Trio

The film is adapted from three stories by W. Somerset Maugham, who introduces them himself. In the first part there is a verger who loses his job and cannot read or write; he opens a tobacconist’s shop and builds a small fortune. The second part is about a man who talks to everyone and claims to know everything. The third is set in a sanatorium and tells of the shared life, and the attachments, of people who are mostly gravely ill. All three parts look at the small failings of people. The work is the second film of a trilogy of Maugham adaptations. Ken Annakin directed the first two parts and Harold French the third. Jean Simmons and Michael Rennie are among those who appear. The ninety one minute British film was completed in 1950.