SYNOPSICS
The Razor's Edge (1946) is a English,French movie. Edmund Goulding has directed this movie. Tyrone Power,Gene Tierney,John Payne,Anne Baxter are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1946. The Razor's Edge (1946) is considered one of the best Drama,Romance movie in India and around the world.
Well-to-do Chicagoan, Larry Darrell, breaks off his engagement to Isabel and travels the world seeking enlightenment, eventually finding his guru India. Isabel marries Gray, and following the crash of 1929, is invited to live in Paris with her rich, social climbing, Uncle Elliot. During a sojurn there, Larry, having attained his goal, is reunited with Isabel. While slumming one night Larry, Isabel and company are shocked to discover Sophie, a friend from Chicago. Having lost her husband and child in a tragic accident, Sophie is living the low-life with the help of drugs and an abusive brute. Larry tries to rehabilitate her, but his efforts are sabotaged by Isabel who tries in vain to reignite Larry's interest in herself.
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The Razor's Edge (1946) Reviews
Brilliantly cinematic adaptation in the grand Hollywood style
I discovered this movie only recently and have watched it three times in the last two months. It's the kind of movie that rewards repeated viewings. The story, as others have commented, is moving and inspiring and way ahead of its time, dealing as it does with topics (the philosophical/spiritual quest for meaning in life, alcoholism, psychic healing, class divisions, post-war trauma, greed vs. self sacrifice) that one would expect in a movie taking place in the nineteen sixties rather than one taking place immediately following World War I. It offers the pleasure of Hollywood glamour of a very high order with one spectacular set-piece after another. Over and over, one is amazed at the staging of scenes set at balls, restaurants, night-clubs, Paris streets, factories, etc. Many jaw-dropping, pre-steadycam long takes involve the choreography of dozens of elements, e.g. one long take outside a Paris railway station, or another crane shot in a Paris night club as the camera searches the crowd for the protagonists. Everyone involved with the film seems to be working at his or her peak, from director Goulding to composer Alfred Newman, to all the perfectly cast actors. The screenplay is filled with brilliant cinematic story-telling devices (ironic voice-overs, montage sequences, foreshadowings, symbolism (the use of water and the ocean in so many scenes)that keep a long and complex story moving so smoothly that the two-hour-plus running time is hardly noticed at all. The cinematography by someone named Arthur Miller is gorgeous with lighting effects and moving camerawork that rank in the pantheon of Hollywood's visual creations. This is a great film.
a coming of age film
This film, and the book on which it is based, made strong impressions on me in my youth, but even more so now that I am past middle age. A magnificent cast - Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, John Payne, Herbert Marshall, help to tell the story of a man who walks "in another man's shoes" -- and totally to his own drummer -- after the first world war. In his quest for spirituality and goodness, he is at odds with the materialism and obsession around him. The different layers of "The Razor's Edge" demand attention: Larry's physical desire for Isabel, a woman it turns out he doesn't even know; Isabel's cold-heartedness and desire to possess Larry; and Larry's search for the meaning of life, while the people he loves disintegrate around him from lack of values or hope. These are all seen through the eyes of Somerset Maugham, played by Marshall. Larry's final confrontation scene with Isabel (Tierney) about Sophie (Baxter) is bone-chilling -- Power, who had a tendency to be sometimes stiff and a bit removed from his material, uses that flaw to excellent advantage as Larry Darrell. It's not a showy role, but he's wonderful, and he's reading of poetry in Sophie's room is unforgettable. Highly recommended.
Best of the best!
This has got to be one of my favorite films of all. It ranks in my books up there with PLACE IN THE SUN, REAP THE WILD WIND and THE HURRICANE. Made in the 40s by 20th Century Fox and Producer Darryl F. Zanuck, it stars Tyrone Power as Larry Farrell, a man on a journey to find the values of life. This fascinating journey takes him all over the world until he reaches a summit in India and there he meets a Holy Man, superbly played by Cecil Humphreys, who helps him understand his questions and then sends him back to the real world where he must then take his place in life. Based on the 1943 book of the same name, by W. Somerset Maugham, it does the story justice with the help of Lamar Trotti in transferring it to the screen. I read the book before seeing the film and was not disappointed. Congratulations also goes to director, Edmound Goulding for bringing the truth of the book to life. Other noteworthy performances were delivered by the lovely Gene Tierney, as Isabel, again in Cassini dresses, and yet another co-starring Tyrone Power film; John Payne, as Gray, in a different type of role as Miss Tierney's husband, Anne Baxter, as the doomed Sophie, in her Academy Award performance, and was she excellent, Clifton Webb as Elliott Templeton, another of Webb's limp-wristed performances and another Academy Award nomination. Herbert Marshall as Maugham himself. Did anyone get the "gay" relationship between he and Templeton? Then there's Lucile Watson, Frank Gilmore and the delightful Elsa Lanchester in supporting roles. I liked Fritz Kortner as Kosti, the de-frocked priest Larry meets at a bar when he is working the mines. Ray Dorey along with Alfred Newman wrote the theme song "Mam'selle" for the film. This is the best of the times. You can't get better. Power was superb in this. He was an underrated actor because he was such a handsome man. Yet, his abilities as an actor were terrific. He brought the intelligence of Maugham's writing to focus. Miss Baxter showed you the stuff good performers are made of with her shaded performance in this film. Also watch Marshall's reactions. His eyes are fantastic. They way his looks go from actor to actor. And look for the gay undertones between he and Clifton Webb as the eccentric uncle who delves in the upper crust life. Even to the extreme of having a coat of arms embroidered on his underwear. In the final minutes of the film Marshall speaks to Isabel after Larry leaves her for good, saying, "Goodness is, after all, the greatest force in the world . . .and he's got it." This speaks for the film and it's greatness. I think Marshall should have been nominated for his underplayed performance. He is credited with many fine roles in his career. See this classic. It's on VHS. Not to be confused with the pale remake with Bill Murray.
Stately Exposition of Love and Riches and Meaning
The Razor's Edge (1946) A stately, dramatic, richly nuanced film about love, true love, and the love of life. It's about what matters, and what doesn't, in a high society world George Cukor could have filmed, but this is by director Edmund Goulding, coming off of a series of war films, and with the great Grand Hotel from 1932 in his trail. Some people will find this a touch stiff or slow, or rather too nuanced, but I think none of the above at all. It has the richness of the Somerset Maugham novel it is based on, and Goulding had just filmed (the same year) Of Human Bondage, another Maugham novel. In both cases, the writer contributed to the screenplay, and the combination of the two of them seems really perfect. Tyrone Power is an interesting lead man, as the idealistic and handsome Larry Darrell, and in some ways his restraint and almost studied dullness at times is maybe what the film needs for its rich, calm trajectory through the twenty years it covers. He's as stable and "good" as the wise, knowing figure of the author, who appears in the form of actor Herbert Marshall. Gene Tierney as Power's counterpart and eventually counterpoint plays the spoiled woman with cool, dramatic perfection. She's got energy and edge and beauty from every angle, and she maintains just that slightest duplicity in every scene, so you are kept on your toes. The only forced and almost laughable section is the one that demands we think profound thoughts...the guru in India being guru to our hero. Unfortunately, it lasts for fifteen minutes, and though there is a spiritual necessity to the experience he has there, this spiritual aspect is implied just as fully in the worldly scenes that follow. I can picture a far better movie without this insert, and I can picture the director picturing it, too. Someone knows why it got patched in, and for whom, but this is what we have. It has to be said the filming, as conservative as it is in many ways, is spot-on gorgeous. The brightly lit, ornamented, busy sets are actually inhabited by the camera, and the figures move together not only across the field, but front to back as well, in triangles and curves of visual activity, yet with fluidity--it's all contained and lyrically delicious. This is done without ostentatious mood, without sharp angles and bold lighting, but instead with spatial arrangements, always full, no emptiness, no great shadows, always something more to see. A great example, easy to find, is the very last scene, just before the shot on the boat when the end titles run. Watch how Marshall walks the long way around Tierney, and then she walks around him, and the camera keeps them framed side to side, front to back. It's nothing short of brilliant, and yet, in style, so different than say Toland doing Kane or, at another extreme, Ozu doing Tokyo Story. But no less spectacular. At one point, a minor character, a defrocked priest, says to Darrell in a working class bar, "You sound like a very religious man who does not believe in God." The movie is really about godliness, or what Maugham calls "goodness" in the end. And some people have it, and share it, and make the world better, God or no God.
Brilliant script. Strong acting. Sensational Gene Tierney
"The razor's edge" has outstanding merits and, unfortunately, remarkable defects. Balancing the ones and the others, it stands as a sound, beautiful instance of classic movie. The story, based on Somerset Maugham's novel, is certainly original, although some twists of the plot are hardly believable, others are naive and predictable. The spiritual quest by Larry (Tyrone Power) is an interesting theme. However, his yearning for living among workers and poor people is far-fetched, and fails to be touching. The director's job is just adequate. The cardboard backdrops are awful! The scenes placed in the fake Himalaya are laughable. The representation of French people is inaccurate and too picturesque. By the way, French people NEVER spoke a foreign language in those years (in truth, not much has changed nowadays). Fortunately enough, the merits of the movie overwhelm the flaws. The script is brilliant. A thorough psychological study of the characters is made, through lines at times dramatic, at times permeated with typical English sharp wit. A great acting is a major strength of the film. The whole cast, minor roles included, makes an excellent job. Anne Baxter deserved to win the Oscar for the best supporting actress. Gene Tierney is fantastic: her Isabel, fully believable and realistic, is the most interesting character of the movie. Gene's acting is willingly understated, but extremely subtle and accurate. Look at the glances she flashes to the drunk Sophie (Anne Baxter) at the tavern. Look at Isabel's expression when Sophie vulgarly sits down on the table, turning her back to Isabel and flirting with Larry. We feel that a mortal hate is soaring. The clash between Isabel and Sophie is a great scene. Baxter beautifully shows Sophie's tragic weakness, But Gene's icy attitude is even more effective. After all, let's take Isabel's point of view: we realize that she's perfectly right. It's true that Sophie is a hopeless drunkard. It's true that Larry wants to marry her just as an act of pity. And Isabel fights for her love. Why shouldn't she? Yes, Isabel is selfish, spoiled, even ruthless... and so? For all his generosity, sense of duty and so on, Larry neglected Isabel just to avoid such an enormous self-sacrifice as to take a job! And then Isabel shouts "Love me, Larry, love me!" Come on, Larry! How on the earth can you resist to such an appeal? Why aren't we audience allowed to replace you, undeservedly over-lucky fellow? Alas! Larry is "completely out of mind", as Isabel puts it. By the way, Larry's incoherences, in a world of people ever following their own way (snobbery for Elliott, comfortable wealthy life for Isabel, poised literature for Maugham, debauchery for Sophie), by no means are a flaw of the movie. They rather make a fine artistic effect, even improving the realism of the story. And how I like the scene when Herbert Marshall as Maugham makes a detailed description of Isabel's perfect beauty, loveliness, grace (Gene-Isabel staring at him with a half-dreaming, half-mocking smile). That's a much appreciated gift for all us devoted fans of Gene Tierney. Yes, I don't hide the defects of "The razor's edge". But it is certainly entertaining, interesting, even profound at several moments. A beautiful film.