The Moon and Sixpence

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".

The print of this film (shown on TCM) suffers from the ravages of time. I wish I could say that the genius of the film shines through, but I cannot.

It is an interesting film. Certainly a curiosity. The unusual use of different film stocks and the selective use of color make it a unique experience.

The subject of the film, a misanthropic painter who offers little in the way of redeeming value, makes the film an interesting story with a hollow center. Charles Strickland (George Sanders) is a man who sacrifices everything in life to retire to Tahiti to paint. Based loosely on the life of Gaugin, the film has an interesting cast of characters that surround Strickland, notably Herbert Marshall as Geoffrey Wolfe and Steven Geray as Dirk Stroeve.

One might feel compelled to watch the story of so unusual a protagonist, but he is not merely indifferent to others; he often goes out of his way to denigrate or insult them. When we finally see the artwork that has driven this man's obsession--if that's what it is--it is anticlimactic.

This work of fiction could have made Strickland a hero, fighting for his artistic vision. Instead, he comes across as little more than a craftsman who does even value his own work. This is disappointing.

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.

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.