best movie i've ever seen.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

" . . . 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.)

'Four's a Crowd' could have been a great film, and should have been a great film. With a cast like Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland and Rosalind Russell and a director like Michael Curtiz, 'Four's a Crowd' promised much.While not a terrible film, far from it, the promise wasn't completely lived up to due to try-too-hard execution. There are strengths in 'Four's a Crowd'. It looks good, very nicely shot in black and white and attractively mounted. The music suits well and pleasant to hear in its own right. The script does have its funny moments, especially in the first fifteen minutes and the ending's a good surprise.Most of the cast do a good job. Flynn does show a charismatic, witty and easy-going flair for comedy, while Russell blisters in her best moments. Walter Connolly is amusingly eccentric, and Patric Knowles looks more comfortable than usual.Less good is De Havilland, who is cast against type as a ditz and is all childish annoyance and no charm. Curtiz's direction is uneven, good in some of his direction of the actors and in the first fifteen minutes but tends to lose control when the film gets busier.The script's humour doesn't come consistently and lacks bite, due to being over-stuffed and over-cooked, a few parts a little repetitive. The story is too busy and has too many complicated schemes, hindered even further by the hurriedly frenetic pacing which makes the busiest moments borderline confused.Overall, watchable and most of the cast do well but too over-stuffed and over-complicated, hence what was meant by try-too-hard execution. 6/10 Bethany Cox

In this film, Errol Flynn plays a publicity man and ex-newspaper editor, Patric Knowles plays the owner of a newspaper, Rosalind Russell a star reporter and Olivia DeHavilland plays...well,...an idiot. While I could try to explain the plot as well as how all these characters come together in the film, I'd rather not--as the film is a super-frenetic mess. I am a huge fan of Errol Flynn as well as Olivia DeHavilland, so it came as quite a surprise that I enjoyed this film as little as I did. The biggest problem was that despite all the star power and the direction of the great Michael Curtiz, the overall effort is pretty awful and is only saved by a few moments here and there (provided mostly by Flynn and Walter Connelly). The stars and script try too hard--making the film very shrill and pushy. This is because the film is too high-paced and the script too busy--often resulting in all the main actors talking loudly over each other (not a fun experience at all). Now SOME films with these qualities work (such as MY GIRL Friday or BRINGING UP BABY), but this one does not because the script is poor plus Miss DeHavilland is cast in one of her worst roles ever. While Miss DeHavilland was wonderful in roles in such notable films as CAPTAIN BLOOD and GONE WITH THE WIND, here she plays against type. Instead of the usual sweet character, here she plays a ditsy dame and it just never works and seems, like the rest of the film, very forced. Katherine Hepburn could pull this off, DeHavilland could not.The bottom line is that the stars of this film made much better films and you should see them instead. In particular, Flynn, Knowles and DeHavilland all appeared in one of the greatest films of the era, THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD. So it's obvious with better direction (sorry, Curtiz just doesn't have it here, though he was usually a wonderful director--particularly in romances and adventure films) and writing this SHOULD have been a lot better considering the money Warner Brothers spent to bring all these stars together.

This is certainly a film that has not stood the test of time so when they say "Why don't they make movies like they used to?", I am sure they were not referring to this film. The plot is silly and very hard to really get interested in, and the 90 minutes it runs for is certainly long enough. I know believability should not come into it, but this one really stretches the imagination too far. If we saw the dogs chase Errol Flynn once more, I would have had to turn it off! The role they gave Olivia de Havilland was an insult to her ability, and the same could be said For Rosiland Russell, but there was more meat in her character so it was not as much a travesty. Patric Knowles had about his biggest role, and unfortunately for him, it did not work too well. Some of the character actors in supporting roles were adequate. It proved to me that when partnered with Flynn, Miss de Havilland should have insisted on Adventure or Western scripts.