by 1941 columbia be a full fledged major studio and could produce a movie with the same technical polish a mgm and paramount or warner . that the best thing that could be say about adam have four son and a leaden soap opera with almost terminally bland performance by ingrid bergman ( top bill for the first time in an american film ) and warner baxter . bergman play a frenchwoman ( this be the era in which hollywood think one foreign accent be as good a another ) hire a governess to baxter four son and stay on ( with one interruption cause by the stock market crash of 1907 ) until the boy be grow men serve in world war i. just about everyone in the movie be so goody good it a relief when susan hayward a the villainess enters midway through  she about the only watchable person in the movie even though she clearly channel bette davis and vivien leigh while it also the first in her long succession of alcoholic role  but the script remain saccharine and the end be utterly preposterous . no wonder bergman turn down the similarly plot the valley of decision four year later .