Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

Console best movie i've ever seen.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

kidboots Expressionist cinema hit Hollywood in a big way in the mid twenties. With the release of such European masterpieces as Fritz Langs' "Metropolis", Mauritz Stiller's "The Saga of Gosta Berling", Murnau's "The Last Laugh" and "Variety" and of course "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari", Hollywood became very self conscious and, for a time turned to Europe for inspiration. No studio embraced this exciting new cinema more than Fox studios - William Fox signed F.W. Murnau and gave him a free reign to direct the film "Sunrise". Even John Ford, who was heavily influenced by D.W. Griffith, changed and slowed down his style in "Four Sons" to match Murnau. Sets of the small village in "Sunrise" were re-used for the New York sequences in "Four Sons". The script was also taken from a "stream of consciousness" screen treatment by an uncredited Herman Bing.This movie is slow and sentimental (but in a nice way), telling the story of Mother Bernle and her four sons - Frans (Ralph Bushman), a soldier, fun loving Joseph (James Hall), Johann (Charles Morton), a blacksmith and Andreas (George Meeker), a goat herd. The mood is instantly darkened when Major Von Stromm gets off the train - uniforms not buttoned correctly and stray animals are a source of irritation to him. Joseph, who is yearning to go to America, also falls foul of him for dropping hay from a wagon. That night there is a big birthday celebration for Mother Bernle - the last piece of happiness before the war comes.Joseph, with money his mother has given him goes to America but even though his letters are full of his new family and the store he now manages, he can never forget the indignity he suffered at the hands of Von Stromm and as soon as America enters the war he enlists. For once adding dialogue to a silent film gives "Four Sons" one of it's most powerful moments, when in the trenches, Joseph hears a soldier calling "Mutterchen" - "little Mother" and when he goes to his aid, finds it is his brother, Andreas, dying. After this the film slips into triteness - instead of finishing with the mother's reunion with Joseph, there is about 20 minutes of the mother's efforts to pass an English exam to migrate to America, her problems at Ellis Island (she is made to look like a naughty schoolgirl as she attempts and fails to recite the alphabet) and the "lost in the big city" scene, where a kindly policeman directs her to Joseph's home. I think the film would have been more heartfelt without the last part.Frans - Ralph Bushman - Francis X. Bushman's son, this was probably his most prestigious film and his name was usually found down the cast list. Johann - Charles Morton was a leading man of the late silents/ early talkies but by the mid 30s his career had fizzled out.Andreas - George Meeker - "Four Sons" was the first in a long career that stretched to the early days of TV. For me his most memorable role was as Sidney Fox's straitlaced fiancé in "Strictly Dishonorable" (1931).Joseph - James Hall, in 1928, had the film world at his feet (he was yet to star in "Hell's Angels"). He was a great bet for film stardom but booze got in the way. By the time he made "Millie" he looked bloated and old (he was only 31) and he made his last film in 1932.Highly Recommended.

bkoganbing Other than The Iron Horse we rarely see John Ford's silent films. But in viewing Four Sons we can certainly spot a lot of stylistic traces and themes that mark Ford's more well known sound films.Before The Iron Horse Ford was a director of Grade B westerns mostly starring Harry Carey. After The Iron Horse Ford started doing other kinds of films. A story with a German setting one might think would be unusual for Ford, but you examine it closely this film is as sentimental as any of his Irish films. And Margaret Mann who played the mother of the Four Sons was a harbinger of such later mother characters in Ford films as Olive Carey, Irene Rich, and the grandmama of them all, Jane Darwell.Watch also how Ford handles the military sequences in both the German and American settings. The cultural differences are there, but the military way is universal. John Wayne is listed in a bit role as an Officer and I think I spotted him during a scene at a railway station where a particularly nasty Teutonic major played by Earle Foxe. Wayne I believe is one of his aides.The story is a simple one Margaret Mann is a widow with four grown sons in a village in Bavaria. The sons are James Hall, Charles Morton, Ralph Bushman, and George Meeker. Hall has been in communication with a friend in America urging him to emigrate from Germany and he does. Hall does achieve the American dream, opening a successful business, marrying June Collyer and giving Mann her first grandchild. Then World War I comes and that's the rest of the story as Paul Harvey used to say.Four Sons holds up well even after 80+ years. Mann's trials and tribulations as a mother certainly is a universal theme. And the ending is as happy and sentimental one as John Ford ever devised in any of his films.

MartinHafer When this film begins, you'll no doubt notice how beautiful the cinematography is as well as the accompanying musical score. Although this is a silent film, technically it is lovely--one of the prettiest silents I have ever seen--and I have seen a ton of them! The way shots were framed, the camera angles and the composition were perfect. All this is very evident--even with a print that is far from perfect.The next thing I noticed was the look of the film itself. Perhaps it was because the film was made only a decade after WWI, but regardless, the look of the villages, the characters and the costumes were great. The muttonchops, the clothes, the haircuts, the buildings--everything looked as if it were filmed in Bavaria at about 1910. As a former history teacher, I had to admire this attention to detail.The story is about a family in which a widow has four sons. One of them, a gentle soul, will eventually go to America and the other three good sons will stay behind. Ultimately, you know that this will bring the three into conflict during WWI--but all this is much later in the film. The only inkling of this are scenes involving one son (who is in the military) and some nasty stereotypical career German officer who struts about the town-showing his contempt for pretty much everyone--an obvious allusion to German militarism.Later, when the war comes, the family is destroyed. Three sons fight for the Germans and the fourth fights for his adopted land, America. This is all very touching and sad. There is even a scene where the American son meets one of his dying brothers on the battlefield. It, too is touching, but also a bit ridiculous--after all, what were the odds against such a meeting?! Following the war, the three sons who fought for Germany are dead and the surviving son returns to America. Soon, he sends for his mother and in a touching series of scenes, she's off to a new land. Oddly, to get into the country, according to the film, a person needed to know the alphabet! And, since she is unschooled, this poses a bit of a problem. In an odd mix-up, however, she leaves Ellis Island and gets lost in the crowd--not knowing the language and having no idea how to find her beloved Joseph. Fortunately, all is well--leading to one of the finest and most sentimental endings I have ever seen.Overall, a wonderful silent--one of the best. It not only is technically well made, but is incredibly sentimental and shows an aspect of American history that has been mostly forgotten. A great film--one of the best of the era--yet sadly few today have heard of it. So why is this film currently only rated 6.9 on IMDb?

Steffi_P In late 1920s Hollywood there was a brief craze for German cinema, especially at Fox, who had recently appropriated FW Murnau. It was no surprise then that, as well as bringing over the genuine article, the studios would also begin cranking out a few pictures that were Germanic in setting if not in style. Four Sons also takes advantage of the trend for World War pictures after the success The Big Parade.As well as directing Four Sons, John Ford was also the producer, which is bit of a mixed blessing. With the director allowed greater executive control you get all the best and worst of the free-range Ford. As has often been remarked, Ford had "economy of expression" – that is, the ability to convey information and story in as few shots as possible. The flipside of this however is that he did tend to get bogged down with comedy scenes, or in this case restating and reinforcing the sense of rural simplicity and family unity until it becomes more monotonous than moving. The comic moments are particularly weak in this picture – just fat men with moustaches and Prussians with monocles being stereotypically Teutonic.But one great advantage of having Ford as producer is that the picture is relatively free from unnecessary intertitles. All the great silent directors were of course skilled visual storytellers and Ford is no exception, and of course different screenwriters vary in their wordiness, but the frequency and necessity of intertitles would ultimately be down to whoever was in overall charge of the production. Ford has here cut down the title cards to a minimum, and so we get some great little moments such as the postman turning the first letter over in Mother Bernle's hands to let us know that she cannot read, or the villagers approaching the postman to find out if is their family who is to receive the black envelope – moments which would have been ruined by a load of intertitles in many other productions of this era.And the visual style of Ford's pictures was by now more or less fully developed. It's interesting to see here how in Ford's world there is no midpoint between town and country. We don't see, for example, the village framed by surrounding hills or fields, or even against the sky. The village itself is the frame and the background, as if to make it an enclosed and totally civilized space. In contrast, whenever Ford shot a scene out in the wilderness he emphasised its openness – although Four Sons never really gets out in the open air so you don't see that here.While Four Sons may be somewhat awash with sentimentality, Ford's simplistic approach of showing the tenderest moments with delicate shot composition does at least allow the picture some dignity. For example, he uses the overhead light to throw an almost heavenly glow over the family meal scene, then later echoes this with the shot of Mother Bernle grieving in a shaft of daylight. The most effective shot of all though is when Joseph says goodbye to his wife before going off to war. Ford goes against convention by filming the couple from behind in long shot, and the beauty of this moment almost makes me forgive all the other flaws of the picture. It's also a good decision not to show their faces, because James Hall was not a particularly good actor, as we can see in the scene where he returns home again.In spite these touches of brilliance, the picture as a whole is weakened because it continually bombards us with either sentiment or tragedy. Of course, cinema would be dull indeed without poignancy, but poignancy only works in small doses. Saturate a picture in emotions and the individual tugs lose impact. Four Sons is a good work for Ford the director, but this fact doesn't quite save it from the poor judgment of Ford the producer.