The Razor's Edge
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Movie Reviews of The Razor's Edge
Movie Review: "There must be more to life than this"
Summary: 4 Stars
Beautifully directed by Edmund Goulding, this sumptuous, and prestigious adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel was made in 1946 to great acclaim. It's a tale of manipulation, greed, unrequited love, and the eternal search for spiritual enlightenment. Larry Darrell the central character - and played in the movie by the startlingly attractive Tyrone Power - searches for life's meaning in a journey that takes him from the high society of Chicago to the coal mines of France and then on to the mountains of the Himalayas.
Larry Darrell (Power) is a frustrated man. Having just returned to Chicago after World War 1, and having seen his best friend killed, he dodges a future as a stockbroker and instead goes to Paris to seek enlightenment, much to the chagrin of his wealthy and stuck-up fianc?e Isabel Bradley (a gorgeous Gene Tierney). Although her snobbish uncle Elliott Templeton (Clifton Webb), would rather she forget Larry and move on with her life, Isabel, however, continues to be smitten and follows Larry to Paris to force him into a decision.
Once in Paris, Isabel spurns his austere lifestyle and again tries to talk him to coming back to Chicago and earning lots of money by participating in the "American dream." Larry, however, has other ideas and decides to seek his destiny, first in a French coalmine, and later from the Buddhist teachings of an Eastern Holy Man (Cecil Humphries) high atop an Indian mountain. Meanwhile, Isabel, still desperately in love with Larry, marries the sincere and hardworking stockbroker Gray Maturin (John Payne).
Several years later the characters meet up again in Paris, but their lives have taken a turn for the worse. Only Larry, who has found Buddhism a useful tool for living a happy life, can rise above post depression malaise that seems to have swept them all. Most distraught is the young and beautiful Sophie (an incredible Ann Baxter in the performance of a lifetime) who, having lost her darling husband and child in a car accident, has turned to drinking and become a fallen woman.
Goulding indulges in lots of voluptuously lit scenes in front of water fountains. There's also lots of carousing, attempts at seduction, boozing, and some wickedly catty dialogue. Tierney is obviously reveling in the role as Isabel. She's a spoiled rich girl who can't help falling for Larry, but won't give up her social status in the name of love. She painstakingly tries to weave a web of seduction around Larry, but when she discovers that Larry is to marry Sophie in order to save her from a life of debauchery, Isabel does everything within her machiavellian power to send Sophie back to her squalid and drunken life.
Razor's Edge offers a compelling and convincing group of characters as they struggle with appearances and issues that end up dictating and controlling their lives. The movie's narrative arc is unusually dense, which may initially put off some viewers, but the material remains undeniably satisfying, alternating between vitriolic melodrama and copious scenes of the rich enjoying their entitlements.
Power is terrific as Larry; he brings an unusual mix of good looks and suave intelligence to the role, and the incomparably debonair Herbert Marshall puts on a good show as the story's narrator and moral center Somerset Maugham. The scene when he corners an incensed Isabel and soothes her with sycophancy, adulation, and poetic appreciation is one of the best in the film. But the most the celebrated performance is Anne Baxter's tragic Sophie (she got the Oscar), who lacks the will to continue on and who eventually falls victim to the jealousy, selfishness, and insensitivity of her more wealthy friends. Mike Leonard July 05.
Movie Review: "There lived in this age a very remarkable creature."
Summary: 4 Stars
W. Somerset Maugham's brilliant novel, "The Razor's Edge," was first brought to the big screen via this 1946 adaptation. Tyrone Power stars as the idealistic Larry Darrell, with Gene Tierney taking a turn as his sometime girlfriend, Isabel Bradley. As the film opens, Larry and Isabel are engaged and madly in love, but Larry's plan to "loaf" and discover himself soon breaks them apart. Of course, this split is helped along by her family, particularly her snooty Uncle Elliot (Clifton Webb). However, all participants involved find themselves meeting again and again over the years - sometimes in unlikely places.
"The Razor's Edge" has many undeniably good qualities. First, it's just a gorgeous looking movie, with a multitude of amazing sets; the movie deservedly received an Oscar nomination for art direction. In addition, the direction by Edmund Goulding ("Grand Hotel") is good, and the story zips along nicely despite its length. Ultimately, the movie was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for best picture.
Unfortunately, the casting is questionable and the acting often less than stellar. Tyrone Power has the requisite blandness to play Larry, but he sometimes actually exhibits a bit too much edge. Larry is supposed to be na?ve: the paragon of goodness. However, Powers can't quite pull off this difficult task and become the "remarkable creature" about which Maugham wrote. Anne Baxter won an Oscar for her supporting role as the alcoholic Sophie, but she actually comes off worst of all. She simply does not possess the range needed to portray Sophie, as is painfully clear in the Paris nightclub scenes. Clifton Webb also received an Oscar nomination for supporting actor. He's appropriately bitchy, but his performance is over-the-top in his critical final scenes, draining much of the pathos from the finale.
The script by Lamar Trotti ("The Ox-Bow Incident") is quite faithful to the novel, which is unusual for a book with such a complicated storyline. Unfortunately, in including so much of the basic plot, the soul of the book has somehow been diluted. The book tackles issues of philosophy and life, but the movie focuses a bit too much on the surface, resulting in a soap opera rather than a soul-searching treatise that the book manages to be. Of course, criticizing a movie because it doesn't live up to its source material is not completely fair. In addition, overall "The Razor's Edge" is a fine movie that is likely to be enjoyed by many audiences, whether they have read the book or not. Despite its flaws, "The Razor's Edge" is solid 1940s filmmaking. Highly recommended.
Movie Review: mature masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
'The Razor's Edge' is truly a rare masterpiece. this movie is slowly paced but not at all plodding. a profound message lies within the sophisticated dialogue. the viewer must have a mature patience to reap the enriching experience from this excellent film. this one was definitely a superior film. it deserved the oscar but unfortunately there were 2 other masterpieces released tha year (1946), one of which garnered the oscar (The Best Years Of Our Lives). a true classic that deserves more recognition than it has received thru the years.
as for the DVD, it is a good clean transfer. the only true extra is the commentary. it is still well worth the money.
Movie Review: Mumbo-Jumbo
Summary: 3 Stars
The beautiful Gene Tierney is lucky to have "Laura" and "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" to her credit because the wicked women she plays here and in "Leave Her to Heaven" (in both she engineers the deaths of sympathetic characters) might have typecast her. She has never been more ravishing than she is in "The Razor's Edge," which makes her various manipulations all the more cunning.
And in this story of a privileged young loafer in search of, well, maybe his soul (it's never made clear), it is Miss Tierney who nails the character in a single line: "Oh, Larry, what you need is a psychiatrist!" It would seem so. After almost two hours of rejecting her and lucrative jobs, we last see him alone on a tramp steamer bound for America to become a taxicab driver. This is a happy ending, by the way.
Tyrone Power is certainly sincere as the soul-searcher, and he does get to kiss Elsa Lanchester, with whom he would much later appear in "Witness for the Prosecution." Somerset Maughm made himself a character in the novel on which the film is based, and Herbert Marshall acquits himself nicely in the role. Clifton Webb is unusually effective as the kind of insufferable snob he also plays (with Tierney) in "Laura."
Maughm's stories are always engrossing, and this all-star screen adaptation is sinfully entertaining, given the restrictions at the time of Hollywood's production code and the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency. It is told on a broad canvas that cries out for real locations (Paris! London! India!) but is confined to lavish studio settings. Up for numerous Academy Awards, only Anne Baxter in a supporting role, as a dypsomanical widow, walked off with one.
Although Edmund Goulding directed, producer Darryl Zanuck called the tune, except for (literally) a little song Goulding composed that later became popular as "Mamselle." The black-and-white cinematography in this DVD transfer looks terrific, and there's a spare but gossipy commentary. Would that the script had more spiritual clarity and less moralizing. But at least it's better than the dismal 1984 remake (on actual locations this time) starring, of all actors, the comedian Bill Murray in his first dramatic role.
Movie Review: Choreography of a Kiss
Summary: 5 Stars
The newly released DVD of 20th Century Fox's production of W. Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge" is a cinematic treasure. The direction by Edmond Goulding is top notch and captures the glamour and decadence of post World War I Paris in glittering perfection. Much praise must go to the art and set direction by Richard Day and Nathan Juran. Over 80 sets were constructed; some only glimpsed for a few moments evoke the period and splendor of the time and place. The production values of this picture are of the highest quality of this, Fox's "Important Picture for 1946".Goulding was famous for long takes and he is aided by the brilliant cinematographer Arthur C. Miller. The score by Alfred Newman is magnificent though surprisingly sparse for a film from the 1940's His use of source music and songs of the period help to inform the viewer of character and mood. His main theme is majestic and stirring and its reprise at the end is something near to epic played against a close-up of Tyrone Power and dissolves into the crashing waves against a tramp steamer.
Though a little too old and too handsome for the role of Larry Darell Tyrone Power, turns in a beautifully felt performance of a man in search for himself and his place in the world. A very modern and complex idea for the 1940's involving a trip to India and consultations with a guru. Gene Tierney is perfect as the woman who loves him and will stop at nothing to get him. This underrated beauty gives one of her best performances in an unsympathetic role. Anne Baxter, who won her Oscar as Sophie, is at times touching, real and yet manages to chew her share of the scenery toward the end of the picture. She is just plain fun to watch. But the picture is completely stolen by the wonderful, prissy and perfect performance of Clifton Web. His bravery as an actor in his last scene when he cries "There are going to be fireworks" is to be applauded. He perfectly captures the futile collapse of a shallow man as not many in Hollywood at that time might have dared.
There is one scene that epitomizes the skill and craft of film making in the end of the golden age and that is the chapter on the DVD entitled "Last Fling". All the powers of the actors, director, cinematographer, set designers, lighting technicians, and composer come together in this nearly silent montage and the subsequent scene at dawn in Tierney's Paris apartment. Larry's and Isabel's night on the town moves through a sumptuous Paris nightclub, to a Russian restaurant, and on to a hot jazz club where a fist fight ensues. Watch the extras in this scene. They are the stars here and each have a tale to tell in there brief moments on screen. I was reminded of Scorsese's Coconut Grove scenes in "The Aviator" by this impeccably directed montage and wondered if it had in fact influence him being the film historian he is.
But the best is yet to come, upon arriving home Isabel and Larry move through a brilliantly choreographed scene that leads up to a kiss and then a rejection. There is no dialog, only the pantomime of the actors and the accompaniment of the musical score. In this we learn all we need to of her motives and desire and his reaction and acceptance. It is very sexy and intense and the only bit of clothing that is lost is her shawl.
It is brilliant and movie storytelling at its best.
There is also a wonderful commentary by film historians Anthony Slide and Robert Brichard. Also included is a Fox Movietone News reel of other aspects relating to the film. Don't miss this wonderful classic from Fox's brilliant Studio Classics collection. They really know how to present their treasures to us as few other studios do.