John R. MacArthur

How Graham Greene earned The Spectator a place in cinematic history

The 400 film reviews he wrote for the magazine are full of sparkling observation

(Getty Images) 
issue 25 April 2020

When Graham Greene impulsively took up film reviewing for The Spectator in 1935, he was not yet the renowned literary figure he was to become, and thus, like so many other writers in those parlous economic times, prosaically in need of cash. As it happened, the confluence of interests between a 30-year-old novelist of modest commercial success and Derek Verschoyle, The Spectator’s literary editor from 1932 to 1939, resulted in something extraordinary — for there is nothing prosaic about these reviews.

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