Daughters Courageous Reviews

DAUGHTERS COURAGEOUS is almost, but not quite, a sequel to Warner Brothers' very successful FOUR DAUGHTERS, which had the same cast but was about a different family (the Garfield character was also killed off in the earlier film). Warners found another piece of source material, hired most of the same people behind and in front of the camera, and hoped that lightning would strike twice. It almost did. Later, the studio did two honest sequels without Garfield--FOUR WIVES and FOUR MOTHERS--and the film was also eventually remade with the same screenwriters, and with Doris Day and Frank Sinatra in the leads, as YOUNG AT HEART. In DAUGHTERS COURAGEOUS, Rains is an Enoch Arden who returns home after 20 years of roaming the world, having left originally purely out of wanderlust. Now he's back and wife Bainter is about to marry solid-as-cement Crisp. Rains is charming, but not surprisingly his daughters, Page and the Lanes, want nothing to do with him. They try to make his life uncomfortable in the little seaside town of Carmel, California, but Rains perseveres and soon they are under his spell. Garfield is about to marry Priscilla Lane but Rains sees in Garfield a younger version of himself, destined for the nomad's life. Bainter is in a tizzy about what to do. Crisp is respectable and conservative and loves her, but Rains is the father of her children and a man with considerable charisma. She must make a decision, because the wedding date in nearing (Rains has been declared dead and even though he is alive, she is now free to remarry). Rains and Garfield recognize each other for what they are--two men who must see what lies over the next hill, and the next, and the next. They join forces and leave Carmel before their presence causes any further rifts in the family. With the success of CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS just two years before, perhaps the studio thought it would help box office to include the word courageous in the title. It didn't. There was nothing particularly courageous about any of the women in the film and the bravest action is that of Rains and Garfield in leaving town to seek other vistas. All the performances are excellent and the script has many funny lines, setting it far apart from the melodrama of the previous FOUR DAUGHTERS. Garfield gives his usual standout performance, wise-guying his way to Lane's heart and hard-boiled about her attraction to him. When they meet he looks her up and down and then invites her affection with the terse question, "Wanna buy me a beer?"