Moon And Sixpence, The

2316. THE MOON AND SIXPENCE (1942-USA). With george sanders, Herbert marshall, eric blore, elena verdugo. The associate producer is stanley kramer. Music by dimitri tiomkin. Based on the book by w. somerset maugham. Urbane George Sanders is given his first multi-dimensional screen role in this engrossing drama. He is cast as Charles Strickland, a cynical forty-year-old middle-class stockbroker who abandons his family to pursue the artist’s life first as a painter on Paris’ Left Bank and later on the island Of Tahiti. As Maugham’s fictionÂal biography (based on the life Of Paul Gauguin) begins, a writer who had known Strickland (earns that a painting by the late artist has just been auctioned for 3500 British pounds. The writer is fasciÂnated by Strickland and the dramatic transformation in his life. He explores thoughts Of composing a biography Of the broker-turned-bohemian. “To probe the mystery Of a nature as curious as Strickland’s has the fascination Of a detective story,” he observes. The crux Of the film explores the whoÕs, howÕs and whys Of Strickland’s very curious life. He is portrayed as an anti-hero who is driven to forsake human kindness in his obsession with artistic beauty. “Love is a disease. It’s weakness,” he insists. This is an intelligent and spellbinding tale about a man whose cruelly and insensitivity does not stand in the way Of his creating beauty in art. 89 minutes. Drama