If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Producer: Robert Sherwood. Copyright 18 February 1941 by Columbia Pictures Corp. New York release at the Radio City Music Hall: 27 March 1941 (ran one week). U.S. release: 18 February 1941. U.K. release: 4 August 1941. Sydney release at the State: 3 October 1941. Australian release: 9 October 1941. 9 reels. 7,215 feet. 80 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Couple hire French governess to look after their four sons. Wife dies…COMMENT: A boring and screamingly dull women's picture, enlivened only by the get-up-and-go of Susan Hayward's incredible impersonation of a mindlessly evil vamp. Her tenth film appearance and her first characteristic role — she begged Ratoff for the part. Mind you, her performance does not carry with it the smallest atom of conviction — and its realism is further vitiated by her ludicrous hair style and general gawkiness of figure. It's obvious that photographer Peverell Marley has taken no great pains with her. (Marley's particular forte was making plain girls look glamorous). Instead he has lavished all his attention on Miss Bergman, who is made to shine like a statue of modest and radiant womanhood.Adam Had Four Sons, the second of Bergman's U.S. films, re-enforced the screen image established by her first, Intermezzo, also directed by Ratoff. She followed with Rage in Heaven, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Casablanca, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gaslight, Spellbound, Saratoga Trunk, The Bells of St Mary's and Notorious — a remarkable succession of hit films — not a single box office dud among the lot of them — until her luck changed completely with Arch of Triumph (1948), the even more disastrous Joan of Arc, the equally unpopular Under Capricorn (Hitchcock's only box office failure), and finally Stromboli and the affair Rossellini put paid to the first decade of her Hollywood career.For Ingrid Bergman, Adam Had Four Sons was the stepping-stone to glory. For co-star Warner Baxter, it was almost the end. He made but one more "A" feature, Lady in the Dark. After playing Adam he suffered a complete nervous breakdown. Thereafter he was signed by Columbia for the low-budget Crime Doctor series which he continued until his death in 1951. His performance as Adam is colorless, to say the least.The other players are rather overshadowed by the three principals. Fay "King Kong" Wray has a particularly small and unimportant role, but Helen Westley is effective in her brief scenes as the matriarchal Philippa. Of the sons, Richard Denning and Johnny Downs come off the best. The others make little impression.As in Intermezzo, Ratoff's direction is slow, heavy-handed and ruthlessly routine. Ratoff is undoubtedly the most uneven director who ever handled a megaphone, his work varying from the heights of Rose of Washington Square, the style and flair of Irish Eyes Are Smiling, the inventively quirky Where Do We Go Form Here?, the suspenseful Moss Rose and the virtuoso brilliance of Black Magic, to the mediocre The Corsican Brothers; to the wasted opportunities of The Heat's On and The Men in Her Life; to the downright crass and embarrassing Song of Russia. The remarkable thing is that Ratoff's dizzying ups and downs follow no discernible pattern. All we can say with confidence is that Adam Had Four Sons is not one of his livelier efforts. In fact, he does nothing. He just plonks the camera down and lets the players give us full-blast all the patriotic platitudes ("It's a great privilege to be living in America") and sentimental clichés ("I am afraid I will have to let you go") of a trite and familiar script.Aside from Marley's soft photography and some attractive sets, the other behind-the-camera credits are equally unimpressive. The film editor could certainly have trimmed a lot of the footage; the music score is pedestrian; the montages strictly routine.The film was produced by Robert C. Sherwood (not the playwright Robert E. Sherwood) on a very modest budget.

A rich family hires a governess to look after its four sons, and she stays with the family even after the sons are grown. The plot is simple but silly; it would have played better as a comedy. It's not clear why the sons need a governess after becoming young adults. This was Bergman's first American film, and she is fine as the French (not Swedish!) governess. Baxter as the father and Denning as one of the sons are also OK. Hayword, on the other hand, is a riot in an over-the-top performance as the wife of one of the sons who's not only a gold digger, but also a nymphomaniac. She greets her in-laws by kissing them on the mouth, as Ingrid looks on in horror.

You'd think that with Ingrid Bergman and Warner Baxter that this film would have been a lot better. Sadly, the film suffers from difficult to believe characters as well as a major plot problem that makes some of the characters seem brain-addled.The film begins with Ingrid Bergman coming to work for the Stoddard family. Everything is so very peachy and swell--the family adores Bergman and things couldn't be more perfect. Well, that is until the mother (Fay Wray) dies, the stock market crashes in 1907 (wiping out the family's fortune) and Bergman is forced to go back home to France. This portion of the film is a bit sticky sweet, but not bad.Later, after the family's fortunes have improved, Bergman returns. The four boys are now all grown and there isn't really a conceivable reason why they'd hire her once again as a governess. But, briefly, everything is swell once again. But, when WWI occurs, the four all go to war--gosh! In the midst of this, one of the sons (David) brings home his new wife (Susan Hayward). Miss Hayward's character is as black and white as the others, though while they are all good and swell, she's obviously a horny she-devil. To make things worse, she comes to live in the family home while David is at war.Now here is where the movie gets really, really dumb--brain-achingly dumb. Hayward begins an affair with one of David's brothers but when the father sees a silhouette of the lovers, Bergman enters the room from another entrance and pretends that it was her, not Hayward with Jack! WHY?! Why would any sane person do this to save the butt of an obviously evil and conniving woman? This was exactly the sort of excuse Bergman needed to get rid of the gutter-snipe once and for all! This is just a case of lousy writing and made me mad...and most likely did the same to the audiences back in 1941.The rest of the movie consists of failed opportunity after failed opportunity for Hayward's evilness to be exposed. This just flies against common sense and made the film a silly melodramatic mess. As expected, however, the truth eventually comes out and everyone is swell once again---happy to be one big loving wonderful family minus the slut, Hayward.The film suffers because of poor writing. Hayward's affair made no sense--at least in how it was handled. And, having characters who are so gosh-darn good or evil (with nothing in between) sinks this movie to the level of a second-rate soap. The only thing that saves it at all is the acting---they tried as best they could with a turgid script. Suffice to say that the Columbia Pictures writers who did this film should have been slapped with a dead chicken!

INGRID BERGMAN plays a sensible, warm-hearted governess who has feelings for the head of the household, WARNER BAXTER. His four sons are shown first as boys, and then with the passage of time, as adults facing service in WWI.SUSAN HAYWARD is the bored and flirtatious wife of the youngest son, who can't resist throwing herself at the others when the mood hits her. She does her standard Hayward bit as an amoral and feisty creature who drinks hard and plays around. By contrast, Bergman is sweet and refined, and not above saving a bad situation if it will spare any embarrassment for Baxter. Her nobility is a bit unbelievable in one key sequence where she keeps Hayward's behavior a secret from Baxter.Of the sons, only RICHARD DENNING really stands out in his scenes with Hayward. Likewise, Bergman has her best moments in confrontational scenes with Hayward.But despite some good ingredients for domestic drama, the film seems to have been hurt by some bad editing and comes across as bland rather than compelling.Worth watching to catch Hayward in one of her first showy roles.