Film Review
In the 1940s, the anthology film was a comparatively new and untried
phenomenon and it was largely down to the success of
Quartet, a compendium of four short
films based on stories by William Somerset Maugham, that this kind of
film took off and became a popular entertainment in its own right in
the 1950s. There had been some notable earlier anthology films -
Julien Duvivier's
Un carnet de bal (1937) and
Marc Allégret's
Parade en sept nuits (1941) in
France,
Dead of Night (1945) in the UK
- but it was
Quartet which
brought legitimacy to the genre and provided a bankable format that
others were quick to emulate: three or four separate stories, usually
linked by a common theme, each featuring its own cast with a few big
name actors, each scripted and directed by a separate team. Such
was the popularity of
Quartet
that two other collections of Maugham stories swiftly followed:
Trio
(1950) and
Encore (1951).
Somerset Maugham's punchy short stories lend themselves naturally to
the anthology film. Considering how many of Maugham's stories
have been adapted for cinema you might almost suspect that the writer
had this in mind when he wrote them.
Rain
(1932),
Of Human Bondage (1934),
The Moon and Sixpence (1942)
and
The Razor's Edge (1946) are
just four of the many screen adaptations of Maugham's novels and short
stories that have been successfully made into films, their popularity
deriving as much from their author's gift for storytelling as his
penchant for observation, to say nothing of his acid wit. Going
by Maugham's own words in the film's introduction,
Quartet comprises four of his
favourite short stories, and curiously what connects them is a theme
that runs through most of his work - men portrayed as victims of the
female sex.
In
The Facts of life, the
first and most unashamedly comical of the stories, a juvenile Jack
Watling falls prey to scheming adventuress Mai Zetterling, and it is
purely by chance that he comes out on top - by disregarding his
father's helpful advice he enjoys a bout of spurious good fortune that
will doubtless set him up for a lifetime of disillusionment at the
hands of womankind. George Cole's experience of women in
The Kite, the third and most
satisfying of the stories, is much grimmer - torn between a
psychotically possessive mother (Hermione Baddeley at her most
gratifyingly evil) and pathologically jealous wife, the only freedom he
enjoys is flying a kite, an addiction that ultimately seals his fate as
the little boy who will never be allowed to leave home.
The Alien Corn, the most
pessimistic of the four stories, also depicts a young man seeking
escape from his stifling milieu. Dirk Bogarde's dream is to
become a concern pianist, but Honor Blackman's kindly intervention ends
with his dreams turning to ashes when a regal Françoise Rosay
enters the fray and shows him up for the mediocrity he is. The
fate of Cecil Parker in
The
Colonel's Lady, the closing instalment in this quartet of
misogynistic mirth, is no less scathing of female dominance over male
inferiority. For over twenty years the Blimp-like Colonel Parker
has lived a happily dull and uneventful life with his dowdy wife and
the discovery that she has just published the most scandalous
erotic novel since
Lady Chatterley's
Lover is the most shocking bit of news he has every had to
contend with. Struck by the novel's searing authenticity, Parker
concludes that his wife must have had a secret lover, a scenario that
he can barely comprehend. What right-minded man could possibly be
interested in such an inconsequential example of womanhood?
R. C. Sherriff, himself a well-regarded playwright and author, does an
admirable job of adapting Maugham's stories, retaining much of the
writer's original dialogue, but he commits the unpardonable sin of
altering the ending of two of the stories. To
The Kite Sherriff tags on an
unconvincing coda, presumably to make it more acceptable to a
mainstream cinema audience, and
The
Colonel's Lady ends with a shock revelation that is scarcely
credible. These sentimental embellishments do nothing to enhance
the stories and it is surprising that Maugham, no great sentimentalist,
sanctioned them. The cruel edge that gives Maugham's original
stories their distinctive character is blunted through a cowardly
misconception that cinema audiences would only accept a film with a
tidy happy ending.
Quartet's main delight is the
ensemble of acting talent that it gathers together for our amusement -
an ensemble that includes not only some of Britain's best-loved
character actors (Naunton Wayne, Mervyn Johns, Bernard Lee, Hermione
Baddeley, Cecil Parker, Ernest Thesiger, Wilfrid Hyde-White) but an
abundance of fresh-faced talent that would help to revitalise British
cinema in the 1950s - Dirk Bogarde, Honor Blackman, Jack Watling,
George Cole and James Robertson Justice. It's probably unfair to
single out one actor for particular praise, since every performer in
this illustrious cast is on fine form, but French acting legend
Françoise Rosay stands out and is at her most powerful in the
scene in which she crushes Bogarde's hopes into dust, not through
malice but through an almost saintly devotion to artistic
integrity. It is one of the most brutal scenes of any British
film, but also one of the most poignant as you feel Rosay suffers more
than Bogarde as she delivers her damning judgement.
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Ken Annakin film:
Trio (1950)
Film Synopsis
The writer William Somerset Maugham introduces adaptations of four of
his popular short stories. In
The
Facts of Life, 19-year-old Nicky Garnet blithely ignores three
pieces of advice given to him by his well-meaning father before he sets
off for Monte Carlo to compete in a tennis tournament: never gamble,
never lend money to anyone and never have anything to do with
women. After winning a small fortune at the roulette wheel, Nicky
lends money to an attractive young woman, Jeanne, who later gains his
confidence and lures him back to her apartment with the intention of
robbing him of his winnings. The scheme backfires and Nicky ends
up richer than he started out. In
The Alien Corn, George Bland tells
his parents on his 21st birthday that he intends becoming a concert
pianist. Naturally his family are appalled by this revelation -
George was to have taken over the running of his father's large country
estate. George's cousin Paula persuades his parents to allow him
to follow his dream for two years, on the understanding that he will
give it up if a professional pianist judges he is not not good
enough to make a success of his chosen career. In
The Kite, Herbert Sunbury marries
Betty against the wishes of his wildly possessive mother. The
latter wins back her son by reawakening the passion for kite-flying
that he has had since he was a small boy. In
The Colonel's Lady, an
ex-military man is astonished to learn that his humdrum wife has
written a book of verse that has become not only a bestseller but the
talk of the town. Curious to find out more, the colonel probes
his mistress on the subject and discovers that the book is an erotic
romance recounting a passionate love affair that is so vivid it might
almost be real...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.