That time Warner Bros. remade Libeled Lady

Some weeks back TCM ran a day of movies starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. One that I hadn't reviewed before was Four's a Crowd, so I watched it to do a post here.

The opening reminded me a bit of Libeled Lady, with the four main characters all walking down the street together. As for the real action, we don't see Flynn or de Havilland first. That honor goes to Rosalind Russell, playing reporter Jean Christy. She's got a great story, but it's not going to be printed, because her publisher, Patterson Buckley (Patric Knowles), is planning on shutting down the newspaper. Jean knows just the editor the paper needs to keep it going, but that's a former editor: Jean's on-again, off-again boyfriend Bob Lansford (Errol Flynn).

Bob, no longer at the paper, made the switch to public relations, handling the affairs of rich people and making them look better in the eyes of a public that didn't necessarily like them during the Depression. He's currently trying to get the biggest target of them all, John P. Dillingwell (Walter Connolly), but Dillingwell has the good sense not to get involved with PR firms.

Bob sees a chance to get a contract with Dillingwell once Jean informs him of what's going on at the paper. He'll have the paper publish a series of nasty stories about Dillingwell, which Bob can then use to get that contract, after which Bob will use the paper to make Dillingwell look good. Of course, that's if he can even get to see Dillingwell in the first place.

When he gets to the Dillingwell place, he mees John's granddaughter Lorri (Olivia de Havilland), and is immediately taken with her. There's only one minor problem: Lorri is currently in a relationship with Buckley! And God only knows what's going to happen if Lorri were to figure out that the PR campaign is solely for the purpose of enriching Bob.

I mentioned in the title of this post, and early on about the opening credits, that the movie kept reminding me of MGM's Libeled Lady from a few years earlier. Unfortunately, Four's a Crowd comes off like the poor cousin of Libeled Lady in any comparison. I can think of a couple of possible reasons for this.

First is that I think Rosalind Russell is really the only one of the four leads who was a natural for the screwball comedy. Everybody else tries, but seems better suited to other genres. Second is the fact that this was made at Warner Bros. Certainly there has to be at least one good screwball comedy to come out of Warner Bros. (maybe The Bride Came C.O.D.?), but Warner Bros. really seemed more adept at social dramas and action, while a glittering comedy like this was more in MGM's wheelhouse.

Still, everybody tries their hardest, and it's not as though Four's a Crowd is a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that you get the feeling it could have been so much better. Four's a Crowd is available on DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive, so you can watch and judge for yourself any time you want.