Word: maugham
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...this latest production of theirs. To help secure such a huge investment, almost as large a sum of cash has been lavished upon a publicity campaign second in magnitude only to the big. "Due in the Sun" build-up. If you happen to be an admirer of W. Somerset Maugham you may think it was worth all this effort, but if you're not, it will probably just add up to an awfully long three hours...
...Somerset Maugham - accompanied by his secretary, cook, housekeeper, butler and chauffeur-returned after long absence to his villa at Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera, found the second story pretty much a war ruin. He set himself a double deadline for April, hoped by then to have the place repaired and a book finished. A caller found him huddled by the fireplace, repairing a cold with hot grog. The book, said Maugham, would be "the last book of my life ... a romance . . ." and he meant not to dally. "I feel that when a man reaches my age [73 next month...
...sluggishly melodramatic Paris sequences, Clifton Webb is an amusing old expatriate snob, Herbert Marshall plays Mr. Maugham himself and Anne Baxter is a frantically unhappy girl who takes to drink in low Apache dives. Elsa Lanchester is refreshingly expert in a tiny comedy...
...case: the movie technicians-including the director-are far too clever and too efficient for their material; it has become dangerous to let them kick an Idea around-unless it is a very, very robust Idea. By the time 4.000 competent craftsmen have focused their cold lights on Mr. Maugham's little sermon, pulled it through 89 dressy sets, photographed it tenderly from every possible angle and spiced it up with a thrilling musical background, it stands revealed as a rather small, shivering, indecently exposed banality. Hollywood's cameras, always rudely frank about a misshapen nose...
...average age of a novel," said Maugham, "is 90 days...