The Razor's Edge
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Movie Reviews of The Razor's Edge
Movie Review: Searching for one's soul
Summary: 5 Stars
What do you want from life? What does it all mean in the end? Why should one man die & another man live? Is it all just arbitrary?
Here's a sumptuous adaptation of the Somerset Maugham novel about one man's search for answers to those questions. It's done in grand Hollywood style, with a fine cast, beautiful sets, and sharp dialogue. Granted, it takes some minor liberties with the source material, and the acting style isn't as naturalistic as modern viewers might expect. But I think those are quibbles, and don't interfere with the movie as a whole.
Tyrone Power has the most difficult part, in that he has to play the seeker Larry Darrell according to the stylized conventions of screen piety at the time. Even so, his slightly stiff & detached performance does convey the sense of someone not quite in synch with the everyday world, someone who's still looking for something solid & real. He never comes across as a prig or stuffed shirt -- rather than seeming above everyone else, he seems apart from everyone else. He's naive in some ways, but he's not stupid. And his empathy for & acceptance of his friends, just as they are, is obvious.
The rest of the cast is quite good as well. Gene Tierney's Isabel is stunningly beautiful, with just the right balance of coolness & yearning ... and as we see later, capable of vindictive cruelty. John Payne's millionaire could easily have been a stock villain, the Crass Rich Man, but instead he's simply a decent human being whose temperament lends itself to the business world. Anne Baxter may be a little bit over the top, but her character has earned that right. Certainly her self-destructiveness is all too familiar to many of us.
And then we come to the standout performances, to my mind: Clifton Webb's wonderfully waspish snob, Uncle Eliot, and Herbert Marshall's depiction of Somerset Maugham himself. Webb manages to make a vain, essentially shallow man somehow as endearing as he is annoying, while Marshall makes the presence of the author within his own story (as in the novel) totally convincing.
Again, modern audiences used to location shooting might wince at the studio sets of India, or the white actor playing an Indian spiritual teacher. Well, this was the custom at the time, and allowances should be made for it. And the guru of no fixed ethnic background works on an archetypal level: the Wise Old Man. Taken as a symbol, rather than as an individual, he's quite acceptable, not unlike Sam Jaffe's elderly monk in "Lost Horizon."
It's also fascinating to see how much adult material they managed to include, despite the restrictions of the Hays Code. Without being explicit, they make clear Isabel's intention to trap Larry by getting pregnant. And in Maugham's encounter with a worldly French police officer, the novelist's homosexuality is discreetly & sympathetically referenced. The grown-ups in the audience would understand it all immediately, while such material would simply go over the heads of any children.
Some may prefer Bill Murray's remake, which is certainly more authentic in its Indian scenes. But overall, it's not as strong as the original, and Bill hasn't quite found the balance of comedy & drama that worked so perfectly in "Groundhog Day." Sometimes a bit of artifice just winds up working better than authenticity.
For those who wonder if there's more to life than money & status, this is an indispensible film. Most highly recommended!
Movie Review: deep focus
Summary: 5 Stars
I've taught this film in colleges for thirty-plus years. Even back at the earliest screenings, traditional-aged freshmen had trouble with it (a) because it was in b&w, and (b) because the dimensional characters didn't telegraph plot advancement but instead used irony, wit, or assumptions that would later be proven wrong by subsequent events.
The first of these objections stunned me when they couldn't appreciate Gene Tierney descending the stairs to seduce "Larry" in a gown relegated to grays. The second objection (young auduence confusion) just made me sad about the impact of television ... but you already know that story.
As with Hollywood's THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, released in during the same general period, I personally appreciate the "epic scope" of the narrative, enhanced by remarkable set direction detail. And I appreciate even more the depth-of-focus photography in both of these films, which enriches viewing by sharp images at several planes of action within the frame. It's a story well-told at the visual level.
I've read complaints about Tyrone Power's "dated" acting in this performance, NIGHTMARE ALLEY, etc. But again, I suspect this is from a generation more comfortable with MTV editing than with theatre as an entertainment criterion. Power is given a series of difficult monologues to recite about uncinematic spiritual/ philosophical themes, and he pulls each off brilliantly. As with Olivier's opening scene in RICHARD III, it's interesting to watch how these monologues have been directed to use a pacing movement of the actor within the frame as a "paragraphing" punctuation. The lengthy, uninterrupted takes and consequent fluidity of camera movement within these shots not only enhances the impact of the monologues but also makes sly commentary on characters/ themes as continuous camera includes other characters in medium close-ups.
Herbert Marshall's Maugham is interesting and underplayed almost as masterfully as Cedrick Hardwicke's performance of "goodness personified" in ROPE. The close-ups of "Maugham's" eyes to communicate ironic plot points may seem obtrusive, but they're true to Maugham's voice in the novel.
Further, they emphasize the ill-advised decision to omit this narrator's perspective in Murray's hapless remake. That later film fails in no small part because the female characters are virtually indistinguishable visually, and because the studio (which only made the film to entice Murray to make GHOSTBUSTERS II) invested no interest in producing a good movie script. Pity, since Murray could have done okay.
Two less successful scenes in the 40s version are the "Baby!" hospital melodrama and the ashram Jehovah sequences (not including the remarkably visual spiritual moment in the mountains). But the supporting cast remains superb throughout--especially the bracing comedy of Webb and Lancaster, and the moving subtlety of John Payne and Lucille Watson.
Tierney's richest moments are linked to the plot: "That's all right, Larry. It might be less than a year"; the wedding announcement over the phone; the camera-narrated scene where Isabel "seduces" Larry's fiancee; and, of course, the climax with Larry at the end. And, by the way, she's as gorgeous as Tyrone Power!
How much more value can one expect from an entertainment that succeeds so well with complex, mature themes of spiritual redemption in a society of capitalist myopia?
Movie Review: A laudible effort.
Summary: 5 Stars
The plot synopsis above tells you the story line, and this very unconvential story is remarkable in having been made. At a time when some other movies were being made in color, this was still in black and white, which tells you where the movie moguls placed it in "rank". Color was reserved for block busters, and despite the epic sweep of this story, they didn't expect it to sell. (Also, "serious" dramas were often done in B&W.) It fits very well in black and white, both with it being set in the 1920s, and much of its story line is dark.
Tyrone Power does some of his best acting work in this film. Perhaps his military service deepened him, or the story line seemed more important and personal to him, but I believed his quest for something beyond the conventional, comfortable life. Unfortunately, as a fan of Gene Tierney, I find this her worst work. Even at her best she can be alittle blank, but here, a level of mental machinery is required of this manipulative, calculating character, and we are left always seeing only an beautiful empty surface. Her eyes betray no inner life. And yet, as soon as you dismiss her as an empty shell, she will have a really lovely moment of total truth, ususally in the most odd places. She is perfectly cast as the pampered, narrow minded patrician. She does look a bit like Kathryn Hepburn, who was considered for the role, but determined to not have enough charm - and it is true. Hepburn in this role would have had more fire and spirit, but not this genteel icy sweetness. We do see why he loves her inspite of knowing how rotten she is.
Contrast Tierney's blankness with a very young Anne Baxter who has a very demanding role; first mousy and insecure, heartbroken and heartbreaking, and then alcoholic and defeated. She did deserve an award for her work here, and it should have been a lesson for the mannered, self-conscious diva she became in her later work. This is some of her best, risk taking, work. In a role that could have been a wallpaper tearing scene stealer, she is very contained and her struggle is with herself, inside.
I saw the version with Bill Murray when it was in theatres. I understood completely why he would want to make it, and he simply was not right for the role, not his acting ability, nor his personal qualities. Tyrone Power, usually too pretty, hits just the right notes. It is worth mentioning that the studio fought constantly to take religion out of this story which, ultimately, is about a religious quest - the way to live a life of meaning and rightness. The resulting restraint, as with many classics, work in its favor.
The commentary is very good on this DVD, discussing details like the long takes of the director, and how that influenced all the technical aspects, from lighting to acting style. But the overwhelming stand out of this film is the story. Thoughtful, different, and interesting, it overcomes any elements of dated presentation to make it remain a classic worth continued viewing.
Movie Review: I Dare You to Ask: Why?
Summary: 5 Stars
I will leave it to others, better at it than I am, to detail the story, the actors, and the hollywood behind this wonderful film. What I need you to understand is that the film's central theme, that the life handed to us by society, that the life we are programmed into accepting unquestioningly and unreflectingly is one big fraud, is more relevant today than ever. This film, more than any other, dares to ask the right question and shows us one man's search for one right answer. It is a search that Tyrone Power's character begins in himself, and concludes in a world filled with friends who live falsely rather than truly, and have chosen the illusion of happiness over truth with the possibility of despair. Take that journey with him ... you won't be disappointed. That life of tirelessly struggling for wealth, power, fame, and pleasure cannot help us achieve real happiness, even though to rule over us in the name of order and organization, the structures of society must do their best to convince us that it will. The answer to the question, why do we behave as we do, and live as we do, has got to be more than what we are told almost from the moment of birth ... why not. This film says, living a good life, a happy life means walking on the edge, walking the tightrope from illusion to truth. We can never hope to get all the way across, but, like any real-life tightrope, to stop means to perish.Movie Review: This film has the essence of the book and then some
Summary: 5 Stars
In 1946 this movie won the Academy award for best supporting actress "Anne Baxter." There is an all star cast including Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney. With all the star power the actors did not outshine the characters they were portraying. I will always think that Somerset Maugham looks like Herbert Marshall.
The screenplay by Lamar Trotti stuck close to the book by the same name and message of W. Somerset Maugham. A few adventures were compressed and maybe an improvement as far as this media goes. Tyrone Power ...Larry Darrell did get to do some things that were acts of W. Somerset Maugham in the book and it was difficult to imagine Gene Tierney ...Isabel Bradley was supposed to be a pudgy child.
Over all this is a story of different people from different backgrounds and how they deal with adversity. The main character has to figure out in his mind, why someone else had to die to save his life at the very end of the war? In the process of looking he goes to India and seeks help in understanding the way the world works. There alone in the mountains on the edge of dawn he has a revelation. He now must go back to the world and apply what he has learned.
Does he figure it out his dilemma?