The Moon and Sixpence

I will not attempt to write a "complete" review of this movie. Just note a couple of highlights.

I recently saw this movie for the first time on TCM. It is one of the most "startling" and highly original movies I have seen from that era of filmmaking.

Almost never does a movie affect me emotionally--not only as I saw it but even a couple of weeks later I am still affected by it.

Among the many things that are so powerful is the relentless negativity of the George Sanders' character throughout. And yet he makes us feel he is on a mission to be true to himself and to fulfill his destiny without apology.

To combine these elements in one character is something I have never seen in any movie. It left me confused emotionally and yet felt admiringly of someone who can eschew all human concern for others(with one exception which I will not spoil) to relentlessly pursue what he perceives as his truth and destiny.

It is a brilliant achievement in George Sanders' acting and for the directors' unapologetic vision of the movie.

I have to be careful not to spoil, but among many amazing surprises is how another artists' wife(Blanche Stroeve played by Doris Dudley whom I knew in real life) reacts to Sanders after she, at her husband's insistence, nurses him back to health. It is an amazing scene. Yet somehow we understand that Sander's purpose is so well-defined and his masculinity is so caveman-like that she cannot help but respond to him.

Definitely not politically correct. I cannot imagine a scene like this even being allowed to be shot in this way in any modern movie.

Speaking of political correctness, other surprises abound in this area particularly during the time the Sanders character moves to Tahiti.

Not to spoil but listen closely as a certain older woman who interacts with Sanders describe her long ago love affairs and the character of the men she was involved with.

If any woman was to pine for love affairs like she describes in today's world, she would be denounced by every women's group on the planet. And yet she pines for those days with infectious gusto and enthusiasm.

A movie shot like this today would set women back a couple of hundred years. It could not be remade today and still retain all the wild political incorrectness. Protests and boycotts would stop the movie from being made if word got out of it's script's contents.

A great, emotionally draining, disturbing and thoroughly unique movie that will always stand alone and cannot be remade without huge rewrites.

One brief note of interest. One of the female leads, Doris Dudley, lived about a quarter mile from me in the early 1980's. The location was a little community called Jacobia, Tx. Her obituary says Greenville, Tx. which is also correct.

She invited me and my parents to some kind of little get together at her modest country home. She was outgoing, friendly and yet had a powerful energy to her that somehow made me understand why she was an actress.

She told me she was in the movies many years ago and her movie/stage name was Doris Dudley. She originally introduced herself as Doris Jenkins.

She mentioned that she knew Cary Grant. She may have said she worked with him but I'm not sure. She was in her mid 60's and long since retired from being an actress by the time I met her. She loved her dogs. And shortly after I met her she learned she had terminal cancer and died shortly thereafter. When I asked her about it, I was struck by how unafraid she was of dying. I brought her a little newspaper article about someone beating cancer I thought might cheer her up. But she did not need any help. Her courage in facing death infused me with courage. I shall never forget her.

There is only one biography of her I can find on the internet. She was a lovely, dynamic woman. She was terrific in this movie. I miss visiting with her.

George Sanders stars in "The Moon and Sixpence," a 1942 film also starring Herbert Marshall, Doris Dudley, Eric Blore, Steven Geray, and Albert Basserman. Loosely based on the life of Gauguin, the screenplay by Albert Lewin is based on the book by Somerset Maugham.

As in the later "The Razor's Edge," Maugham, here also played by Herbert Marshall, serves as narrator for most of the film. Sanders is the unpleasant, self-involved Charles Strickland, a stock broker who deserts his family and leaves London to go to Paris and become a painter. There he meets Dirk Stroeve (Geray), who becomes a friend. When Strickland becomes ill, Stroeve over the strong objections of his wife Blanche (Dudley) moves Strickland to their home to nurse him back to health. Stroeve then gets the impression that his wife is in love with Srrickland, and that Strickland has no intention of leaving. So he throws him out. His wife says that she's leaving with him. Stroeve leaves instead.

Strickland eventually tires of Blanche and then leaves for Tahiti. There he continues to paint and even falls in love with a native girl, Ata (Elena Verdugo). There Dr. Coutras (Bassermann) picks up the narration.

As the unapologetic user obsessed with his work, George Sanders is excellent. Like many in the studio system, he was typecast into playing one type of role, but he was capable of so much more. Another revelation in this film is Eric Blore, who was always typecast as a butler. Here he is a different kind of character and is absolutely wonderful. Herbert Marshall does not register much in what is basically a thankless role - he had more to do in The Razor's Edge.

Good movie. If this and Lust for Life are any indication, Gauguin, even if this character just hints at him, was a most unpleasant character.

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.

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.

Fair adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's novel, loosely based on the story of artist Paul Gauguin, concerns a 40-year-old stockbroker in London, anti-social and misogynistic, who leaves his wife and children for life as a painter in Paris; soon, he's ruined more lives, and just as swiftly moved on to Tahiti, brushes and canvas intact. For an episodic tale of an inscrutable artist who destroys everyone he touches, this literate, well-cast and well-made film starts out in a surprisingly light key. Herbert Marshall is the curious writer (and the film's narrator) who befriends the maddeningly aloof George Sanders, and the first half of the picture is quite strong. However, once the action turns to the islands (with handsomely tinted black-and-white photography), interest in the central character wanes. The finale isn't as gripping as it should have been, though this is no reflection on Sanders or Marshall, both excellent. ** from ****