IN: Review: Made after QUARTET was, TRIO continued the quality of the earlier film versions of the short stories by Maugham. Here the three stories are THE VERGER, MR. KNOW-IT-ALL, and SANITORIUM. The first two are comic (THE VERGER is like a prolonged joke, but one with a good pay-off), and the last more serious (as health issues are involved). Again the author introduces the film and the stories.

James Hayter, soon to have his signature role as Samuel Pickwick, is the hero in THE VERGER. He holds this small custodial-type job in a church, but the new Vicar (Michael Hordern) is an intellectual snob. When he hears Hayter has no schooling he fires him. Hayter has saved some money, so he tells his wife (Kathleen Harrison) he fancies buying a small news and tobacco shop. He has a good eye, and his store thrives. Soon he has a whole chain of stores. When his grandchild is christened by Hordern, the latter is amazed to see how prosperous his ex-Verger. The payoff is when bank manager Felix Aylmer meets with Hayter about diversifying his investments. I'll leave it to you to hear the unintentional but ironic coda of the meeting.

According to Maugham he met a man like Max Kelada (Nigel Patrick) on a cruise. In MR. KNOW-IT-ALL Kelada is a splashy, friendly, and slightly overbearing type from the Middle East who is on a business trip (regarding jewelry) by steamship. His state-room mate is Mr. Grey (the ever quiet and proper Wilfred Hyde-White) who is somewhat, silently disapproving of Max. Max likes to enliven things, and soon is heavily involved in the ship's entertainment. At this point the story actually resembles part of the plot of the non-Maugham story and film CHINA SEAS (1935), as Max makes a bet that he can tell a real piece of jewelry from a fake (after insisting that a piece of jewelry he spotted is real). I won't describe the way Max rises to the occasion.

SANITORIUM is the longest segment. Roland Culver plays "Ashenden" (the fictional alter-ego of Maugham - a writer and one time spy as in Hitchcock's THE SECRET AGENT). Here he has to use a sanitorium for a couple of months for his health. He finds a remarkable crew of people, including Jean Simmons as a frail but beautiful young woman, Finlay Currie as an irascible Scotsman, John Laurie as a second irascible Scotsman who is "at war" with Currie, Raymond Huntley as a quiet patient who only shows his internal anger at his situation when his wife shows up, and Michael Rennie as a young man who has a serious life threatening illness. Culver watches as three stories among these characters play out to their conclusions. The last, dealing with Simmons and Rennie, is ironic but deeply moving.

It was a dandy follow-up to the earlier QUARTET, and well worth watching.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: Time paradoxes are the devil's snare for underemployed minds. They're fun to consider in a 'what if?' sort of way. Film makers and authors have dealt with this time and again in a host of films and television including 'Star Trek: First Contact', the 'Back to the Future' trilogy, 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure', 'Groundhog Day' and the Stargate SG1 homage, 'Window of Opportunity'. Heinlein's 'All You Zombies' was written decades ago and yet it will still spin out people reading that short story for the first time.

In the case of Terry Gilliam's excellent film, '12 Monkeys', it's hard to establish what may be continuity problems versus plot elements intended to make us re-think our conception of the film. Repeated viewings will drive us to different conclusions if we retain an open mind.

Some, seeing the film for the first time, will regard Cole, played by Bruce Willis, as a schizophrenic. Most will see Cole as a man disturbed by what Adams describes as 'the continual wrenching of experience' visited upon him by time travel.

Unlike other time travel stories, '12 Monkeys' is unclear as to whether future history can be changed by manipulating events in the past. Cole tells his psychiatrist, Railly (Madeleine Stowe), that time cannot be changed, but a phone call he makes from the airport is intercepted by scientists AFTER he has been sent back to 1996, in his own personal time-line.

Even this could be construed as an event that had to happen in a single time-line universe, in order to ensure that the time-line is not altered...Cole has to die before the eyes of his younger self for fate to be realized. If that's the case, time is like a fluid, it always finds its own level or path, irrespective of the external forces working on it. It boggles the mind to dwell on this sort of thing too much.

If you can change future events that then guide the actions of those with the power to send people back in time, as we see on board the plane at the end of the film, then that means the future CAN be changed by manipulating past events...or does it? The film has probably led to plenty of drunken brawls at bars frequented by physicists and mathematicians
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: Daddy's girls Florence Lawrence and Dorothy West receive some terrific news at the local post office, unaware they are being stalked by burglar Charles Inslee. Meanwhile, father David Miles receives a message (from young Robert Harron) which necessitates daddy leaving home; so, when the young women return, they can be home alone. As the vulnerable pair bed down for the evening, the local "Grand Ball of the Black and Tans" gets underway; and, a dark-skinned drinker portends additional danger for D.W. Griffith's dynamic duo

Mr. Inslee has one of his better Biograph roles, stealing the film from "The Girls and Daddy". Ironically, Director Griffith appears as one of the black-faced extras at the "Black and Tans" ball. "Biograph Girls" Lawrence and West are suggestive of later "Griffith Girls" Lillian and Dorothy Gish, especially in "Orphans of the Storm" (1921); and, they are excessively affectionate in bed! The racist tone is unfortunate, since the story of a burglar redeemed by saving his potential victims from a greater danger, is intriguing.

*** The Girls and Daddy (2/1/09) D.W. Griffith ~ Florence Lawrence, Dorothy West, Charles Inslee
What is this review like?
OUT:
negative