Word: somerset
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Forcibly ejected from the cold and uncompromising confines of a cellar in the House Squash Courts, the Veterans Theater Workshop yesterday whipped through its first complete rehearsal of "Saint Joan" in the luxurious plush of the Hotel Somerset's Princess Room...
...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...
...Razor's Edge (20th Century-Fox) dawdles away several million dollars trying to make a great philosopher out of W. Somerset Maugham and a great actress out of Gene Tierney. Result of all the costly, unsuccessful straining is an earnest, overlong, impressively glossy, frequently dull movie. Novelist Maugham remains an accomplished old storyteller who is not at his best as a camp-meeting evangelist. Miss Tierney is still a toothily pretty young woman who displays fancy clothes with far greater assurance than she displays simple emotions...
What readers are most likely to see in all these stories are qualities that make for engaging reading rather than great writing: a sure professional touch, quiet sophistication, an easy way with the ways of the world-the qualities of a Continental Somerset Maugham...