ADAM HAD FOUR SONS (1941)

Directed by: Gregory Ratoff

Based on the novel "Legacy" by: Charles Bonner

Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Warner Baxter, Susan Hayward, Fay Wray, Richard Denning, Billy Ray, Johnny Downs, Steven Muller, Robert Shaw, Wallace Chadwell, Charles Lind, Bobby Walberg, Helen Westley, June Lockhart, Pietro Sosso, Gilbert Emery, Renie Riano, Clarence Muse, Frank Darien, Guy Usher

81 minutes

(NR - adult themes)

PLOT:

Early 1905, French governess Emilie Gallatin is hired to care of a luxurious family mansion and the four sons of wealthy Adam Stoddard and his wife, Molly Stoddard. Things couldn't be more perfect, until in 1907, first Molly dies, and then the stock market crashes, wiping out the Soddard's fortune. Emilie is forced to go back home to France. The parting is difficult, for the teenager boys - Jack Stoddard, David Stoddard, Chris Stoddard, and Phillip Stoddard - had grown to depend on Emilie more after the loss of their mother, and Emilie had fallen in love with Adam. Seven years later, just before the beginning of World War I, the family's fortunes have improved, and Adam insists with Emilie to return and stay on as part of the family - preserving her from the foreseeable fates of war. The four boys are adults, and they all serve in various branches of the military - Jack Stoddard, David Stoddard, Chris Stoddard, Phillip Stoddard. Meanwhile, David, the second son, brings home his carefree, gold-digging wife named Hester. To make things worse, she comes to live in the family home while David is out at war. Hester degrades Emilie, cons Adam into believing she is a sweet young thing, and cheats on David by attempting to seduce his brother Jack, who will have nothing to do with her. One night, the father sees a silhouette of the supposed lovers, but before he can identify them, Emilie enters the room from another door and pretends that it was her, not Hester, with Jack. This cover-up for Jack will strain Emilie's relationships with both the boys and Adam and makes an easy target of her for the gutter-snipe Hester. The internecine war between the governess and Hester culminates in an out-and-out brawl. Adam unwittingly sides with Hester, who showers crocodile tears on his shoulder (with a telling close-up as she displays a wicked smile over his shoulder) while he comforts her. Hester's malicious personality is revealed to a visiting aunt, Adam's cousin Phillippa, and Hester is exposed as an uncontrollable vixen.

CLIP: