The Moon and Sixpence

A creator of such intellect as Albert Lewin, the director/adapter of The Moon & Sixpence, rarely had the opportunity in classic period Hollywood to showcase such a unique talent as he had and we are fortunate to have had him. There were only a handful like him that beat the odds and actually were allowed to produce true art instead of common trash -- Sternberg, Ulmer, Sturges come to mind -- and in many ways Lewin stood apart because he worked the system without challenging the former tailors and junk dealers that ran Hollywood. He made a quartet of films that express his unique style magnificently. These are, in order: The Moon & Sixpence, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Private Affairs of Bel Ami and Pandora And The Flying Dutchman. The common threads are stateliness, pacing and intelligence, with literate dialogue that has a sophistication that belies the commercialism of the time. His lead of choice was George Sanders, who was perfectly cast in the first three titles as a symbol of an age. The Moon and Sixpence is the first of this quartet and showcases what a small budget but superior talent can create. Each film was an improvement on its predecessor, and I recommend that those out there interested in stylized film follow Lewin's work chronologically to observe the course of aesthetic refinement, beginning with The Moon & Sixpence.

Herbert Marshall plays W. Somerset Maugham in fact if not name in The Moon And Sixpence as he narrates the story of how his life intersected with that of George Sanders a man who left middle class respectability to do his thing with painting, first in Paris and then the South Seas. Marshall is his erudite best and Sanders once again is a cad.

When Marshall first knows Sanders he's the soul of Victorian rectitude, no one suspecting what is beneath the surface. So when one fine day he up and leaves his wife Molly Lamont to go live the Bohemian life as a painter in Paris it shocks everybody. In fact Lamont prevails on Marshall to go to Paris to see what brought this about.

Somerget Maugham's view on human relations and the creative soul are once again given an airing in The Moon And Sixpence. Maugham was a gay man, but there are certain gay men who truly do not like women on most levels. They make too many demands on the creative man, fascinated though they might be by him. That view is in full force when dealing with Lamont and with Doris Dudley who plays a married woman who leaves her husband Steven Geray to take up with Sanders in Paris. His ideal woman is Tahitian Elena Verdugo, pretty and sexy without too much education who takes care of man's physical needs with no demands.

Women were not Maugham's favorites. You can see that in work like Of Human Bondage with Mildred Rogers or in Rain with Sadie Thompson. And I can't forget The Razor's Edge and the part that Gene Tierney plays.

Sanders is a caddish as he ever has gotten on the big screen for the first two thirds of the film. But in Tahiti with no demands on him he becomes a mensch. For myself staying a mensch when life does make demands on you is the true test. But what do I know?

The Moon And Sixpence is Maugham at his misanthropic best. Sanders and Marshall top a fine cast in a film that could have been a real classic with a bigger budget from an A list studio. Herbert Marshall would be the narrator author W. Somerset Maugham again in The Razor's Edge which is a better film. This one in fact did get an Oscar nomination for Dimitri Tiomkin's musical scoring. The Moon And Sixpence can definitely hold its own.

While the beginning of this film is a bit slow, with a few touches of humour sitting a bit uncomfortably, soon we are treated to a simple but effective treatment of this extraordinary story. As the Gauguin-like painter Charles Strickland, 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 only exception comes at the end, and without spoiling anything, I believe that it's handled extremely well. Other performances are a delight, particularly in the entertaining vignettes of turn-of-the-century Tahitian life.

George Sanders goes Gaughin in this film based on the Somerset Maugham novel about a well respected man who decides to drop out of society and paint to his hearts delight. Leaving a wife and children behind in England he first moves to Paris where he is befriended by a kindly successful hack painter who in return is re payed with ridicule and cuckoldry. George Strickland's dream is to get to Tahiti though and be done with Western society. He eventually does but at great final cost.

Sanders is perfectly cast as the insensitive and coldly indifferent Strickland who really just wants to be left alone. He asks for nothing but exploits kindness to its fullest when forced upon him, especially by the artist Stroeve. In a leading man of the era's hand the role would more than likely have been diluted and suffered but with Sanders you get a bored condescension and disdainful inflection like no other.

Unfortunately the rest of Sixpence lags a good distance behind Sander's spot on performance. Director Albert Lewin employs very little scope and camera movement with little attention payed to set design and lighting. The sepia tint of the film washes out in some scenes and was more than likely employed by Lewin to display Strickland's magnum opus at the end but even this disappoints.

Herbert Marshall is dry and drab as the narrator and the rest of the cast flat and stiff. Combined they lack the life and conviction to be found in Sander's performance which might have even soared further had Lewin applied the expressionistic flourishes to be found in his The Picture of Dorian Gray a far more successful picture with a less secure actor.

The story alone is worth viewing. The very idea of a person abandoning their family in order to follow one's dream, is compelling enough. George Sander's performance as well as Herbert Marshall as Somerset Maughm are both fist rate. No one could have done a finer job at playing the tortured cad then Sanders. If they had another one of those silly top 100 lists, this one for best type casting in a film about cads, then Sanders would win in a trot. He was in real life it appears, the very cad that he played so convincingly on screen. A book was even written about him by an actor friend, Brian Ahearne. The title of the book is "A Dreadful Man". The actor Ronald Coleman would not even allow Sanders in his presence, as he found his disdain and pessimism to much to bear. At the age of 65 Sanders committed suicide in a Paris hotel room just as he had promised actor David Niven years earlier, claiming that by that time he would no longer have interest in women or anything else. (Consult Niven's book "Bring On The Empty Horses") I can understand one user's previous comment about this being Sanders only great role. But Mr. Sanders won an Oscar for playing another cad, the rascal theater critic in "All About Eve". 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".