Maugham at the movies

If there were a prize for authors who have had the most movies made from their work, W. Somerset Maugham would be at or near the top of the list. Jeffrey Meyers, Maugham’s latest biographer, counts 48 Maugham-based movies, and that’s not including made-for-TV movies or foreign films, in which case the total runs into the hundreds. Maugham himself felt, grudgingly, that he was better known for the film adaptations of his books than for the books themselves.

More from Charles McGrath in The New York Times.

The latest adaptation is The Painted Veil (screenplay by Ron Nyswaner, based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham).

Edward Norton in The Painted Veil, screenplay by Ron Nyswaner, based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, directed by John Curran (Photo: © 2006 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc)