W. Somerset Maugham Filmography

Being Julia

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons, Bruce Greenwood, Miriam Margolyes, Juliet Stevenson

Synopsis: A woman scorned unleashes her fury in this droll comedy based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham. Julia Lambert (Annette Bening) is a famous and well-respected actress, but though her life in the limelight seems glamorous, things are not going well for her off-stage. Julia's husband is unfaithful Read More

Up at the Villa

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Kristin Scott Thomas, Sean Penn, Anne Bancroft, James Fox, Jeremy Davies

Synopsis: A woman left alone by the death of her husband finds her love life has become suddenly and dangerously complicated in this drama. Mary Panton (Kristin Scott Thomas) is a British woman living in Italy in 1938 who has been financially ruined by the death of her husband. Edgar (James Fox), an aging Read More

The Razor's Edge

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Brian Doyle-Murray, Bill Murray, Theresa Russell, Catherine Hicks, Denholm Elliott, James Keach

Synopsis: In this Bill Murray-driven remake of the 1946 Tyrone Power film, Murray plays the lead, Larry Darrel, a World War I survivor who takes off on a foreign trek to discover the meaning of his life. Apparently Murray said he'd film Ghostbusters only if Columbia would let him do Razor's Edge. ~ All Read More

Overnight Sensation

Crew: Book Author

Synopsis: Based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham, this drama centers on a housewife who suddenly finds her life in turmoil after she writes a best-selling book. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Letter

Crew: Short Story Author

Synopsis: In this drama, adapted from a W. Somerset Maugham novel, a philandering wife is accused of killing her lover. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

After the Fox

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Peter Sellers, Britt Ekland, Lydia Brazzi, Paolo Stoppa, Tino Buazzelli, Victor Mature

Synopsis: With Peter Sellers as star, Neil Simon as screenwriter, and Vittorio DeSica as director, how could After the Fox miss? Miss it did, however--though the film, patchy and inconsistent though it might be, definitely has its moments. Sellers plays an Italian master thief who can't seem to stay out of Read More

Of Human Bondage

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Kim Novak, Laurence Harvey, Robert Morley, Siobhan McKenna, Roger Livesey

Synopsis: This third screen adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel about the destructiveness of sexual obsession stars Laurence Harvey as Philip Carey, a club-footed artist who after two unsuccessful years in Paris decides to pursue a career in medicine instead. During his medical studies he falls in love Read More

Adorable Julia

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Lilli Palmer, Charles Boyer, Jean Sorel, Jean Valerie

Synopsis: Adorable Julia, by director Alfred Weidenmann, is perhaps a little too provincial or out-moded for most audiences in spite of the sophisticated allure of Lili Palmer and Charles Boyer in the lead roles. Palmer plays the title character Julia, the philandering wife of Michel (Boyer), a very Read More

The Somerset Maugham Hour

Crew: Short Story Author

Synopsis: Also known as SMS, this British anthology series offered 60-minute adaptations of Somerset Maugham's best short stories, many of which had never previously been dramatized. Unlike earlier American TV series and British "omnibus" films devoted to Maugham's works, Somerset Maugham Hour did not Read More

The Seventh Sin

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Eleanor Parker, Bill Travers, George Sanders, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Françoise Rosay

Synopsis: A remake of The Painted Veil (which was itself based upon a novel by W. Somerset Maugham), The Seventh Sin stars Eleanor Parker as Carol Carwin, a cold, self-centered woman married to a caring, dedicated doctor (played by Bill Travers). Ignorant of what a fine man she is married to and eager for Read More

Three Cases of Murder

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: Alan Badel, Hugh Pryse, John Salew, Leucen MacGrath, Eddie Byrne

Synopsis: The British omnibus thriller, Three Cases of Murder includes two supernatural tales and a straight whodunit. The first segment, "The Picture," was directed by Wendy Toye, based on a short story by Roderick Wilkinson. A museum tour guide, Jarvis (Hugh Pryse), is plagued by artworks going missing Read More

Three for the Show

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Betty Grable, Marge Champion, Gower Champion, Jack Lemmon, Myron McCormick

Synopsis: Three for the Show is a musical remake of the 1940 comedy Too Many Husbands, which in turn was based on a play by Somerset Maugham. In her next-to-last film, Betty Grable plays Julie, a popular musical comedy stars whose husband Marty (Jack Lemmon) is reported missing in action during WW2. After Read More

The Beachcomber

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: Glynis Johns, Robert Newton, Donald Sinden, Paul Rogers, Donald Pleasence

Synopsis: This second film version of Somerset Maugham's Vessel of Wrath lacks the casual charm of the first (which starred Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester), but is otherwise quite entertaining. Robert Newton stars as Honorable Ted, a slovenly, bibulous South Sea Island beachcomber. The black sheep of Read More

Miss Sadie Thompson

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Rita Hayworth, José Ferrer, Aldo Ray, Russell Collins, Peggy Converse, Diosa Costello

Synopsis: Set in New Caledonia (though filmed in Hawaii), Miss Sadie Thompson is a heavily laundered adaptation of Somerset Maugham's Rain, with Rita Hayworth in the title role and José Ferrer as the pious Alfred Davidson. To satisfy the censors, Sadie is no longer a whore but a nightclub entertainer "with Read More

Encore

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Nigel Patrick, Roland Culver, Alison Leggatt, Kay Walsh, Glynis Johns, Charles Victor, Ronald Squire

Synopsis: The producers of Quartet and Trio concluded their cycle with this omnibus film, which features three stories based, as in the previous film, on tales by W. Somerset Maugham. "The Ant and the Grasshopper" concerns Tom Ramsey (Nigel Patrick), a fiscally unstable young man who is constantly borrowing Read More

Trio

Crew: Book Author, Screenwriter

Actors: James Hayter, Anne Crawford, Felix Aylmer, Nigel Patrick, Lana Morris, Jean Simmons, Michael Rennie, Michael Hordern, Kathleen Harrison

Synopsis: Trio was the 1950 follow-up to the successful Somerset Maugham "omnibus" feature Quartet. Maugham himself introduces the three short playlets in this captivating collection. "The Verger" stars James Hayter as a church verger who loses his position when it is discovered that he can neither read nor Read More

Quartet

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, Dirk Bogarde, Ian Fleming, George Cole, Jack Raine, Cecil Parker, Angela Baddeley

Synopsis: The first of three well-received "omnibus" films hosted by Somerset Maugham, Quartet features four of Maugham's most celebrated stories, each introduced by the author himself. In "The Facts of Life," a seemingly innocent British youth (Jack Watling) is targeted for a shakedown by a beautiful Read More

The Unfaithful

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Ann Sheridan, Lew Ayres, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden

Synopsis: Though not readily apparent at first, The Unfaithful is a remake of the 1940 Bette Davis vehicle The Letter, which in turn was adapted from the play by W. Somerset Maugham. The locale of the Maugham original has been shifted from the jungles of Malaya to the cozy confines of a middle-sized Read More

Dirty Gertie from Harlem USA

Crew: Book Author

Synopsis: Gertie flees New York City, running from an old boyfriend, and finds herself on the island of Trinidad. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Razor's Edge

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Tyrone Power, Demetrius Alexis, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Walter Bonn, Anne Baxter, Eugene Borden, Clifton Webb

Synopsis: After several years' service with the Marines in World War II, Tyrone Power made his much anticipated return to the screen in The Razor's Edge. Power is appropriately cast as disillusioned World War I vet Larry Darrell, who returns from hostilities questioning his old values. To find himself Read More

Of Human Bondage

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Eleanor Parker, Paul Henreid, Alexis Smith, Edmund Gwenn, Janis Paige

Synopsis: This second film version of Somerset Maugham's classic novel stars Paul Henreid as a clubfooted, introverted medical student--an Englishman in the novel, but not in the hands of the mittel-European Mr. Henried. Eleanor Parker is featured as Mildred, the vulgar, brassy cockney waitress in whom Read More

The Hour Before the Dawn

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Franchot Tone, Binnie Barnes, John Sutton, Henry Stephenson

Synopsis: In this wartime drama, set in England during early WW II, a rich young man becomes a conscientious objector because he cannot bear the thought of killing. He marries a governess at his mansion so that she can remain in the country. He doesn't know that she is a Nazi spy. Because of his objections Read More

Christmas Holiday

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Deanna Durbin, Gene Kelly, Dean Harens, Gale Sondergaard, Richard Whorf, Gladys George

Synopsis: Don't be fooled by the title. Christmas Holiday is a far, far cry from It's a Wonderful Life. Told in flashback, the story begins as Jackie (Deanna Durbin), marries Southern aristocrat Robert Monette (Gene Kelly). Unfortunately, Robert has inherited his family's streak of violence and instability Read More

The Moon and Sixpence

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: George Sanders, Herbert Marshall, Doris Dudley, Steven Geray, Eric Blore

Synopsis: The Moon and Sixpence, W. Somerset Maugham's account of the life of artist Paul Gauguin, was brought to the screen as a labor of love by writer/director Albert Lewin. George Sanders plays Charles Strickland, a staid London broker who kicks over the traces to become an artist. Strickland pursues Read More

The Letter

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Frieda Inescort, Gale Sondergaard, Sen Yung

Synopsis: William Wyler's dark and poisonous melodrama, based on the W. Somerset Maugham novel, features Bette Davis in one of her nastiest roles. The story begins in the shimmering moonlight on a tropical Malayan rubber plantation. Shots ring out and a wounded man, Geoffrey Hammond (David Newell) staggers Read More

Too Many Husbands

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray, Melvyn Douglas, Harry Davenport, Dorothy Peterson

Synopsis: The W. Somerset Maugham play Home and Beauty was successful Americanized as Too Many Husbands (British title: My Two Husbands). Led to believe that her husband Fred MacMurray has drowned in a shipwreck, socialite Jean Arthur marries Melvyn Douglas. In time-honored Enoch Arden fashion, MacMurray Read More

The Beachcomber

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester, Tyrone Guthrie, Robert Newton, Dolly Mollinger

Synopsis: Based on a story by Somerset Maugham, The Beachcomber was originally released in Great Britain as Vessel of Wrath. This English version was much franker--and much more fun--than the abbreviated, watered-down US release prints. Even the American version, however, is successful in capturing the Read More

The Tenth Man

Crew: Play Author

Actors: John Lodge, Antoinette Cellier, Athole Stewart, Clifford Evans, Iris Hoey

Synopsis: A Somerset Maugham novel was the source of the British The Tenth Man. John Lodge plays George Winter, a self-made businessman who lets nothing get in the way of his climb to the top. Whenever he meets a competitor who can't be bought, Winter destroys the man through methods both legal and Read More

Secret Agent

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Madeleine Carroll, Peter Lorre, John Gielgud, Robert Young, Percy Marmont

Synopsis: Based on the novels of W. Somerset Maugham, The Secret Agent is the second in a trilogy of Alfred Hitchcock spy movies (along with The 39 Steps and Sabotage). Set during WWI, John Gielgud plays British novelist Edgar Brodie who discovers that a government agency has faked his own death. He is then Read More

Isle of Fury

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Woods, Paul Graetz, Gordon Hart

Synopsis: Based on the W. Somerset Maugham novel The Narrow Corner, the melodramatic adventure Isle of Fury is one of Humphrey Bogart's early starring roles. Valentine "Val" Stevens (Bogart), a reformed criminal who makes a living by diving for pearls in the south seas, gets married to Lucille Gordon Read More

The Right to Live

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Josephine Hutchinson, George Brent, Colin Clive, Peggy Wood, Henrietta Crosman

Synopsis: The Right to Live was the second film version of Somerset Maugham's The Sacred Flame (the first, produced in 1929, starred Conrad Nagel), which in its original form posed the question "Can there truly be such a thing as a mercy killing?" Put simply, it is the tragic tale of two brothers: Colin Read More

Of Human Bondage

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Frances Dee, Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny

Synopsis: The first of three film versions of Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage stars Leslie Howard as sensitive, clubfooted artist-cum-med student Philip Carey. Despite his yearnings for the finer things in life, Carey cannot extricate himself from a mutually destructive relationship with sluttish Read More

The Painted Veil

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Greta Garbo, Herbert Marshall, George Brent, Warner Oland, Jean Hersholt

Synopsis: A W. Somerset Maugham novel was the source for the fair-to-middling Greta Garbo vehicle The Painted Veil. In a situation comparable to the plotlines of most of her silent films, Garbo is lovelessly married to Herbert Marshall, but carries a flaming torch for George Brent. (Also harking back to Garbo Read More

The Narrow Corner

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Patricia Ellis, Dudley Digges, Ralph Bellamy

Synopsis: A Somerset Maugham story was adapted for The Narrow Corner, a film about Man's inability to escape his destiny. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. plays a fugitive from Australian justice, wanted for accidentally killing a man. He escapes to the East Indies in a ship rented by his father. Among the people Read More

Our Betters

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Constance Bennett, Gilbert Roland, Charles Starrett, Anita Louise, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: Our Betters is adapted from Somerset Maugham's play about the shallowness and hypocrisy of the idle rich. American heiress Constance Bennett snares a titled British husband (Alan Mobray), but when she discovers that he is merely marrying her for her money, she decides to carry on a few affairs of Read More

Rain

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: Joan Crawford, Walter Huston, William Gargan, Guy Kibbee, Walter Catlett

Synopsis: The pleasures of the flesh confront the discipline of the Lord's teachings in this screen adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's story Miss Sadie Thompson. Sadie Thompson (Joan Crawford) is a sassy streetwalker who lands in Pago Pago in the South Pacific after an epidemic grounds the ship on which Read More

Wieb Im Dschungel [German Version]

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Charlotte Ander, Ernst Stahl-Nachbaur, Erich Ponto, Robert Thoeren

La Lettre

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Marcelle Romee, Gabriel Gabrio, André Roanne, Paul Capellani

Synopsis: La Lettre is the French-language version of the 1929 American film The Letter. Based on the Somerset Maugham play of the same name, the French adaptation stars Marcelle Romee as Mrs. Leslie Bennett, the character played in the American version by legendary Broadway star Jeanne Eagels. After Read More

Strictly Unconventional

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Catherine Dale Owen, Paul Cavanagh, Tyrell Davis, Ernest Torrence

Synopsis: Strictly Unconventional offers two subplots united by irony. British wife Elizabeth (Catherine Dale Owen), weary of her much older M.P. husband Clive (Lewis Stone), dreams of running off with her handsome Canadian lover Ted (Paul Cavanaugh). Hoping to vicariously experience her fantasy, Elizabeth Read More

Charming Sinners

Crew: Play Author, Short Story Author

Actors: Ruth Chatterton, Clive Brook, Mary Nolan, William Powell, Florence Eldridge

Synopsis: Charming Sinners was a stilted adaptation of Somerset Maugham's play The Constant Wife. Robert Miles (Clive Brook) starts the ball rolling when he falls in love with Anne-Marie Whitley (Mary Nolan), the best friend of his own wife Kathryn (Ruth Chatterton). In retaliation, Kathryn begins a Read More

The Letter

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Jeanne Eagels, O.P. Heggie, Reginald Owen, Herbert Marshall, Irene Browne

Synopsis: The Letter was the first film version of the Somerset Maugham play of the same name. Broadway star Jeanne Eagels plays the wife of Reginald Owen, the owner of a Malayan rubber plantation. The film opens with Eagels shooting a man (Herbert Marshall) to death; she explains that the man had tried to Read More

The Sacred Flame

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Conrad Nagel, Lila Lee, Pauline Frederick, William Courtenay, Walter Byron

Synopsis: In this early sound film, adapted from a play by Somerset Maugham, a WW I veteran is left crippled after a plane crash that occurred on his wedding day. He must spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Meanwhile his loving wife begins an affair with his brother. When his mother finds out about Read More

Sadie Thompson

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Blanche Frederici, Gloria Swanson, James Marcus, Raoul Walsh, Charles Lane

Synopsis: Rain, the famous John Colton-Clemence Randolph theatrical adaptation of Somerset Maugham's short story about religious hypocrisy, was such a "hot potato" in 1928 that the Hays Office, Hollywood's self-appointed censorship bureau, would not allow the play to be filmed under its original title. Read More

Canadian

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Thomas Meighan, Mona Palma, Wyndham Standing, Dale Fuller, Charles Winninger

Synopsis: In 1917, Thomas Meighan played the lead in a film adaptation of Somerset Maugham's The Land of Promise. Nine years later he essayed the same role, Alberta wheat farmer Frank Taylor, in the remake, now titled The Canadian. When she loses her family fortune, Englishwoman Nora Marsh (Mona Palma) Read More

Magician

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Michael Powell, Alice Terry, Paul Wegener, Ivan Petrovich, Gladys Hamer

Synopsis: The Magician was loosely based on the 1908 novel by Somerset Maugham -- which, in turn, was inspired by the controversial career of "Black Arts" practitioner Aleister Crowley. The great German actor Paul Wegener stars as Doctor Haddo, a self-styled sorcerer who has unearthed an ancient document Read More

East of Suez

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Pola Negri, Edmund Lowe, Rockliffe Fellowes, Noah Beery, Sr.

Synopsis: The exotic Pola Negri is given the role of a half-English, half-Chinese girl in this drama based on W. Somerset Maugham's play and directed by Raoul Walsh. In spite of the illustrious names attached to this production, however, it was a weak film which did justice to none of them. When Daisy Read More

Circle

Crew: Play Author, Short Story Author

Actors: Eleanor Boardman, Alec B. Francis, Eugénie Besserer, George Fawcett

Synopsis: In spite of a fine cast and director, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer somehow managed to turn the stage play by W. Somerset Maugham into merely a classy-looking program picture. The Cheneys are "veddy" proper upper-class Englishmen, so it's a shock in the 1890s when Lady Catherine, wife of Lord Clive Cheney Read More

Infatuation

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Corinne Griffith, Percy Marmont, Malcolm McGregor, Warner Oland, Clarissa Selwynne

Synopsis: Not a remake of the 1915 Margarita Fischer vehicle of the same name, Infatuation is based on Caesar's Wife, a story by Somerset Maugham. The dazzlingly beautiful Corinne Griffith plays British socialite Viola Morgan, who falls madly in love with professional soldier Sir Arthur Little (Percy Marmont Read More

The Ordeal

Crew: Short Story Author

Actors: Agnes Ayres, Clarence Burton, Conrad Nagel, Edna Murphy

Synopsis: W. Somerset Maugham's first original story for the screen proves one thing -- Maugham could not translate his inspiration to film on his own. All he could come up with was this hackneyed drama. Agnes Ayres plays Sybil Bruce, one of those long-suffering maidens found by the dozens in silent Read More