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Post by Andrea Doria on Jan 14, 2024 22:53:06 GMT
A few extra notes...
In the book, Walter gets cholera due to experiments he conducts on himself. He dies, and she is pregnant (not knowing the paternity). She goes back to live with her father, since the mother has died, and she feels she can help her father the way she did not help her husband.
Also in the book, she meets up with Townsend again while pregnant, and she resumes romantic relations with him. So it's fair to say that as Maugham originally wrote it, she probably desired Townsend more...but I would imagine the production code necessitated her not going back to the lover, with the husband not dying so she could restrengthen her marriage. I'm surprised to find out that neither version follows the book exactly.
In the 2006 version she is pregnant by Townsend, starting to show soon after they get to the cholera hospital. She has the baby and some time after that she starts to truly fall in love with her husband. I'm sorry they cut the Beulah Bondi scenes, because part of the reason she began to love him was due to seeing him through the eyes of the nurses he worked with, all of whom worshipped him. This was a different man than her father's bumbling clerk.
As in the book, he dies and she goes back to live with her father.
The 2006 ending is not like the book at all. Instead we see her walking down the street in England holding the hand of a six year old boy. She runs into Townsend who is delighted to see her after all these years and tries to get her to go out with him. She shoots him down coldly and as she walks away we hear the little boy ask who that man was and she says, "Oh, no one important." I thought it was a perfect ending.
I gave the 2006 version a 10 and I would give this version an 8. I love the story, I just like the newer one better.
I never quite get Garbo.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 15, 2024 0:35:35 GMT
A few extra notes...
In the book, Walter gets cholera due to experiments he conducts on himself. He dies, and she is pregnant (not knowing the paternity). She goes back to live with her father, since the mother has died, and she feels she can help her father the way she did not help her husband.
Also in the book, she meets up with Townsend again while pregnant, and she resumes romantic relations with him. So it's fair to say that as Maugham originally wrote it, she probably desired Townsend more...but I would imagine the production code necessitated her not going back to the lover, with the husband not dying so she could restrengthen her marriage. I'm surprised to find out that neither version follows the book exactly.
In the 2006 version she is pregnant by Townsend, starting to show soon after they get to the cholera hospital. She has the baby and some time after that she starts to truly fall in love with her husband. I'm sorry they cut the Beulah Bondi scenes, because part of the reason she began to love him was due to seeing him through the eyes of the nurses he worked with, all of whom worshipped him. This was a different man than her father's bumbling clerk.
As in the book, he dies and she goes back to live with her father.
The 2006 ending is not like the book at all. Instead we see her walking down the street in England holding the hand of a six year old boy. She runs into Townsend who is delighted to see her after all these years and tries to get her to go out with him. She shoots him down coldly and as she walks away we hear the little boy ask who that man was and she says, "Oh, no one important." I thought it was a perfect ending.
I gave the 2006 version a 10 and I would give this version an 8. I love the story, I just like the newer one better.
I never quite get Garbo. I won't say anything unkind about Garbo, except I believe she's an "acquired film taste." How's that for diplomatic!
This 1934 version from MGM has changed the father's profession to scientist, to make him more similar to Walter. But in Maugham's book, the father was a well-to-do barrister (lawyer). After Walter's death, she goes back to England (not Austria) since the mother had died. Her father is relocating to the Caribbean...she goes with him to help him, and of course, takes the child along with her.
She feels repulsed by her relationship with Townsend. Despite having resumed her affair with him, she decides it is best not to contact him again. Going off to the Caribbean will give her a fresh start.
The end of the book has her focusing on being a dutiful daughter, as well as a dutiful mother. She doesn't want her son to make the types of mistakes she made.
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