| Father of Four | |
| Music: | Sven Gyldmark |
| Cinematography: | Rudolf Frederiksen |
| Editing: | Wera Iwanouw |
| Distributor: | ASA Filmudlejning |
| Runtime: | 97 min. |
| Country: | Denmark |
| Language: | Danish |
Father of Four (Danish: Far til Fire) is a 1953 Danish family comedy directed by Alice O'Fredericks and starring Ib Schønberg and Birgitte Bruun. The film is based on the comic strip by Kaj Engholm and Olav Hast. It was the inaugural film in a series of eight Father of Four films made by ASA Films, one each year from 1953 to 1961.
In 1947, Hakon Steffensen, editor of the Politiken newspaper wanted to start running a comic strip that depicted typical Danish life. It was his response to the surge of American comic strips flooding the European marketplace in the post-war years. Steffensen asked cartoonist Kaj Engholm for ideas. Engholm then asked his friend, advertising executive Olav Hast, who proposed the idea. They roughed out the story together of a single father of four children with the oldest daughter running the household, agreeing the father would be a single parent without ever creating a backstory for the mother's absence. In interviews, whenever the authors were asked, "Where is the mother?", they replied, "I don't know but we promise to look into it."[1]
The comic strip first appeared in 1948 and ran daily for 40 years—on the back page of Politiken until 1955, then in the Berlingske Tidende newspaper until 1988. The text was written by Hast until retired from the strip in 1973, after which it was written by a variety of writers. Engholm drew the strip until his death in 1988.
Father of Four was such an enormous success that a sequel Father of Four in the Snow (Far til fire i sneen) was quickly made and released in 1954. Thereafter, seven more sequels were made, one every year until 1961, all directed by Alice O'Fredericks. A ninth film was planned for release in 1962 but was never produced.
In 2005, the series was renewed with the release of Father of Four is Back (Far til fire - gi'r aldrig op) directed by Claus Bjerre and in 2006 with Father of Four: Living Large (Far til fire - i stor stil).
| Year | Title | Original title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1954 | Father of Four in the Snow | Far til fire i sneen | directed by Alice O'Fredericks |
| 1955 | Father of Four in the Country | Far til fire på landet | |
| 1956 | Father of Four in the City | Far til fire i byen | |
| 1957 | Father of Four and Uncle Sofus | Far til fire og onkel Sofus | |
| 1958 | Father of Four and the Wolf Cubs | Far til fire og ulveungerne | |
| 1959 | Father of Four on Bornholm | Far til fire på Bornholm | |
| 1961 | Father of Four with Full Music | Far til fire med fuld musik | |
| 1971 | Father of Four in Good Humor | Far til fire i højt humør | directed by Ib Mossin |
| 2005 | Father of Four Never Gives Up | Far til fire - gi'r aldrig op | directed by Claus Bjerre |
| 2006 | Father of Four: Living Large | Far til fire - i stor stil | |
| 2008 | Father of Four: Home Field Advantage | Far til fire - på hjemmebane | |
| 2010 | Father of Four on Japanese | Far til fire - på japansk | |
| 2011 | Father of Four Back in the Nature | Far til fire - tilbage til naturen | |
| 2012 | Father of Four to Seas | Far til fire - til søs | |
| 2014 | Father of Four Uncle Sofus Returns | Far til fire - Onkel Sofus vender tilbage | directed by Giacomo Campeotto |
| 2015 | Father of Fours Wild Vacation | Far til fires vilde ferie | |
| 2017 | Father of Four On The Top | Far til fire - på toppen | directed by Martin Miehe-Renard |
| 2018 | Father of Four In The Sun | Far til fire i solen | |
| 2020 | Father of Four and the Vikings | Far til fire og vikingerne |