governess realizes that the boys now have a greater need for her. And she herself finds in her heart of hearts...is falling in love with the master of the house. The four sons enter the military and a beautiful young bride-to-be, Hester(Susan Hayward), has come into the picture playing one son again another with a deceitful attempt to disrupt the family dynamic.Tremendous acting from Bergman and Hayward. Other players: Helen Westley, June Lockhart and Pietro Sosso.

kenjha A rich family hires a governess to look after its four sons, and she stays with the family even after the sons are grown. The plot is simple but silly; it would have played better as a comedy. It's not clear why the sons need a governess after becoming young adults. This was Bergman's first American film, and she is fine as the French (not Swedish!) governess. Baxter as the father and Denning as one of the sons are also OK. Hayword, on the other hand, is a riot in an over-the-top performance as the wife of one of the sons who's not only a gold digger, but also a nymphomaniac. She greets her in-laws by kissing them on the mouth, as Ingrid looks on in horror.

bkoganbing I just saw Adam Had Four Sons for the first time and the thing that struck me was that I believe that the model used was Theodore Roosevelt and his four sons. They were approximately the same ages as the four boys in this film. Warner Baxter in his portrayal of Adam Stoddard talked about the same values and family tradition that you would have heard from our 26th president without some of the more boisterous aspects of TR's character. Like TR all of the Stoddard sons serve in World War I, in this case though the youngest only loses an eye instead of being killed. But what if a female minx gets into this all male household and disrupts things? That's Susan Hayward's job here. In one of her earliest prominent roles, Hayward is a flirtatious amoral girl who marries one son, has an affair with another, and starts making a play for the third. It's an early forerunner of the kind of a part that later brought her an Oscar in I Want to Live.I suppose that with as powerful a model of decorum as Theodore Roosevelt was and Warner Baxter portrays, everyone is afraid to tell Father what's going on. The sons and also their governess Ingrid Bergman. Here's where the plot gets a little silly. Bergman is introduced to us as a governess hired by Baxter and wife Fay Wray for their kids. Wray dies and Baxter suffers some financial reversals in business. Bergman has to be let go. She goes back to France and years later comes back to the family when the kids are grown up. I'm sorry, but I can't believe the kids need a governess now. Hayward is quite right when she confronts her that it wasn't the kids who brought her back. In the normal course of things, Bergman would have gotten on with her life. One of the previous reviewers said that a quarter to a third of the film I have was edited out. Possibly that could be the reason for the many plot holes we have.It's too bad that Ingrid and Susan could not have done another film together in the Fifties when Hayward was at her heights and Bergman had just made a comeback.Susan Hayward is the main reason to see Adam Had Four Sons. And I'm willing to believe that a good deal of Ingrid was left on the cutting room floor.