Four's a Crowd (1938)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Michael Curtiz

Writers:

Wallace Sullivan (story)
Casey Robinson (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

3 September 1938 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

Two's company, three's a triangle but "Four's a Crowd!"

Plot:

Robert will do anything to get the big account that has eluded him. His public relations business makes public angels of rich scoundrels...

Plot Keywords:

Public Relations | Wedding | Secretary | Chase | Dog

Cast

Errol Flynn	...	Robert Kensington 'Bob' Lansford
Olivia de Havilland	...	Lorri Dillingwell
Rosalind Russell	...	Jean Christy
Patric Knowles	...	Patterson 'Pat' Buckley
Walter Connolly	...	John P. Dillingwell
Hugh Herbert	...	Silas Jenkins, Justice of the Peace
Melville Cooper	...	Bingham, Dillingwell's Butler
Franklin Pangborn	...	Preston
Herman Bing	...	Herman, Barber
Margaret Hamilton	...	Amy, Dillingwell's Housekeeper
Joseph Crehan	...	Butler Pierce
Joe Cunningham	...	Ed Young
Dennie Moore	...	Buckley's Secretary (scenes deleted)
Gloria Blondell	...	Gertrude, Lansford's 1st Secretary
Carole Landis	...	Myrtle, Lansford's 2nd Secretary

Also Known As:

All Rights Reserved (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #4151)

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

William Dieterle was originally slated to direct.

Quotes:

Jean Christy: I'm in love with a man whom I dislike intensely, who'd cheat me, who'd lie to me, whom I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw the Queen Mary. I...
Robert Kensington 'Bob' Lansford: You... you don't mean me, do you?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)

Soundtrack:

Bridal Chorus (Here Comes the Bride)

Flynn is a screwy swashbuckling revelation

OK! This is not the great hidden screwball masterpiece. The screwy cleverness is pretty obvious, but it's still funny. The story is adequate enough to keep the laughs coming with the right cast. I won't bother too much with the details because you'll get the idea pretty quickly. This is the right cast however and they keep the laughs coming.

For me the highlights are the scenes with Errol Flynn and Rosalind Russell. Russell has always been great as a comedienne and she delivers here as well, but Flynn is a revelation. Like Frank Morgan and Walter Pidgeon before him, he is the guy who not only can, but will, sell refrigerators to the Eskimos. When he turns the charm on Russell it's like being with that cousin who got you into network marketing.

The final act gets the ensemble (de Havilland,Flynn, Knowles and Russell) colliding together like bumper cars with Justice of the Peace, Hugh Herbert misdirecting traffic. He may have delivered the ultimate screwball line ever with "Children, please don't fight! There'll be time for that after your married."

Realistically, it's obvious why the suits would not let Flynn take this direction, he was the king of swashbucklers and this would have weakened the brand. However, this movie shows what he could have been. As a screwball lead he had charm, athleticism, comic timing, sexy looks and a great voice, but so did Grant, Barrymore and Cooper and others and they were kind enough to leave the pirate market to him. A loss but I'll console myself with another hundred views of Captain Blood.