Encore (1951)
Directed by Harold French, Pat Jackson

Film Review

Encore completes a trilogy of anthology films comprising adaptations of short stories by W. Somerset Maugham, one of Britain's most prolific and respected authors.  Repeating the winning formula of Quartet (1948) and Trio (1950), three separate teams of writers and directors serve up a tidy little vignette which skilfully captures Maugham's sardonic humour and penchant for cruel but precise observation.  This time round, the quality of the material is looking a little more stale and flavourless, and so the three-course meal that Encore offers isn't quite as satisfying as the previous two repasts, although there's some fun to be had and the stories complement each other reasonably well.  With his customary self-effacing modesty, Maugham presents each of the short films from his garden on the Riviera, allowing us to admire his flowers if we grow tired of looking at him.

Directed by Pat Jackson and scripted by T. E. B. Clarke, The Ant and the Grasshopper serves as a light hors d'oeuvre, a flimsy little fable which Aesop would have been ashamed to put his name to and which scarcely resembles anything that Maugham could have written.  Nigel Patrick and Roland Culver give the empty satirical parable its best shot as two chalk-and-cheese brothers but the humour falls flat and a totally implausible punchline makes you wonder why you bothered sitting through it at all.  Far more rewarding is the second tale, Winter Cruise, directed by Anthony Pelissier and adapted by Arthur Macrae.  With an endlessly chattering Kay Walsh driving a ship's crew to distraction (and very nearly homicide) the humour is pretty well non-stop, and a bittersweet ending provides the perfect resolution to a vignette that shows Maugham at his most humane and mischievous.  In one scene, as the ship's crew contemplate the Walsh menace like condemned men on the eve of their execution, you can easily convince yourself that John Laurie will break out with his most famous line, "We're doomed..."

Gigolo and Gigolette, the concluding piece, is by contrast a pretty straightforward melodrama which, despite being capably directed by Harold French from an adequate script by Eric Ambler, looks dull and predictable after the inspired tour de force that preceded it.  Glynis Johns struggles to be convincing as a high dive artiste who can no longer go on with her act, and Terence Morgan's failure to elicit any sympathy as her devoted partner robs the vignette of its dramatic tension and poignancy.  If the first and third entries in this Maugham compendium fail to hit the mark, the second certainly does and this alone makes Encore a reasonably worthwhile conclusion to a pleasing trilogy of films.

Film Synopsis

Seated in his garden, the English writer William Somerset Maugham introduces three of his short stories.  In The Ant and the Grasshopper, loafer Tom Ramsay manages to con his hardworking brother George out of two hundred pounds, which he fritters away at a casino in Monte Carlo.  His resources depleted, Tom confides in a rich woman that he is an outright scoundrel, an admission that makes him one of the wealthiest men in England.  In Winter Cruise, spinster and teashop owner Molly Reid is enjoying a cruise to the West Indies, unaware that she is boring her fellow passengers to death with her incessant chatter.  On the return journey, the ship's crew become so fed up with Molly's conversational deluge that they resort to desperate measures, forcing the French steward Pierre to pretend he is in love with her.  In Gigolo and Gigolette, Stella and Syd Cotman are the star attraction at the Ritz Hotel in Monte Carlo.  Each evening, Stella dives from a great height into a shallow tank of water for the amusement of the hotel's wealthy patrons.  One day, Stella loses her nerve and decides she can no longer go on with the act.  In a desperate bid to obtain the money Syd needs to start up his own business, Stella takes all the money she has earned so far and gambles it at the casino.  When she loses everything she decides she has no choice but to go on with the act, knowing that one day it will kill her...