The Moon and Sixpence

1942

1h 29m

IMDb RATING

6.3/10

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Drama

Loosely inspired from Gauguin's life, the story of Charles Strickland, a middle-aged stockbrocker who abandons his middle-classed life, his family, his duties to start painting, what he has always wanted to do. He is from now on a awful human being, wholly devoted to his ideal: beauty.

Directors

Albert Lewin

Writers

Barbara Gray(other by)

W. Somerset Maugham(novel by)

Albert Lewin(adaptation by)

Stars

George Sanders

Herbert Marshall

Doris Dudley

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Top cast

Charles Strickland

Geoffrey Wolfe

Blanche Stroeve

Capt. Nichols

Dr. Coutras

Tiare Johnson

Dirk Stroeve

Ata

The Leper (uncredited)

Devi Wani

Ata

Directors

Albert Lewin

Writers

Barbara Gray(other by)

W. Somerset Maugham(novel by)

Albert Lewin(adaptation by)

All cast & crew

Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

User reviews1

Review

Featured review

6/10

George Sanders is good, in what's quite an untypical type of role for him, in this otherwise rather plodding and wordy drama that has shades of the life of Paul Gauguin to it. He's a stockbroker ("Strickland") who tires of his life and his wife so decides to take up a career painting and living in Paris. The only constant in his life is his long suffering friend "Wolfe" (narrator Herbert Marshall) but even he loses interest as his friend becomes more odiously manipulative, introspective - and broke - as time goes by. Oddly enough, however desperate he becomes, he refuses to sell his works - and that poverty and a constant search for inspiration ultimately sees him in the South Seas where he finds some semblance of peace before his mortality catches up with him! At times the two-header boozy lunches between Sanders and Marshall give the script some pith, but that this selfish creature could make and break marriages quite so readily does test belief and I felt increasingly disinterested in the characters or the story on display here. The production is really quite basic and like so many of W. Somerset Maugham's stories - there is a distinct lack of joy and a surfeit of obsessiveness with the proceedings. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood - but I was a bit bored with this.

Geronimo196703 Dec, 2023