The Moon and Sixpence [Import]

As a movie, THE MOON AND SIXPENCE is an interesting job. To soothe the Hays office, it legalised by marriage one of Gauguin's affairs, but in general, it sticks to the Maugham novel, using the great Herbert Marshall as a narrator to speak Maugham's words. George Sanders is remarkably convincing as the painter who scorns all human relations in his demonic desire to paint. He actually seems to justify Maugham's description: "The emotions common to most of us simply did not exist in him, and it was as absurd to blame him for not feeling them as for blaming the tiger because he is fierce...he was at once too great and too small for love. Outstanding among famous artists whose lives and loves have fascinated the world is the Frenchman Paul Gauguin. In 1919, a rising young author named W. Somerset Maugham wrote a novel suggested by the curious career of Gauguin; it has since become a minor classic work of fiction. In his book, Maugham never admitted that he wrote generally about Gauguin. But everyone knew he did. In 1941, when United Artists began filming the novel, they received a stern letter from the painter's eldest son, Emile Gauguin, who then lived in Philadelphia. Emile threatened to sue if any Gauguin art was used in the movie, as this would conclusively identify Maugham's disreputable hero with his father. To avoid suit, the movies created fakes.

VCI Entertainment and United Artists present "THE MOON AND SIXPENCE" (1942) (89 mins/B&W/Color) (Dolby digitally remastered) --- Starring George Sanders, Herbert Marshall, Doris Dudley and Steven Geray --- Directed by Albert Lewin and released in October 27, 1942, our story line and film, While the beginning of this film is a bit slow, soon we are treated to a simple but effective treatment of this extraordinary story ... as the Gauguin-like painter Charles Strickland, played by George Sanders actually does a bit more than play his 'typical cad', but relishes his character's poking fun at a hypocritical society, and shows real passion in describing to the Maugham-like figure exactly WHY he leaves his ordinary London existence --- We absolutely believe him when he insists "I HAVE TO PAINT". Wisely, the director doesn't let us see any of Strickland's canvases, and we are only limited by our own imaginations as to how powerful they must be --- The story alone is worth viewing, a person abandoning their family in order to follow one's dream, is compelling enough ... Sander's performance as well as Herbert Marshall as Somerset Maughm are both first rate --- No one could have done a finer job at playing the tortured cad then Sanders --- Herbert Marshall once again plays Maugham, as he did in "The Razor's Edge" (1946) --- Sanders has a field day playing an absolute cad, who cares for no one but himself as he deserts wife, family and career to paint ... a slightly fictionalized biography of Paul Gauguin --- Great score by Dimitri Tiomkin as usual ... Remember when Mr. Sanders won an Oscar for playing another cad, the rascal theater critic in "All About Eve" (1950) --- One of my favorite lines in that movie is when he replies to a very beautiful young starlet(Marilyn Monroe) who he has accompanied to a dinner party saying "You have a point. An idiotic one, but a point none the less" --- That was the true character of Mr. George Sanders.

Under Albert Lewin (Director / Screenwriter), David L. Loew (Producer), W. Somerset Maugham (Short Story Author), John F. Seitz (Cinematographer), Dimitri Tiomkin (Composer (Music Score), Richard Van Enger (Editor), Gordon Wiles (Production Designer), F. Paul Sylos (Art Director), Paul F. Sylos (Art Director), Stanley Kramer (Associate Producer), Farrell Redd (Sound/Sound Designer), Ern Westmore (Makeup) - - - - the cast includes George Sanders (Charles Strickland), Herbert Marshall (Geoffrey Wolfe), Doris Dudley (Blanche Stroeve), Steven Geray (Dirk Stroeve), Eric Blore (Capt. Nichols), Florence Bates (Tiara Johnson), Irene Tedrow (Mrs. MacAndrew), Heather Thatcher (Rose Waterford), Elena Verdugo (Ata), Albert Basserman (Doctor Coutras), Molly Lamont (Mrs. Strickland),Robert Greig (Maitland, Butler), Kenneth Hunter (Col. MacAndrew) ... featuring top performances from the '40s and '50s with outstanding drama and screenplays, along with a wonderful cast and supporting actors to bring it all together ... another winner from the vaults of almost forgotten gems

SPECIAL FEATURES BIOS:
1. George Sanders
Date of Birth: 3 July 1906 - St. Petersburg, Russia
Date of Death: 25 April 1972 - Castelldefels, Barcelona, Spain

Special footnote, actor George Sanders made his British film debut in 1934 and after a series of British films made his American debut in 1936 with a role in Lloyd's of London --- His British accent and sensibilities, combined with his suave, snobbish and somewhat menacing air were utilised in American films during the next decade --- He played memorable supporting roles in prestige productions such as "Rebecca" (1940), in which he goaded the sinister Judith Anderson as Mrs Danvers, in her persecution of Joan Fontaine and he played leading roles in lesser pictures such as "Rage in Heaven" (1941) --- During this time he was also the lead in both "The Falcon" and "The Saint" film series. He played Lord Henry Wotton in a film version of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945) --- Sanders co-starred with Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison in the classic "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947) --- He gave his most widely recognised performance and achieved his greatest success as the acid-tongued, manipulative, cold-blooded theatre critic Addison DeWitt in "All About Eve" (1950), winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for this role ... (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

2. Herbert Marshall
Date of Birth: 23 May 1890 - London, England, UK
Date of Death: 22 January 1966 - Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California

3. Albert Lewin (Director)
Date of Birth: 29 July 1916 - Unknown
Date of Death: 23 April 1996 - Los Angeles, California

BONUS:
1. Photo Gallery

TRAILERS:
2. And Then There Were None
3. The Southerner
4. Cyrano de Bergerac
5. Hannibal
6. Robinson Crusoe

FEATURES & SPECIFICATIONS:
7. Contains two versions: The original theatrical verison with tinted and full color scenes as well as the black & white version.

Hats off and thanks to Les Adams (collector/guideslines for character identification), Chuck Anderson (Webmaster: The Old Corral/B-Westerns.Com), Boyd Magers (Western Clippings), Bobby J. Copeland (author of "Trail Talk"), Rhonda Lemons (Empire Publishing Inc), Bob Nareau (author of "The Real Bob Steele") and Trevor Scott (Down Under Com) as they have rekindled my interest once again for Film Noir, B-Westerns and Serials --- looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage serial era of the '20s, '30s & '40s and B-Westerns ... order your copy now from Amazon where there are plenty of copies available on DVD, stay tuned once again for top notch action mixed with deadly adventure --- if you enjoyed this title, why not check out VCI Entertainment where they are experts in releasing B-Westerns and Serials --- all my heroes have been cowboys!

Total Time: 178 min on DVD ~ VCI Home Video #8482 ~ (5/29/2007)

This is in many ways a faithful version of the novel, with all of its flaws (it lacks the last scene back in England, and there is a little airbrushing of the reason why the Dutch artist's wife married Dirk, but otherwise it is fairly true to the book). The book is somewhat boring: as is the movie -- it was thrilling in its day, but we have been through many iterations of the tormented genius since then. The so-called colour of the last reel is strange: most of it is simply sepia, without explanation (the world of Tahiti is the world of sepia, like Oz I suppose). The pseudo-Gauguin pictures are the only things in real colour (they are very interesting, un-Gauguin-like copies, more naturalistic -- or if you like, about as authentic as the "Bali-Java-Hollywood" dancing that goes on in one scene. The artist -- whoever it was who did them -- was clearly fascinated with the opportunity to show naked Tahitian breasts on screen!). The filmmaker has a scene or two at the end set up to mimic real Gauguin paintings (and these living images are actually quite finely considered). And there is a terrific gauguinesque "primitive" statue that appears throughout: someone who really knew Gaugin's work did that. It is interesting that the filmmakers left until the very end the showing to us of the paintings -- in so many films (e.g. Picasso) we see the artist's "work" or the knockoffs thereof and the whole artist image in the film collapses. This time they wait until the last possible moment -- very wise.

The film is marred by a couple of things: (1) the score (famed Dmitri Tiomkin) is horribly intrusive, and in fact it appears to be designed to treat the whole movie as a quirky comedy, which it certainly is not; and (2) the film is bracketed by two explanations of how awful/geniusy the hero is, in case the restless audience has any doubts. The most intriguing thing about the film is that every once in awhile it becomes slightly weird: camera angles are occasionally odd, and there are characters that are quirky (especially the expat Tahitians). And there is an impassioned performance (very German expressionist) by the Dirk character. The whole middle section of the film has this weird quality which is hard to describe, but not your usual movie stuff.

It is worth noting for anyone who doesn't know the original story of Gauguin, that the biography is false: Gauguin died of syphilis; he and his wife continued their correspondence for a number of years; and he had many women along the way. The true part is that he was indeed a creep -- and also, in reality, Gauguin was a serious self-marketer all his life. He knew exactly how to hype himself.

It is also nice that Sanders got such a juicy part for a change.