This is the first of three films consisting of several short stories by Sommerset Maughem. He introduces them as well as bids the audience goodbye at the film's conclusion. The films star a wide range of familiar British actors. Leonard Maltin gave this film four stars and it has a wonderful reputation, so I was really surprised how ambivalent I felt about the film. This is a real shame, as the followup films TRIO and ENCORE were shown right after QUARTET on TCM and I was planning on seeing all three--that is until I felt so totally underwhelmed by QUARTET. Maybe you'll like the film more than I did. Sure, the acting was excellent, but the four separate stories were highly uneven. Only one of them ("The Colonel's Wife") was exceptional and the other three all seemed incomplete or anti-climactic. I kept thinking to myself that if they picked four of Maughem's best stories for this anthology, then he must be a really dull writer--though this surely can't be the case as I have enjoyed several Maughem films (such as THE RAZOR'S EDGE and THE PAINTED VEIL). All I know is that I just found the stories so mundane and they provided little irony or interest--excepting The Colonel's Wife--which was an amazingly sweet and insightful way to end the film.