W. Somerset Maugham

Well, OP, he was a fabulous novelist. Great writing style, good plots and wonderful characters. What more is there to say?

He was a favorite of Old Hollywood because he made decent plots (often about some unlikeable people) which often had a good starring role for a woman.

He wasn't overly effeminate like Noël and we could easily imagine him as a gentleman like nice Herbert—

So how many secret homosexual characters are in there in Maugham's oevre?

Is Leslie Howard crippled by something? And Herbert Marshall (who played Maugham's alter-ego, Ashenden, three times) was also crippled.

He wrote about real people. He wás gay but he wasn't writing about mentally ill men that think they are female and can bave a baby, or a female that thinks she can have a penis. His books weren't about preposterous b s.

He always looks as though he's sucking on a lemon but the luxury of his success and that house overlooking the Riviera add a touch of glamour.

(This is partly-silent newsreel footage)

Of Human Bondage is my favorite novel.

He was one of the most popular English language novelists in the world for quite a while.

It can't have been easy being rich, talented but physically unattractive. He he could afford to purchase a secretary and throw nude parties.

But his desire clouded his judgement the 30s. He stood on the top terrace of his villa at one of his nude parties, pointed down to a compact nude man below and declared that the young man was the 'future of English literature'. And, as we know forty years later, Christopher Isherwood revealed himself to be no more than a repetitive journalist and diarist.

This link has some nudes—

[quote]It can't have been easy being rich, talented but physically unattractive.

Tell me about it.

Good but second rung writing like by Maugham make better film adaptations.

[quote]What made him such a favorite of Old Hollywood?

maybe the parties he hosted?

R10 Better film adaptations come from short stories or simple stories.

Maugham's long story 'The Razor's Edge' where he tried to talk about Eastern philosophy made a garbled movie (despite the pretty but unconvincing Tyrone Power).

I think Tyrone Power was based on Gerald Heard who went to California and took LSD.

Maugham came from a wealthy Anglo-Irish family and grew-up mostly in Paris. He considered himself a good second-tier writer. He wasn't literary in the sense of having a particular style or experimenting with much. His characters often were based on people he knew, which isn't that unusual, but his rich friends must have been deluded enough to think they'd be exempt from this. He also used his own life---he trained as a doctor and "Of Human Bondage" drew on that. His plots were straightforward and his characters were fairly interesting.

His travel writing is really first rate ("The Gentleman in the Parlor captures Asia in ways still recognizable).

He was married once to someone who invented the "white room" school of interior decorating and had a daughter whom he disinherited, although this was attributed to his being a bit gaga in his later years and being manipulated by his last bf/secretary who had been something of a lifelong hustler. His previous partner was a more cultured but a drunk. Maugham viewed himself as basically unlikely in love.

"Unlikely in love" sounds like a Freudian slip.

Some men don't know how to love. They know about lust and they die unloved.

He told good stories that were often set in exotic locations. Which was great for movies. And his books and stories often had really good titles.

R10 That is a valid criticism. Writing that I consider to 'top rung' (such as 'To The Lighthouse' and the Hollinghurst novels) make lousy plots for movies.

I suspect, R13, that he wasn't "literary" or "experimental" because he wanted to reach his readership and not bore them with dead ends like James Joyce or Henry Green.

Syrie, R13.

What was her scandal? Lesbianism?

I loved Sir Gerald Kelly's comment on Graham Sutherland's portrait of Maugham. that it made him look like the madam of a Chinese whore house.

Sir Gerald Kelly's comment is accurate and mildly amusing. Some of Graham Sutherland's other portraits are quite ugly.

Sutherland's messy Jesus looks like dinosaur egg. The Mid-Century Modern period of art was at a nadir in most countries.

I love this weird outfit that grumpy Greta wears in the first 'Painted Veil'

I think it's time for a remake of Of Human Bondage starring Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

YASS, R21! That outfit was exquisite!

I mean R20.

"He wrote about real people. He wás gay but he wasn't writing about mentally ill men that think they are female and can bave a baby, or a female that thinks she can have a penis. His books weren't about preposterous b s."

People in Maugham's time thought gays were mentally ill. What's "metally ill" to me is the Breitbart gays who feel the need to drag trans people into every conversation, even ones that are not about them

He wrote lots of female characters who were tramps, bitches, adulterers, murderers and sexually voracious.

R3 The crippled Herbert Marshall played Maugham's alter-ego Ashenden on screen.

And homosexual John Gielgud played Ashenden in Hitchcock's 'Secret Agent' in 1936.

[quote] He wrote lots of female characters

The wonderful Ernest Thesiger (who was born on this day in 1879} asked Willie to write a part for him.

And Maugham replied 'But I am always writing parts for you, Ernest. The trouble is that somebody called Gladys Cooper will insist on playing them.'

[quote] It can't have been easy being rich, talented but physically unattractive.

You've posted a photo of him in late middle age.

He was very attractive in his day.

Maugham knew full well he was not at the level of someone from his era like Joseph Conrad or E. M. Forster, but he still owned to be "in the very first row of the second-raters," which is a very good self-assessment. He was a great story-teller (if only a competent stylist), and many of his works made great Hollywood films: the different versions of "Rain," the different versions of "The Letter," [italic]Of Human Bondage, The Painted Veil, The Moon and Sixpence, Christmas Holiday, Theatre,[/italic] and [italic]The Razor's Edge.[/italic]

During the 1930s he was the highest paid novelist in the world.

R28 Maugham said himself that he was unattractive.

Any psychologist would suggest that his distaste for his own appearance manifested itself in so many of male protagonists being crippled, effete or self-hating.

And it must have been excruciating that while his face wizened into a prune-like appearance in his latter years he was hosting parties like the one mentioned in R8 where the guests were encouraged to go nude.

Yawn, r4 must be one of those freaks who have to make every thread an attack on trans people

[quote] make every thread an attack

I'm glad we can discuss a 20th century English author without someone dragging in mention of a 21st century American retiree.

W. Somerset Maugham and Ian Fleming at the Doctor No premier.

They died four months apart.

The film of The Razor’s Edge is probably my favorite film ever, the original with Tyrone Power, not the Bill Murray remake abomination.

He was also a prolific playwright and a quotable wit. One of my favorites:

'She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.'

Mildred in Of Human Bondage was supposedly based on a rough trade twink he was banging

[quote] Bill Murray remake abomination.

Bill Murray is an abomination.

One of Sir Gerald Kelly's most attractive portraits of Maugham sold very well a few months ago.

Dear R38 this portrait may be one of Kelly's more attractive portraits. But I wouldn't say it's attractive per se.

He looks like Gale Gordon there.

He looks like Clifton Webb sucked a lemon.

Gerald Kelley was a good painter, but Graham Sutherland's portraits are great, I loved the one of Churchill that Lady Churchill destroyed. And his Maugham is good too.

[quote] Graham Sutherland's portraits are great

But his portrait of Christ looks like a prissy man being a giant egg.

I would call Maugham "cozy cynical" or "bitter coated sugar pill"--meaning his stories appeal to those who love colonialism but want to feel smarter than that or who like stories about the rich but want them to suffer. I'm not condescending--I like them for the same reason!

[quote] want them to suffer.

Do you really want them to suffer, R44. I'd like the appalling Bette to suffer but not Herbert.

Several of his short stories were adapted into an enjoyable series of British films entitled Quartet (The Facts Of Life, The Alien Corn, The Kite, The Colonel's Lady), Trio (The Verger, Mr Know-All, Sanatorium) and Encore (The Ant and the Grasshopper, Winter Cruise, Gigolo and Gigolette).

I love the audiobook of THE PAINTED VEIL!

Did anyone find the Bette Davis character in The Letter a bit sympathetic? Am I the only one?

Sure. Great acting and writing, She is a recognisable woman, one we have all met.

R48, I think Maugham sympathized with her too. Maybe just a bit, because she was certainly not blameless -- she should have risen above her feelings of betrayal and not indulged in revenge. She acted like a child rather than an adult, but what could be expected of an immature woman who was never required to grow up and behave unselfishly? She was out of her depth and she did suffer for her actions, though not from guilt or remorse, but only because she still loved the man she killed. Sad story, based on fact (as much of Maugham's work was).

Somerset Maugham is my favorite writer. His writing style is so clean and elegant.

I love writing that doesn't draw attention to itself to say, "Look how beautifully the author writes!" That's why I like him, too, R51.

Any love for The Moon and Sixpence? I love that book. I don't remember having read The Razor's Edge, but I mean to.

I read the moon and sixpence years ago. That was the story about Gaughan wasn't it R52?

He always made me want to wipe my mouth.

Thank you, R34.

I like "The Razor's Edge" film immensely. Sometimes, while channel surfing, I will come across it on TV and find myself watching it again. Even though I have it on DVD.

It's interesting that this film from 1946 was Tyrone Power's first film after returning from service in WWII. So, perhaps Larry Darrell struck more than one chord for him.

He could write potboilers that seems to be something more elevated than that.

[quote]Did anyone find the Bette Davis character in The Letter a bit sympathetic? Am I the only one?

She was an earlier version of Alex in [italic]Fatal Attraction[/italic]; in this case, the plot carried the action to its logical conclusion. A little bit dramatic with the shooting and the incriminating letter. In bygone eras, women, rich enough to support themselves and who avoided dying in childbirth, knew that poisons were the way to rid yourself of an unwanted man.

Maybe the shooting reveals the spur-of-the-moment nature of the killing. Because Leslie still loved him, she couldn't have planned murder with readily the available poisons in 30s Asia.

PS: They didn't routinely do tox screens back, and the available ones didn't ID the more exotic poisons.

[quote] I read the moon and sixpence years ago. That was the story about Gaughan wasn't it

No.

It was about Paul Gauguin, the painter.

I know that R58, It was just a typo. Jeeze.

R53, yes, it's not exactly about Gauguin but someone like him. "Inspired by."

Maugham has a very smooth writing style. For me, the words would just disappear from the page so his novels read like a dream. I doubt that was accidental on his part.

Miss Eagels...

^ Thanks, r62. Very melodramatic, but her spitting rage at her ineffectual, smothering husband is fantastic,

I've never seen anything like that, R62 and R63. Was she on drugs?

Answering my own question: Yes, indeed, she was, and she died of it shortly after. Wow! :(

^Oh damn. That's worthy of a Somerset Maugham story in itself.

Jeanne Eagels...as portrayed by Kim Novak

Another Kim/Maugham connection...

An even more forgettable version.

One of his stories in Encore features a English boarding house owner in her 50s on a tramp steamer. Her constant chatter annoys the German crew so much they plot for her to get laid by a young Teutonic stud of a radio officer in the hope it will shut her the hell up for their last 3 weeks on board.

For however much his reputation was poo-pooed as oh so middle class, Somerset Maugham was surprisingly frank about sexual mores

Maugham was not pooh-poohed as middle class so much as he was as middlebrow.

This had nothing to do with his subject matter (which as you say, r70, was often very sexually frank for the time): it was due to the fact that he wrote during the period of high modernism when the most important British writers (Conrad, Woolf, Graham Greene) were being formally experimental--Maugham didn't experiment much with style. He made far more money than those other writers did (probably as a result of just being interested in telling a good story with no stylistic bells and whistles), but it bothered him his writing was not considered as cutting-edge as other writers. He referred to himself as "in the very top rank of the second-rate" when it came to novel-writing.

[quote] Maugham was not pooh-poohed as middle class so much as he was as middlebrow.

I didn’t say he was middle class but his REPUTATION was such that his works for middle class people to consume, hot high literature or even pulp fiction the literati would discuss.

The reality is he shone a light into a certain substratum of society, the civil servants of the remains of the Empire, and the fag end of age of globetrotting aristocrats before the dilettantism of multiple international seasons was a financial impossibly.

[quote]I didn’t say he was middle class

I didn't say you said he was middle class. Read my post again.

Bette Davis was the perfect actress to play Maugham's morally complex heroines.

There were also 2 screen versions of his short story, "Miss Thompson" - RAIN (1932) with Miss Crawford and MISS SADIE THOMPSON (1953) with Rita Hayworth.

Bette knew how to knit, didn't she? ( Sew, cross stitch, knit) I loved the beautiful bed coverlet she was sewing in The Letter. The beautiful white dress she wore to buy the letter from her dead lover's wife. I have watched that movie at least five or six times and I love it more everytime I see it. Herbert Marshall played the cuckolded husband to perfection. ( He was gay or bi irl, right?)

There are 3 versions of Miss Thompson, the first starring Miss Gloria Swanson.

Herbert Marshall played the unfaithful lover who gets shot in the 1929 version of The Letter with Jeanne Eagels.

The 50s film about Eagels with Kim Novak is just a sad exercise, with Novak in way, way over her head. And her Mildred is nothing much. Even Eleanor Parker is better.

No thanks, I got it, r73.

Herbert Marshall was in adaptations of The Razor's Edge, The Painted, The Moon and Sixpence and The Letter twice.

Yeah, whattabout MY Sadie Thompson? I grabbed the role when Ethel dropped out.

Am I alone in my love for Cakes and Ale? Sweet slutty Rosie Driffield is sentimental favorite character of mine.

In "The Razors Edge" Herbert Marshall stars alongside Clifton Webb. Webb plays Gene Tierney's bitchy, snobbish uncle. And of course Marshall plays Maugham. Gay, Gay, Gay! There's a few very funny scenes of Webb queening out when he's at his tailors in Paris. Webb is great in the movie, as is Marshall. Great looking movie, lavish production design.

Anne's Oscar

R45 I didn't know The Letter was based on a Maugham short story and it's one of my all time favorite movies, how embarrassing. I lived in Asia for a few years and somehow that film captured something timeless about expats. It gave me chills.

He was so weak and malleable. What a sad ending to his life.

The 1940 movie version was post-Code so Bette had to die.

In Maugham's original, and the earlier preCode versions, she gets away with murder, though condemned to live out her life with the husband she hates and knowledge that she killed the man she loved.

Maugham's stories and his characters were more complex than Hollywood could handle.

I am a huge, lifelong Bette fan and I think that THE LETTER is both her best movie and her finest performance. She amazes in his film. This is pure Bette Davis firing on all pistons with a fantastic script and a great director. Here is that unique, Bette Davis magic - she brings you inside the drama of the movie and of her character. That's talent.

Lee's version...

R88, I agree with you. All About Eve is a close second.

The lace making is brilliant.

Mediocre writer. Good books don't make good movies. Ask Stephen King.

Bad books don’t make good movies either. Just ask Dan Brown.

[quote] The 50s film about Eagels with Kim Novak is just a sad exercise, with Novak in way, way over her head. And her Mildred is nothing much. Even Eleanor Parker is better.

Eleanor Parker was no Kim Novak. She was frequently excellent.