Quartet **** (1981, Alan Bates, Maggie Smith, Isabelle Adjani, Anthony Higgins, Pierre Clémenti, Suzanne Flon, Sheila Gish) – Classic Movie Review 3,179

James Ivory’s beautifully crafted 1981 drama film Quartet stars Alan Bates, Maggie Smith, Isabelle Adjani and Anthony Higgins, who give notable displays of intense acting in this sleek and involving version of Jean Rhys’s autobiographical novel.

Director James Ivory’s meticulous, beautifully crafted 1981 Franco-British drama film Quartet stars Alan Bates, Maggie Smith, Isabelle Adjani and Anthony Higgins, the classy quartet who lead a notable cast in capable displays of intense acting, in this sleek and involving version of Jean Rhys’s 1928 autobiographical novel.

Set in the bohemian Paris of the 1920s (in 1927), it is about a beautiful, poverty-stricken wife, Marya ‘Mado’ Zelli (Adjani), drifting into a bizarre ménage-à-trois with a weird English married couple H J and Lois Heidler (Bates, Smith), while her Polish art dealer husband Stephan (Higgins) is in prison after he is convicted of theft. Marya (‘Mado’) is left penniless and, at Stephan’s urging, accepts the hospitality of the strange couple who let her live in their house.

Director Ivory, also co-writing with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, fillets the material into a cultivated, decorative, baroque entertainment, with plenty of decadent surface sheen in the Merchant-Ivory/ Lyric International production by producers Ismail Merchant and Jean-Pierre Mahot de la Querantonnais.

It a very good-looking film thanks to Pierre Lhomme’s cinematography and Jean-Jacques Caziot’s production designs, and Richard Robbins’s attractive score is another asset.

Also in the cast are Pierre Clémenti as Théo the pornographer, Suzanne Flon as Madame Hautchamp, Sheila Gish, Daniel Chatto, Daniel Mesguich, Paulita Sedgwick, Virginie Thévenet, Bernice Stegers, Wiley Wood, Annie Noél, and Maurice Ribot.

Curiously, Maggie Smith starred in another, unrelated film called Quartet in 2012. This made her the first star to make two unrelated films with the same title since Joan Crawford with Possessed (1931) and Possessed (1947).

It was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2019 by the Cohen Media Group.

Quartet is directed by James Ivory, runs 101 minutes, is made by Merchant Ivory Productions and Lyric International, is distributed by 20th Century Fox (UK) and Gaumont (France), is written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Michel Maingois (French dialogue) and James Ivory (uncredited), based on the novel Quartet by Jean Rhys, is produced by Ismail Merchant and Jean-Pierre Mahot de la Querantonnais, is shot by Pierre Lhomme, and is scored by Richard Robbins.

Release dates: 17 May 1981 (Cannes), 20 May 1981 (France) and July 1981 (UK).

The cast are Isabelle Adjani as Marya Zelli (nickname Mado), Alan Bates as H J Heidler, Maggie Smith as Lois Heidler, Anthony Higgins as Stephan Zelli, Sheila Gish as Anna, Suzanne Flon as Madame Hautchamp, Pierre Clementi as Théo, Daniel Mesguich as Pierre Schlamovitz, Virginie Thévenet as Mademoiselle Chardin, Daniel Chatto as Guy, Armelia McQueen as night club singer, Paulita Sedgwick, Bernice Stegers, Wiley Wood, Annie Noél, and Maurice Ribot.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3,179

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com