. . . ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, except that Melodramatic Hokum and Sappy Schmaltz have been substituted for FRONT's Gritty Authenticity and Cutting-Edge Realism. The only character who rings True in FOUR SONS is the Fascist German "Major Von Stromm," because "it takes one to know one," and SONS director John Ford often infamously Out-Hitlered Hitler. Just as Adolph had a guy behind-the-scenes engineering his "Final Solution," Hollywood's version of J. Edgar Hoover--John Ford--conspired in the Shadows with Anti-American Traitors whom could have been shot for High Treason, such as Marion Mitchell Morrison and Joe McCarthy, to foment a virtual military coup against the U.S. Constitution, Freedom, and Democracy, outlawing Decency and Intelligent Thought. Ford's decades-long Reign of Terror was so total that it thoroughly traumatized Tinseltown into awarding his Second-Rate Output Umpteen Oscars as they declared him The Movie Messiah. SONS version of World War One comes from Fox Studio, so its relationship to Actual War is the same as Fox "News" connection to Actual News: an exercise in Total Distortion.

It would be interesting to know the history behind this late silent release, which was apparently quite popular at the time but now feels like a somewhat butchered edit of what was originally planned as a "Big Parade"-like epic--I have no idea if that's what actually happened to it, but that's how it plays. (It's possible that the talkie craze had escalated such between its green- lighting and completion that the studio decided a long, elaborate silent would only reduce the number of screenings/box office per day, and ordered the film severely cut.) The cluttered story about a loving Bavarian small-town family and its fate during WW1 is staged with lavish care in virtually every shot, with beautiful lighting/camera-movement effects and frequent large numbers of extras and bit players involved. Yet the story itself hurtles along with so little time for detail and characterization that the emotional impact is blunted. Of the titular four sons, only the one who goes to America is given significant screen time, which greatly lessens the intended impact when siblings become combat casualties. So the primary focus falls on their widowed ma, a Mother Macree type (curiously, Ford made another film of that precise name the same year) whose selfless suffering over the years is portrayed gracefully, yet is a rather one-note and predictable characterization to base the entire film around. And the villainous German officers who send her boys off to their deaths are even more caricatured "Dirty Hun" types, complete with omnipresent sneers and monocles. Scene by scene, "Four Sons" is directed in such a virtuoso fashion, and the production so ambitious in story arc and physical scale, that it feels like a leisurely, sentimental but masterly 2 1/2 hour epic that unfortunately somehow got reduced to a 90-minute highlight reel with little nuance or breathing room. That Ford could do better is clear from such films of the same era as "The Iron Horse" and "3 Bad Men." "Four Sons" is still well worth seeing, for its visual qualities in particular as well as numerous effective individual sequences. But it plays like the truncated shell of something that was originally planned as a much more expansive project.

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.

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?