Encore

Encore (1951)

A set of three half hour movies, each based on a short story by W. Somerset Maugham, who also comes on screen to introduce them to us (like Hitchcock did in his 1950s television work). You have to accept the idea that these are short films, without connection, and enjoy them one by one. They don't have time to develop like a full movie, but they make a smaller statement quickly. And each is directed, acted, filmed, etc. etc. by a separate crew and cast. Follow along:

The Ant and the Grasshopper

This has the potential for the most complex and rich of the three shorts, involving two brothers, one who works steadily and honorably at his job (the ant, I suppose) and the other who is a cad and a scoundrel of some innocent sort, but who gets ahead by the end through some leap of daring (the grasshopper, surely). It's a mischievous and clever story, a bit too clever by half, but really well acted. The plot reminds me of the O'Henry kind of storytelling where there is a small kernel of observation and cleverness, but in a lighthearted way (nothing too Chekov or Raymond Carver going on here). But well done, well done.

Winter Cruise

This was for me the best of the three. At first it's a silly tale about a woman who talks so much on a cruise she drives everyone batty, but then, when the ship stops at port and the cast gets reduced to just a half dozen people, we get a tight ensemble playing out of issues of loneliness, love, kindness, and the power of implication. By that I mean, what this segment doesn't say is what it's all about. The writer, Maugham, and the screenwriter, Arthur Macrae, both are in top form.

The tone is great--utterly chipper in its clever humor--and it's filmed in a smilier way, with some playful expressionist filming. And it's nicely contained, a film on a small ship on a voyage. And of course, the men who seem to prefer silence can get none of it on this little vessel, from which there's no escape.

"We'll just ignore her," says one man.

"Well, you can't ignore Niagara," says another.

You have to pay attention, because the quips and one-liners are fast and fluid. For example, when the poor young Frenchman, the steward, is commanded to have a romance with the woman, another officer whispers in his ear that he'll get "danger money" for the duty, a reference to high risk jobs in the war getting higher pay. And there are digs about the English and the French, and so on. Great stuff, increasingly complex, and a touching ambiguous (perfectly ambiguous) ending.

Gigolo and Gigolette

There are two themes to this one. The first echoes Maugham's comments at the start, that some people are drawn to do senselessly dangerous work because the money is there, even if they eventually get hurt or die because of it. This time it is a high dive act (eighty feet up, into a pool of water five feet deep). Which brings us to the second theme: love or money. The diver is a woman, and her boyfriend is deeply in love with her. But he loves money, too, and he begins to push her to dive twice a night even if she isn't quite up to it, because the money is there.

It's well done, if a bit simpler. What really works in this tale is the actual fear you have for the diver. Well filmed, tightly edited.

The easiest way to describe this is to say that if you liked the Alfred Hitchcock TV series, you'll like this. In both tone, content, presentation, and humor it is practically a dead ringer for that venerable program, right down to the witty monologues by author Somerset Maugham preceding each vignette. Even the suspense generated in the third story seems to be a melody taken straight from the Hitchcock repertoire. Probably the only really noticeable difference is the gentler treatment of the characters than is common with Hitch's work. Very entertaining example of that genre -- and several years before that series hit the air.

As the title implies, this follows "Quartet" and "Trio," the first two collections of Maugham stories. This one has three stories. The first story, "The Ant and the Grasshopper," has Patrick as a ne'er-do-well who mooches off his responsible brother. The second, "Winter Cruise," is the amusing tale of a few men caught on a long cruise with a Chatty Kathy (Walsh) who drives them crazy with her non-stop yapping. The final episode, "Gigolo and Gigolette," stars Johns as a performer whose act consists of jumping 80 feet into a pool of burning water, but she starts to lose her nerves; it is the longest and, for the most part, the least interesting of the three, although the ending is compelling.

This is another trio of Somerset Maugham's short stories. The first one has been wiped from my memory, it was exceedingly dull! The second one started off well, and ended splendidly, but started to drag in the middle. It's the 3rd and final tale that is the gem, centering on a daredevil girl who "dives from a height of 80 feet in 5 foot of flames" - her pool to land in is actually set alight! - and her boyfriend, who are trying to get some money together for a safe future, by her doing a most unsafe act. It will have you on the edge of your seat, guaranteed! Respectively, I give the three tales 3, 6, and 10 out of 10.

This movie was constructed from three short stories by Somerset Maugham and he also appears to introduce each of them. The third story "Gigolo and Gigolette" is by far the best as you are never quite sure what direction it is going in. Terrific tension. The middle story also has a neat twist at the end but it takes far too long to get there and its main protagonist (played by Kay Walsh) starts to irritate. The first story features a bunch of quite unlikable, selfish characters and I found it did not engage me at all. 4 out of 10 for the first, 6 out of 10 for the second and 8 out of 10 for the third for an average of 6 out of 10 for the whole effort.