The Razor's Edge (1946)

An adventuresome young man goes off to find himself and loses his socialite fiancée in the process. But when he returns 10 years later, she will stop at nothing to get him back, even though she is already married.

Director:

Edmund Goulding

Writers:

Lamar Trotti (screen play), W. Somerset Maugham (novel),

Stars:

Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne

Won 1 Oscar. Another 2 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Tyrone Power	...	Larry Darrell
Gene Tierney	...	Isabel Bradley
John Payne	...	Gray Maturin
Anne Baxter	...	Sophie MacDonald
Clifton Webb	...	Elliott Templeton
Herbert Marshall	...	W. Somerset Maugham
Lucile Watson	...	Louisa Bradley
Frank Latimore	...	Bob MacDonald
Elsa Lanchester	...	Miss Keith
Fritz Kortner	...	Kosti
John Wengraf	...	Joseph - Gray & Isabel's Butler
Cecil Humphreys	...	Holy Man
Harry Pilcer	...	Specialty Dancer
Cobina Wright Sr.	...	Princess Novemali

Storyline

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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Plot Keywords:

will | india | engagement | uncle | wealth | 

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Taglines:

Hunger no love . . . woman . . . or wealth could satisfy!

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English French

Release Date:

December 1946 (USA)

Also Known As:

W. Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge

Filming Locations:

Denver, Colorado, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,200,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

145 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The wedding dress Oleg Cassini designed for Gene Tierney and worn by her was actually designed for their wedding in 1941. It was never made since they eloped. After filming, Gene Tierney's stand-in Kay Adell Stork wore it at her own wedding.

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Goofs

Tyrone's sideburns don't match and keep changing at the beginning of the film.

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Quotes

Elliott Templeton: [Recounting a series of rejected invitations] And then when I asked him to dinner, he said he couldn't come because he had no evening clothes. If I live to be a hundred I shall never understand how any young man can come to Paris without evening clothes.
Louisa Bradley: [Referring to the turning down of the invitations] Maybe he just didn't want to.
Elliott Templeton: That's the most incredible reason for refusing an invitation I've ever heard in my life.

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Crazy Credits

When the screenplay credits are shown, a curious symbol appears near W. Somerset Maugham's name. It's a symbol meant to ward off the evil eye, and it more often than not appeared on the covers of many of Maugham's novels.

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Connections

Referenced in Frasier: Frasier's Edge (2001)

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Soundtracks

"I'll See You in My Dreams"
(1924) (uncredited)
Music by Isham Jones
Played as dance music at the dinner party

User Reviews

Trash and very enjoyable as such

Tosh of a very high-minded kind and magnificently entertaining. W Somerset Maugham's novel was a po-faced tale of unmitigated seriousness filled to the brim with 'grand themes' and a better director than Edmund Goulding might have made an equally serious and po-faced film. Goulding's pedigree was trashy women's pictures and he had the knack of making silk purses out of sow's ears. He may have dumbed down Maugham's novel but at least it's lively and at times wonderfully over-the-top as well as being beautifully photographed and designed. It may be deeply silly but it's never dull.

Unfortunately that handsome clothes-horse Tyrone Power is there in the central, crucial role of Larry Darrell, the existentialist hero traveling the world in search of 'enlightenment'. Power lacks the natural gravitas the part demands. Luckily he's surrounded by players who are so much better than he. The under-rated Gene Tierney is wonderfully willful as the rich girl who marries someone else, Anne Baxter, who won the Oscar for her part, is the dipsomaniac Sophie and best of all there is Clifton Webb, robbed of an Oscar, as the arch snob Elliot Templeton who, naturally, has all the best lines. Herbert Marshall also keeps popping up as Maugham, narrating the story as if it's all real.

I think we were meant to find it all profound and uplifting and I'm sure some people took it all very seriously. But we can no more take this seriously than if the original novel had been written by Harold Robbins or Jacqueline Susann. It's trash and so long as you accept it as such you might just love it. The remake, with Bill Murray, did take itself seriously and failed miserably.