Quartet (1948) + Trio (1950) + Encore (1951)

Three sets of adaptations of Somerset Maugham's short stories, all introduced by Maugham himself and featuring a host of famous acting talent. Features Quartet (Annakin, Crabtree, French and Smart, 1948), Trio (Annakin & French, 1950) and Encore (Jackson, Pelissier & French, 1951)




Quartet (1948) features the stories 'The Facts of Life', 'The Alien Corn', 'The Kite' and 'The Colonel's Lady', with the cast including Dirk Bogarde, Honor Blackman, Mai Zetterling, Ernest Thesiger and Cecil Parker.

Directors: Ken Annakin, Arthur Crabtree, Harold French, Ralph Smart
Cast: W. Somerset Maugham, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Ian Fleming, Jack Raine, Angela Baddeley, James Robertson Justice, Jack Watling, Nigel Buchanan, Mai Zetterling, Jean Cavall, Dirk Bogarde, Raymond Lovell, Irene Browne, Honor Blackman, George Thorpe, Mary Hinton, Francoise Rosay, Maurice Denham, James Hayter, Bernard Lee, Frederick Leister, George Merritt, George Cole, David Cole, Hermione Baddeley, Mervyn Johns, Susan Shaw, Cyril Chamberlain, Cecil Parker

The suave illumination of British middle-class types which has been so successfully accomplished by W. Somerset Maugham in his tales is matched in the motion-picture versions of four Maugham short stories, assembled in the British film "Quartet," which opened at the Sutton last night.

Usually, pictures in which several short stories or vignettes are strung together to make a feature take their character and effect from the cleverness of the surprises achieved at the ends of the tales. Surprise is the usual intention of the modern short story, anyhow. But in this film the unexpected—or the "twist," as they say—is not as marked as the studied and searching illustration of personality.

It is Mr. Maugham's people—so British, so foggy, so stiff and so baldly exposed to the deft jabs of the author's fine irony and wit—who stand out in this picture. It is their rigid adherence to codes and to deep-rooted patterns of behavior which comes most forcibly to the fore. And it is certainly the curious anomalies which their insular behavior precipitates that make for the variety and richness of entertinment which "Quartet" provides.

Perhaps the first vignette of the picture, based on the story. "The Facts of Life," is less of a personality study than it is an exercise in surprise, for it isn't much more than an incident transmitted from a point of view. A stuffy British clubman relates how his callow son has had an experience with an adventuress in Monte Carlo that has him stumped. In every respect, the experience has contravened the father's Victorian advice, to the apparent advantage of the youngster. The father is baffled and upset.

With Basil Radford playing the father, who relates this humorous tale, it is most amusing to see his bewilderment and outrage. Jack Watling plays the boy moistly and Mai Zetterling is fetching as the vamp.

In "Th Alien Corn," the second story, the point is the insensitivity of certain people to the spiritual urge toward art. But because it is rather solemn and rather obvious, it is the weakest of the lot. Dirk Bogarde is nicely impassioned as the scion of a family of great wealth (and little understanding who yearns to be a concert pianist, and Honor Blackman is prettily anguished as the sweet girl who loves him in vain. Francoise Rosay and Raymond Lovell are excellent in secondary roles.

But the third story—a trenchant dissection of lower middle-class life—is a crisply ironic character study, with poignant overtones. Based on "The Kite," it tells us fitly of a simple clerk whose passion for kites arouses his new young wife to fury and his jealous mother to a strong, possessive pull. It is studded with hilarious satire on middle-class social pretense and a keen sense of basic psychology. As the kite-lover, George Cole is fine, while Susan Shaw is touching as his new wife and Hermione Baddeley plays the mother scathingly.

And the final story in the picture, "The Colonel's Lady," is not only the best, but in Cecil Parker's performance of the Colonel we have one of the sharpest satires of the "Blimp" type yet seen. As the obtuse and arrogant husband of a gentle lady who suddenly comes forth as the author of a shocking and revealing book of verse, he gives us a screamingly funny portrait of a deflated toff, with just enough poison in it to make the fellow despicable. Nora Swinburne is splendid as his quiet wife, and several others are excellent in small roles. Except for a rather sticky ending, which has been tacked on, it is worth the price alone.

Of course, there is no continuity among the quartet of tales, and the four have been separately directed for the production of Sydney Box. But the scripts of all four were written by R. C. Sheriff, who has maintained a general uniformity in the spirit and tempo of the over-all work, so that you're likely to leave the theatre feeling that you've seen not only a large-sized entertainment, but a rounded, stimulating view of life.

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Trio (Ken Annakin/Harold French, 1950) comprises 'The Verger', the tale of a church verger who is forced to find a new career when it is revealed he is illiterate; 'Mister Know-All', in which an obnoxious passenger goes on a luxury cruise; and 'Sanitorium', in which romance blossoms between two tuberculosis sufferers (Jean Simmons and Michael Rennie) in a Scottish sanatorium.

Directors: Ken Annakin, Harold French
Cast: James Hayter, Kathleen Harrison, Felix Aylmer, Lana Morris, Michael Hordern, Glyn Houston, Eliot Makeham, Henry Edwards, Anne Crawford, Nigel Patrick, Naunton Wayne, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Clive Morton, Bill Travers, Dennis Harkin, Michael Medwin, Jean Simmons, Michael Rennie, Roland Culver, Raymond Huntley, Betty Ann Davies, Andre Morell, John Laurie, Finlay Currie, W. Somerset Maugham, Andrew Crawford, Marjorie Fielding, Harry Fowler, Shelagh Fraser, Joan Marion

Another delightful screen potpourri, made from short stories of W. Somerset Maugham, such as the British sent over to us last year under the enumerative title of "Quartet," has been whipped up by the same people who produced that other one—Sydney Box and his staff, at Gainsborough Pictures—and considerately sent along. This one is titled "Trio" and it opened at the Sutton yesterday. Unless something cataclysmic happens, it is doomed to enjoy a large success.

For "Trio," just like its predecessor, which played at the Sutton for eight months, is a wonderfully rich and assorted demonstration of characters involved in situations of amusing and challenging vein. Just like its predecessor—and like the stories of Mr. Maugham, too—it is shot through with keen, ironic humor and subtle mockery of the stuffier British types. And even more so than "Quartet," it has a fluid consistency of style and a quality of light sophistication that fully flatters and flips the adult mind.

This is the more fascinating, from a critical point of view, because the three tales presented in this medley are actually slighter than those in "Quartet." Indeed, the first two are no more than character vignettes, crisply topped off with witty comment in little sardonic "twists" at the end. And the third one is simply a study of a group of patients tucked away in a tuberculosis sanitorium in Scotland which is brought to a climax in a bravely dared romance. But the concept and execution of all three items are so thoughtful and adroit that they add up to entertainment which is quite as "filling" as that of a full-length yarn.

Propitiously, in this case, it is virtually impossible to say which is the best of the items, so perfect in its special frame is each. The first of the lot is "The Verger," a whimsical and satiric vignette, based on a story of Mr. Maugham's called "The Man Who Made His Mark." It tells very simply of the verger of a fashionable London church who is "sacked" and goes on to make a fortune because he couldn't read or write. Within it, however, is a vast lot of laughter at social pretense, and it is beautifully played by a fine cast which has James Hayter in the principal role.

"Mr. Know-All," the second item, is equally modest and terse, but quite as revealing of character in a somewhat more acid vein. The central figure in this case is an insufferably immodest man — a bashless buttinsky and bounder—who becomes the bore of the British passengers on an ocean trip. But, in a fashion which it would be unfair to tell you, he reveals that he does have a curious chivalry. Nigel Patrick plays this creature with uncommon force and clarity, and Anne Crawford is lovely as the lady whom he defends.

The last of the lot, called "Sanitorium," is considerably broader in its sweep and achieves some general comprehension of the pathos of a medical irony. In fact, the theme of this story is the effect which a tedious illness has upon people of different calibre—how it brings out the weaknesses in some, such as the petty grousers and escapists in this fable, and how it strengthens and ennobles a few. The ones who face fate with strength and courage here are a beautiful young woman and an erstwhile rake, thrown together by chance at the sanitorium and precipitated into a radiant love.

As a matter of fact, this latter item was considered at one time, we are told, as the stuff for a full-length picture, and well it might have been. But told as it is in this instance, it is brilliantly concise and emotionally full. It is, indeed, this fine economy of expression which is one of the great charms of the whole film. Nothing is obviously labored. Points are made with exquisite clarity but often with the slightest of suggestion. This is a mark of the story-teller's art.

We must add that in the final item Jean Simmons glows with beauty and feminine grace as the girl who elects to be married rather than drag out her life in sickness' clutch, and Michael Rennie is magnificently stalwart as the guardsman who offers her a few brief months of love. Finlay Currie, Raymond Huntley and John Laurie are sure as other characters in this sketch. Harold French directed this item and Ken Annakin directed the other two.

Mr. Maugham himself appears briefly to introduce each tale, not as the guardian of his stories, for they are in eminently talented hands.

Also on the bill at the Sutton is a British Crown Film unit short, entitled "Trooping the Colour," which records in brilliant and stirring style the traditional ceremony of trooping the color—by the Welsh Guards, in this case—on the King's birthday. It makes an oddly appropriate bit of atmosphere to accompany the urbane British stories of Mr. Maugham.

TRIO, from three short stories by W. Somerset Maugham. Screen play by Mr. Maugham, R. C. Sherriff and Noel Langley; directed by Ken Annakin and Harold French; produced by Anthony Darnborough; a Sydney Box Production and a Gainsborough Picture, released here by Paramount. At the Sutton.

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Directors: Harold French, Pat Jackson, Anthony Pelissier
Cast: Nigel Patrick, Roland Culver, Alison Leggatt, Charles Victor, Peter Graves, Margaret Withers, Margaret Vyner, Dorothy Bramhall, Patricia Raine, Campbell Cotts, Michael Trubshawe, Kay Walsh, Noel Purcell, Ronald Squire, John Laurie, Jacques Francois, John Horsley, Joan Harben, Brenda Hogan, Vincent Ball, Carol Wolveridge, John Warren, Glynis Johns, Terence Morgan, David Hutcheson, Charles Goldner, Mary Merrall, Martin Miller, Heather Thatcher, Guido Lorraine

Success with two previous vignette pictures made from short stories by W. Somerset Maugham—"Quartet" and "Trio" were their titles and they brightened their seasons memorably—has encouraged their British producers to have yet another go at a batch of three more random fables from the prolific pen of Mr. Maugham. "Encore" is the title of this latest assortment of tales, introduced by the mildly modest author, which opened at the Normandie yesterday.

Without intending to question the sincerity of Mr. Maugham or the likely popularity of this newest of his portmanteau films, this writer would make the observation that he or his producers—or both—are seeming to let themselves travel on the momentum of their past success. While the stories presented in this picture are clever and diverting little bits, touched with a sly, ironic whimsey and most adroitly played, they are obviously superficial, beneath the ordinary skill of Mr. Maugham, and, at least in the case of one of them, completely commonplace.

Best of the lot is a vignette entitled "Winter Cruise," which recounts the adventures of a maiden lady aboard a freight ship with a company of weary men. Directed by Anthony Pelissier and wryly played by Kay Walsh, Ronald Squire, Noel Purcell and others, this endorsement of boring from within as a technique for winning masculine favors is mildly surprising and droll, though precisely what manifestation of human nature is intended we do not know. It is, at best, a cute example of the mischievous one-act comedy.

A mild sort of sardonic humor is also to be found in a bit called "The Ant and the Grasshopper," which is a jape at conventionality. Nigel Patrick, who played Mr. Know-All in "Trio," is here in the role of a lazy, extravagant fellow who gives his hard-working brother fits by blackmailing and otherwise extorting money from him, only to dismay him eventually by marrying the third richest girl in the world. Roland Culver plays the badgered brother in a submissively harassed state that is really more painful than amusing, considering the insolence with which he is abused.

As for the final item, "Gigolo and Gigolette," it is a curiously old-fashioned story in a grossly sentimental vein. It tells of a lady high-diver, sensation at a Riviera club, who can't do her act when she starts thinking that her husband only loves her for the money she earns. And the sole justification for it, so far as this picture is concerned, is that it offers an easy opportunity for a melodramatic sock at the end. In the role of the lady, however, Glynis Johns is merely routine and Terence Morgan is unsurprising as her darkly suspected spouse.

For those who are not yet acquainted with Mr. Maugham's story-telling on the screen, "Encore" will serve as introduction, but for others it will have the nature of a slack reprise.

ENCORE, from three short stories by W. Somerset Maugham, Screen plays by T. E. B. Clarke, Eric Ambler and Arthur Macrae; directed by pat Jackson, Harold French and Anthony pelissier; produced by Antony Darnborough, A. J. Arthur Rank presentation released here by Paramount Pictures. At the Normanaie.

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