User Reviews

There seem to be certain rules about "madcap comedy" in the 1930s. It had to center around the idle rich and newspapers frequently played an important part in the story lines...oh yes, and Walter Connolly had to be the rich millionaire father who is bedeviled by the antics of the people around him, be they his daughters (Claudette Colbert in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, Myrna Loy in Broadway BILL and LIBELED LADY, or Olivia de Haviland in the current film, FOUR'S A CROWD. Somehow when Frank Capra used him Connolly was treated with more respect than in the other films. In IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT he was the wise man who saw through the fortune hunting airplane pilot and pushed his daughter into the hands of Clark Gable. But in LIBELED LADY he is a man who is easily impressed by a conniver's claims at being a trout fisherman. In FOUR'S A CROWD he's the nation's richest man, who has a secret passion that is sillier in it's way than trout fishing (which, after all, is exercise).

Connolly is John Dillingwell, who is a very private millionaire who does not care about public relations. His daughter is Olivia de Haviland, who is currently being romanced by newspaper owner Patrick Knowles. Knowles' ace reporter is Rosalind Russell, whose boyfriend is Errol Flynn. Flynn runs a public relations firm, and would love a chance to have Connolly as a client. The film follows how Flynn tries to land this account, and uses Knowles' newspaper to ensnare Connolly.

In the background of this comedy was an actual transformation. In the 1900s the most hated figure in American business was our richest man, John D. Rockefeller. The business savvy tied to tricks and chicanery used by Rockefeller to build up Standard Oil to controlling 90% of the oil refining in the U.S. was done at the expense of countless rivals driven to bankruptcy. Ida Tarbell's HISTORY OF THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY was one of the great (if not fully trustworthy) muckraking books of the Progressive Era. John D. Rockefeller was fully hated. Then, about 1910, Rockefeller hired publicist Ivy Lee to figure out how to get rid of this bad image. Lee was a genius about advertising. He convinced Rockefeller to get involved with turning a huge portion of his fortune into charity. This eventually led to Rockefeller University, the Rockefeller Foundation, medical charities, work at restoring the colonial town of Williamsburg (and the Cloisters in upper Manhattan). It also led to Lee's interesting suggestion to turn the elderly Rockefeller into a "lovable old codger" by giving dimes away as gifts or tips to strangers. And it worked. By the time Rockefeller died in 1937 (at the age of 97) he had become a well-liked figure to the American public.

Flynn uses bad publicity stories to make Connolly so disliked that street children thrown stones at him. He also uses Knowles' newspaper to print anti-Connolly articles (which threatens Knowels' romance with de Haviland. Then at one point he calls Connolly to offer his services. Connolly responds, "I'd be glad to accept your offer...WHEN BANANAS GROW AT THE NORTH POLE!!" Since global warming is not happening in 1938, this portends no business contract. Instead, Flynn uses Knowles to get Flynn an introduction to Da Haviland. And in visiting her, Flynn finds the key to Connolly's heart: he and his servant Melville Cooper have one of the most elaborate toy train sets in America. Flynn challenges Connolly to a contest between his train and Connolly's favorite one. And surreptitiously sabotages Connolly's train's traction ability.

As the relationship between Loy, Powell, Tracy, and Harlow in LIBELED LADY got "twisty" (to say the least), in this film a similar growth of jealousy and confusion renders relations between Flynn, Russell, de Haviland, and Knowles equally confusing at the end - especially when all four end up at Justice of the Peace Hugh Herbert's to get married. The result is four voices in disharmony speaking at once, joined by Herbert (for once not saying "WOO - WOO" as he claps his hands) trying to read through the marriage service once. It is not a great comedy, but it is amusing, and most people will like it.

Copyright 25 May 1938 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. New York release at the Radio City Music Hall, 11 August 1938. U.S. release: 3 September 1938. 10 reels. 91 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Flynn's character was based on the real life Ivy Ledbetter Lee, a colorful publicist who died in 1934. In the film he is a press agent who is pursuing an eccentric millionaire, John P. Dillingwell. The millionaire has a grand-daughter. But the grand- daughter is engaged to the press agent's boss!

COMMENT: Despite a somewhat talky script, this is an absolutely delightful comedy. Curtiz gets around the excessive talk by directing the whole show at a whirlwind pace. Flynn shows a real flair for comedy and delivers wisecracks and snaps with all the skilled timing of a professional farceur.

Curtiz cracks on the pace not only by having all the players deliver their lines 1½ times as fast as normal but by using extremely fast tracking shots, whip pans and such sharp-as-a-tack film editing that if you blink you miss a whole camera set-up. The dizzying tracking shots following the speeding model trains have to be seen to be believed — the tracks must have been laid across a whole sound stage — and the punchy editing in these sequences make them a classic of their kind. (The film is an absolute MUST for model train buffs).

The episode with the two trains is re-staged with two speeding taxi-cabs for the film's climax — less effectively because obviously utilizing the process screen though Curtiz tries to minimize the effect of this faking by fast pacing and cutting and some outrageous near-misses as the characters lean out the windows.

There's even a Curtiz signature shot in the middle of the film as the shadow of the guard rises on the wall above the staircase in Connolly's mansion.

As a publicity agent who "plays hopscotch from one double-cross to another", Flynn is in absolutely marvelous form. His entrance is delayed for a couple of scenes but once on-camera, he creams the rest of the cast — only Connolly is his match. The scene in which he juggles both De Havilland and Russell on the telephone (mostly filmed in one take and ending with a clever 3-way divided screen, the De Havilland and Russell segments of which dissolve to pick up and track in to a close-up of Flynn as the scene ends) had me in hysterics.

Flynn's encounters with all the dogs (both Connolly's and De Hav's) are also most amusing, despite some obvious trickery with a speeded- up camera and a fake doggy tail (which Flynn bites).

Flynn is in fine shape — that's really him doing all the running and taking those falls and balancing on the window-ledge two flights up — no wonder he didn't want to work with Curtiz again. Charming, debonair, witty, fast-talking, it's hard to imagine anyone else who could've played the role with such ease and effectiveness while fully retaining audience identification and sympathy.

Aside from Connolly, the rest of the players are no match for Flynn. Patric Knowles is way out-classed but De Havilland and Russell are in there pitching (Russell can walk fast and talk fast — a good warm-up for His Girl Friday). (Another odd thing is that with its polio references the film foreshadows Russell's Sister Kenny). A great support cast headed by Melville Cooper and Franklin Pangborn and especially Spencer Charters (love him being locked out in the rain — you can catch his forlorn face staring through the glass at the back of a couple of shots). Margaret Hamilton has little to do and Carole Landis is far in the background.

Curtiz stages the scenes not only so they play fast but they look attractive and are most skilfully composed. He even cleverly experiments with having the players lean at an angle — which is highly amusing. And he has all the usual Warner Bros. lavishness with sets and hordes of scurrying extras to back up all this pictorial richness.

Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Rosalind Russell in a screwball comedy? These are the kinds of cast ensembles which unleash the inner fanboy in me. Errol Flynn rarely got the chance in his career to perform comedy and here he proves he was cable of doing Cary Grant-esque comedy on the same level as well, Cary Grant. Sadly Four's a Crowd's lack of box office success prevented Warner Bros from putting him in more comedies

Although The Women is seen as the film which launched Rosalind Russell as a fast-talking comedic actress, Four's a Crowd is the first film in which she plays such a character and her first turn as the working career woman (or "newspaper man" as she refers to herself here) which became synonymous with shades of Hildy Johnson coming through. She takes full advantage of the role, stealing the show with her impeccable timing which reportedly made Olivia de Havilland envious. De Havilland though is tasked with playing a dim-witted character which she performs without coming off as annoying as such characters can easily be.

Four's a Crowd owes a certain debt to Libeled Lady featuring some similar plot trends and themes with its slam on the upper classes, the socialite lifestyle and the desperate lengths newspapers will go to in order to get a story and control the narrative. Even the opening title sequence is taken from Libeled Lady in which the cast do the same arm in arm walk but is full of moments of inspired zaniness to distinguish itself. The model train sequence which lasts for 16 minutes had to have come from creative minds; plus what's funnier in an innocent, cute kind of way than grown men playing with model trains. However, there is one moment in Fours a Crowd which is one of the most bizarre gags I've ever seen in a film in which after escaping from a pack of guard dogs to the other side of a gate, he grabs one of the dog's legs and bites it. I still don't know how to react to it, whether I should laugh or be horrified or both! The plot gets very confusing very fast but in a good way culminating in a finale in which Errol gets the wrong girl at the end! Although the manner in which this happens is screwball antics at its finest.

This has great stars in it, and I focused on their performances which were very solid. The action was dynamic and fast paced. There is a great scene with Errol Flynn with 2 different telephone receivers in his hands and his physical and verbal gymnastics speaking back and forth with the ladies and. A make believe client in the room showed tremendous cooreiatin and talent--- it's worth it for that scene - so very precious!

While it was fast paced, the plot seemed too drawn out and convoluted, about saving a paper, competing for women, dragging people through the mud, saving them in PR. There were so many elements and you had to study to stay on track of it, rather than to relax and watch.

Rosalind Rusell had great repartee and a wonderful actress with comedic timing. I did not feel here relationship with Bob Langford was well developed enough to believe they could be together. I'm not sure Bob Langford (Errol Flynn) was ready to be married to anyone! He was focused on his clients and career, and didn't seem to be seeking it.

While there was a lot of action and funny attempts at physically switching people or moving them around in different settings, I didn't find a lot of it funny. You could tell they were trying, but seemed a lot of effort, a lot of convoluted story. Having said that, these are world class actors and for that alone the movie was solid. They all have lovely, enduring screen presence, talent and delivery.

" . . . and your little dog, too!" during her brief scene here in FOUR'S A CROWD, but "M. Hamilton" is clearly auditioning for her star turn as "Elvira Gulch" (aka, The Wicked Witch of the West) for WIZARD OF OZ the following year. As eight million dollar woman "Lorri Dillingwell's" maid "Amy," the prospective Ms. Gulch eyes Lorri's little whitish mutt with an evil intent so obvious that Lorri's suitor "Bob" immediately secures this endangered beta version of "Toto" in the safety of an upright piano cabinet as soon as Elvira leaves the room. Unfortunately, pianos prove to be few and far between in the Land of Oz, forcing Dot & friends toward desperate measures during their later flick. (The shooting script of FOUR'S A CROWD shows this interchange--Amy: "Should I remove your empty ice cream dish?" Lorri: "Please, and take it with you"--did NOT make the film's final cut.)