Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

The last of the Warner Brothers movies about the Lemp sisters has three of the four mothers. And they are carrying on the family tradition of having daughters. With four daughters, three daughters and his sister May Robson around will Claude Rains ever get a grandson.Some of the usual family problems are there as the daughters go through the adjustment to marriage. Jeffrey Lynn and Priscilla Lane aren't sure Lynn should take a job offered him in Chicago. Dr. Eddie Albert is just too busy at the research lab and Rosemary Lane is feeling neglected. Dick Foran and Gale Page seem on an even keel. Most successful is Frank McHugh and Lola Lane who got in on a real estate boom and sold a lot of shares to townsfolk through Claude Rains's good name.While McHugh and Lola Lane are visiting from Florida a hurricane and tidal wave wipe out that community McHugh was talking up. McHugh is flat broke and a lot of the town 's citizens have taken it on the chin.As is usual for the Lemps daughters and sons-in-law band together to get the family through the crises, big and small.Family patriarch Claude Rains who in his career played an astonishing range of roles that included two members of the Bonaparte family and Julius Caesar has the most normal part in his career that of Adam Lemp. I'm sure he must have liked the change of pace.After almost 80 years Four Mothers still holds up well as good family entertainment.

...where there would be worksheets with 4 drawings and you would have to select the one which didn't belong. Well that's why this film series is such a mess. There were 4 films in a series: "Four Daughters" (1938), "Daughters Courageous" (1939), "Four Wives" (1939) and "Four Mothers" (1941). And even though they had almost all the same actors (with the notable exception of Fay Bainter), in "Daughters Courageous" the actors play different characters in a different setting. And if you don't know this -- as I didn't when I started watching -- this is a pretty confusing film. What happened to the mother; oops, different characters. What happened to the father that instead of deserting his family, he now seems to be the perfect father; oops, different characters.The cast here is likable enough: Claude Rains as the musician father, Eddie Albert as one husband who's a scientist, May Robson as the aunt, Frank McHugh as another husband, Dick Foran as another husband, the Lane Sisters as the wives (along with Gale Page). No one is particularly great or bad; they all do their jobs.The plot seems slapped together. McHugh sells shares in a real estate project in Florida which is swept away in a hurricane. The whole town has invested in the sunken project. The father (Claude Rains) decides he will pay back everyone in the community for their lost investment...although that seems to get lost in the plot before the end of the film. The highlight is that Rains conducts the symphony orchestra...although I fail to see what that has to do with the lost investments. At least they live happily ever after.Pass this one by. Instead watch the really good film in the series -- the one that doesn't fit -- "Daughters Courageous".

Pet Peeve: miss-using and over-using the phrase, "had very little to do." Someone picked that up from a professional critic and it keeps getting passed around. It's not a catchall phrase. Does that really apply here? This is the same group carrying the movie as before. It's a big family, and the immediate members are the focal points. There are four daughters, after all. The husbands are naturally lesser support figures. There is a problem with this one in particular, but let's s try to be accurate about it. Actually, most take issue with this particular script. It's not the distribution of labor; it's what the writers did this time. Perhaps there was criticism that the family was too squeaky clean or something along that line. They just seemed to disassemble everyone, only to put them back together again - quite artificially in both cases. Whatever it was, it was not effective. If you like hanging out with the gang in general, you might enjoy this one for that reason. But, if you want to remember them pretty much as they were, best to skip this one.

Four Mothers (1941) ** (out of 4) Claude Rains along with Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane and Gale Page return for this second sequel to Four Daughters but it's clear the studio was desperate for cash. This time out the family finds themselves falling apart after they lose all their money due to a hurricane. WIll they end up broke or will things work out for them? I'm pretty sure you already know the answer to that so in the end this is a pretty worthless film that only has some strong acting for it. Rains delivers his strongest performance of the series and the Lane girls do just fine as well. The supporting plays like May Robson, Dick Foran and Jeffrey Lynn are also back and they too do fine work but the screenplay gives them very little to do.