OF HUMAN BONDAGE (1934)
This is the first, and generally regarded as the best, adaptation of Somerset Maugham's famous novel. The fact that a novel of over 600 pages has been compressed into a film with a running time of less than 90 minutes suggests that a lot of the subtlety and depth of the book has been lost. For example, what sort of bondage are we talking about? Since the main focus of the film is Philip's infatuation with a waitress Mildred who doesn't love him, and which almost brings him to ruin, I came away from it with the idea that the bondage Maugham is referring to is that of unrequited love, especially since Philip has relationships with two other women (Norah and Sally) who love him far more than he does them. However having now read some reviews of the novel this would seem to be an oversimplification. From these I get the impression that part of Philip's problem, in that he is unhappy, is that he is always searching for something unattainable that he thinks will bring him ha...