Quartet (1948)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Directors:

Ken Annakin
Arthur Crabtree

Writers:

W. Somerset Maugham (stories)
R.C. Sherriff (writer)

Release Date:

26 October 1948 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Pianist | Critic | Country Estate | Monte Carlo | Based On Short Story

Cast

W. Somerset Maugham	...	Himself - Host
Basil Radford	...	Henry Garnet (segment "The Facts of Life")
Naunton Wayne	...	Leslie (segment "The Facts of Life")
Ian Fleming	...	Ralph (segment "The Facts of Life")
Jack Raine	...	Thomas (segment "The Facts of Life")
Angela Baddeley	...	Mrs. Garnet (segment "The Facts of Life")
James Robertson Justice	...	Branksome (segment "The Facts of Life")
Jack Watling	...	Nicky (segment "The Facts of Life")
Nigel Buchanan	...	John (segment "The Facts of Life")
Mai Zetterling	...	Jeanne (segment "The Facts of Life")
Dirk Bogarde	...	George Bland (segment "The Alien Corn")
Raymond Lovell	...	Sir Frederick Bland (segment "The Alien Corn")
Irene Browne	...	Lady Bland (segment "The Alien Corn")
Honor Blackman	...	Paula (segment "The Alien Corn")
George Thorpe	...	Uncle John (segment "The Alien Corn")

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:S | Sweden:15 | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Gainsborough Studios, Islington, London, England, UK

Company:

Gainsborough Pictures

Trivia:

In an unusual coincidence, Quartet has two actors who would both have eternal associations with the James Bond series. Bernard Lee, who would later play M, and Honor Blackman, who would play one of the most famous Bond girls in Goldfinger (1964), Pussy Galore. Despite the name Ian Fleming on the credits, he is not the same man who wrote the Bond novels.

Quotes:

Himself, Host: In my twenties, the critics said I was brutal. In my thirties, they said I was flippant; in my forties, they said I was cynical; in my fifties they said I was competent - and then, in my sixties, they said I was superficial.

Movie Connections:

Followed by Encore (1951)

Soundtrack:

Impromptu

Don't mention the Jews!

If you wonder why the story "The Alien Corn" has that title, the answer tells you what has been left out, and why it is therefore so bland and restrained as to be superficial and uninteresting. Maugham gave it that title because it was about Jews. The boy's father is not some terribly, terribly dash-it-all, upper-upper English aristocrat. He is a self-made man who has devoted his life to fitting into English society. But, Maugham says, in a line no one who has read this story will ever forget, he betrayed himself with one characteristic which marked him out as entirely un-English: "He loved his son." It is this tension between the man's deep, sensual love of his son and the man's desire to fit in with the English upper class, who do not become artists, or didn't then (sort of thing foreigners and nancy boys do), that gives the story its power and pain, not simply the young man's desire to be an artist conflicting with his lack of talent. And it is a disgrace that, even after World War II, the filmmakers clearly thought that the problem of Jewish assimilation could not be part of a "civilised," classy, English entertainment.