These are wonderful entertainment. Three anthology films consisting of ten adaptations of W Somerset Maugham's short stories, all starring a wide array of familiar faces in parts both large and small and introduced by the man himself. In his introduction to Quartet, he talks of the critical reaction to his writing through the decades, a critical reaction that called him brutal, flippant, cynical, competent and finally, in his sixties, superficial. The qualities that the critics forgot to mention – as evinced by these films – are compassionate, tolerant, understanding, and at times, as with his extolling the benefits of illiteracy (The Verger) or narrating the tale of a workshy, idle, dishonorouble rogue of a brother getting one over on his decent, hardworking, respectable sibling (The Ant and the Grasshopper), throughly irreverent. He is also highly amused by the puffed-up pretensions, the complications, the quirks and the downright silliness of human nature. He says in his introduction to Encore that the purpose of writing his stories was to entertain. These honest, enjoyable adaptations do just that, admirably.
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.
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.
Encore (1951), which was nominated for the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 1952, features 'The Ant and The Grasshopper', about a workshy fop whose freeloading ways are stopped by his dictatorial brother, 'Winter Cruise', in which a middle aged spinster on a cruise ship to Jamaica is determined to be the life and soul of the party, and 'Gigolo and Gigolette', in which Stella and her husband come into the money - for better or for worse.
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Three Films by Somerset Maugham: Trio, Encore and Quartet
