Trio

The Verger segment
Felix Aylmer - Bank Manager
Kathleen Harrison - Emma Foreman
James Hayter - Albert Foreman
Michael Hordern - Vicar

Mr. Know-All segment
Anne Crawford - Mrs. Ramsey
Wilfrid Hyde-White - Mr. Gray
Eliot Makeham - Sexton
Michael Medwin - Steward
Clive Morton - Ship's Captain
Nigel Patrick - Kelada
Bill Travers - Fellowes
Naunton Wayne - Mr. Ramsey

Sanitorium segment
Roland Culver - Mr. Ashenden
Finlay Currie - Mr. McLeod
Betty Ann Davies - Mrs. Chester
Raymond Huntley - Mr. Chester
John Laurie - Mr. Campbell
André Morell - Dr. Lennox
Michael Rennie - Major Templeton
Jean Simmons - Evie Bishop

W. Somerset Maugham - The Introducer

The success of Quartet (1948), in which four unrelated Somerset Maugham short stories were strung together in a single omnibus picture, encouraged the producers to repeat the formula. The only connecting link between the three yarns is a pithy Maugham foreword. The first two bright and breezy vignettes, The Verger and Mr Know-All, both directed by Ken Annakin, between them occupy roughly half the screen time. Sanatorium, directed by Harold French, deals with the treatment of tuberculosis and strikes a happy note between sentiment and laughter. Like Quartet, this was popular and successful enough to inspire a sequel; Encore (1951).

Somerset Maugham himself introduces the three short vignettes. In "The Verger", Albert Foreman (James Hayter) has been the church verger of St Peter’s in Neville Sq for many years when the new vicar (Michael Hordern) discovers he can neither read nor write. Foreman decides it is too late in the day to learn and as a result loses his job. With the help of sympathetic landlady Emma (Kathleen Harrison) who soon becomes his wife, illiterate Foreman becomes a successful tobacconist with a chain of ten shops across London. The film’s ironic ending arrives when Foreman’s bank manager (Felix Aylmer) queries what he might have become had he learnt to read and write? Easy replies Foreman – a verger at St Peter’s Neville Sq!

In "Mister Know-All," Max Kelada (Nigel Patrick) is the loud and obnoxious passenger from hell on a luxury cruise to the Middle East. Kelada is a jewel expert who becomes involved in a £10 with civil servant Ramsey (Naunton Wayne) over the authenticity of his wife’s (Anne Crawford) pearl necklace. When Kelada spy’s the worried look of guilt on Mrs Ramsey’s face he quickly realises the necklace came from a lover and throw’s the bet to allow her secret to remain undisclosed. The following morning Mrs Ramsey return’s Kelada his £10 and the once annoying passenger receives the respect of his roommate Gray (Wilfrid Hyde-White).

In the final semi-autobiographical story, "Sanitorium," Ashenden (Roland Culver) is booked into a tuberculosis sanatorium in the north of Scotland and observes the touching romance between resident patients Major George Templeton (Michael Rennie) and Evie Bishop (Jean Simmons) and the belligerent arguing between elderly long-time residents McLeod (Finlay Currie) and Campbell (John Laurie).