Quartet (1948, Antony Darnborough)
First of three anthology films in which famed author W. Somerset Maugham introduces short films made from his short stories. Each segment is from a different director, but you couldn’t tell… just plays like a classy studio picture all the way through (so that’s the producer’s name up top).
The Facts of Life - dad tells his college son, going to Atlantic City to play tennis, never to gamble, lend money or get involved with women. Son immediately does all three, wins a bundle, goes home with hot girl who steals it in the night. But he saw her and stole it back, accidentally grabbing her entire cash stash along with his winnings.
The Alien Corn - rich kid wants to be concert pianist, makes a deal with his parents and adoring wannabe-girlfriend, he’ll study piano for two years then play and be judged by someone trustworthy - if they say he’s good enough, he’ll devote his life to it, otherwise he has to quit and do something regular. Well he does, and a famous concert pianist comes to the house and tells him he sucks, to the delight of everyone but him.
The Kite - stupid one, dumb guy with awful parents is in jail for abandoning his bitchy wife because she trashed his prize kite. Wife learns to appreciate kites and they’re back together in the end. Katy compared the guy’s awful mother to my mom because Katy is mean.
The Colonel’s Lady - Katy already wrote a long comment about this one - I agree, it’s the only great piece in the bunch.
A pretty alright little movie, full of British people calling each other “old boy” and acting stuffy and proper to each other.
Tags: britain
Katy said,
June 1, 2007 @ 4:09 pm
Not only does Maugham introduce his short stories, he discusses his career, his style of writing, and writing more generally. To me it felt like a philosophical discussion in which he tried to think through the kind of writing he does to explain how it moves to the screen.
My favorite of the four was The Colonel’s Lady, in which a middle-aged wife of a prominent businessman publishes a book of poems describing a middle-age woman’s affair with a young man and his subsequent death, leaving her in her passionless marriage. The film follows her husband as he journeys into London, meeting his friends and mistress, and each person he runs into discusses his wife’s book and suggests that it’s racy, sensual, and fantastic. Rather than sitting down and reading it, he eventually begs his mistress to summarize the narrative, and he finds out the poetry describes an affair. Enraged at the thought of his wife having an affair, he sets out to learn the name of his wife’s paramour (thanks Brandon).
The narrative produces two reactions: first, the husband judges his wife’s potential indiscretion harshly without thinking about his own mistress upon whom he showers attention. The second reaction is about love: how love changes and how we long for what was, but accept what is. The wife’s position should be sad, but somehow her celebration of their memories saves her from being a pathetic female character and shows how strong she is.
The other shorts had nothing on this one.