BEING JULIA – Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons

Being Julia (2004)
Direction: István Szabó
Screenplay: Ronald Harwood; from W. Somerset Maugham’s 1937 novel Theatre
Cast: Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons, Shaun Evans, Bruce Greenwood, Miriam Margolyes, Juliet Stevenson, Lucy Punch, Michael Gambon, Sheila McCarthy, Leigh Lawson, Rosemary Harris, Rita Tushingham
 

 

A LITTLE ABOUT AVICE
In Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1950 Oscar-winning classic All About Eve, Bette Davis plays Margo Channing, a major Broadway star who, despite her talent and wit, falls prey to the ambitious wannabe Eve Harrington: sweet, soft-spoken Anne Baxter on the outside, ruthless, poisonous gargoyle on the inside.
More than a decade earlier, in 1937 to be exact, W. Somerset Maugham had written Theatre, a novel about a West End star, the stage diva Julia Lambert (that four years later would [...]

by Andre Soares | December 26, 2004   
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THE LETTER – Jeanne Eagels

The Letter (1929)
Direction: Jean de Limur
Screenplay: Garrett Fort, from W. Somerset Maugham’s 1927 play
Cast: Jeanne Eagels, O. P. Heggie, Reginald Owen, Herbert Marshall, Irene Browne, Lady Tsen Mei, Tamaki Yoshiwara

 
Having seen William Wyler’s masterful 1940 adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s The Letter and having read quite a bit about Broadway star Jeanne Eagels‘ remarkable talent, I was expecting to find at least a modicum of quality in Jean de Limur’s 1929 version of the tale. I was greatly disappointed even though the plot is basically the same as the one found in the Wyler version:
Stuck on a Malayan rubber plantation with her aloof older husband (Reginald Owen), British subject Leslie Crosbie (Eagels) finds affection in the person of [...]

by Andre Soares | September 14, 2004   
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