Quartet (1948)

Not Recommended

UK

Feature Film

Directors: Ralph Smart, Harold French, Arthur Crabtree, Ken Annakin

Writers: R.C. Sherriff, W. Somerset Maugham

Cinematographers: Ray Elton, Reg Wyer

Composer: John Greenwood

Cast: Jack Watling, Mai Zetterling, Dirk Bogarde, Honor Blackman, George Cole, Susan Shaw, Hermione Baddeley, Cecil Parker, Nora Swinburne

Adapted from a quartet of W. Somerset Maugham stories, this is generally rather uninspired fare: The Facts of Life, in which a greenhorn tennis player encounters a beautiful grifter in Monte Carlo, is decidedly bland; The Alien Corn is a silly tale about an aristocratic young gentleman, determined to become a concert pianist; The Kite, about a young man struggling to tear himself away from his mother and the eponymous plaything when he gets married, is equally silly but entertainingly so; and finally The Colonel's Lady, which sees a seemingly autobiographical book of poetry raise questions about marital fidelity, is by far the best of the bunch and, perhaps, the only part really worth watching. Iain.Stott