The Razor’s Edge might have been a different film.
Legendary producer Darryl Zanuck served in both World Wars. He enlisted as a teenager in the U.S. Army and saw European action in World War I. By the time the second World War rolled around, Zanuck was an Oscar winning producer who could’ve gotten out of his service or at least stayed stateside, but he insisted on documenting the fighting in active war zones and making patriotic films.
When he returned, he bought the rights to W. Somerset Maugham’s penultimate novel and intended to make a prestige film about man’s search for meaning.
Zanuck originally hired George Cukor to direct, but he and Cukor disagreed on the direction of the main character. Progress stalled, which was fine with Zanuck—he was waiting for Tyrone Power, who’d enlisted in the Marines, to return home from the war to play the leading role.
When Power came home, Cukor and Zanuck had parted ways and Cukor was engaged in another project.
Cukor—who wanted Maugham to write the screenplay—would’ve made a different film.
We’ll never know if it would’ve been a better one.
Tyrone Power plays Larry Darrell, a man with existential questions after a fellow soldier sacrifices his life to save his in World War I. Larry wants to marry his sweetheart Isabel Bradley (Gene Tierney), but though she loves him dearly, she wants reassurances that he will commit to adult responsibilities like an office job and having children.
He prefers to loaf—his term—around. Eager not to lose him, Isabel agrees to delay their wedding while he travels alone to Paris to find himself. When they reunite after a year, they’re as in love as ever but at an impasse—he wants her to live as a questing pauper with him, and she wants a husband who wears a tie to work and earns a salary high enough to buy her fine dresses and a nanny for their eventual children.
He’s content to go on as they are, but Isabel gives him an ultimatum—settle down or lose her forever.
Larry travels to India to learn from a guru, and Isabel marries a rich man.
As the film progresses—scene after never-ending scene—we watch the years unfold as Larry marches toward enlightenment while studying with mystics and doing manual labor to make enough money to survive.
Meanwhile, Isabel and those preoccupied with worldly concerns are dashed against the rocks of fate. Isabel and her husband lose their fortune in the stock market crash of ’29, and cast their friend Sophie (Anne Baxter) out of their inner circle when she becomes an alcoholic after her husband and baby are killed in a car wreck.
Look—intellectually, I get it.
Larry is essentially walking the path to sainthood—he heals the sick, cares for those less fortunate, and might as well have taken vows of poverty and chastity.
The problem is that sainthood is deadly dull.
The only time the film is remotely interesting is when a jealous Isabel bears her fangs after Larry announces he is marrying Sophie. Even then, she has no real reason for jealousy—Larry is merely marrying Sophie to save her from her alcoholism. As anyone who’s ever known an actual alcoholic can predict, his efforts are unsuccessful.
It’s true that Anne Baxter had a lovely Oscar-winning performance for supporting actress, and that the film garnered 3 other nominations including best picture.
It’s true that 1946 was filled with important films that grappled the trauma of coming home from war—The Best Years of Our Lives won the Oscar for best picture that year.
It’s true we should care about the plight of such people.
But for me, The Razor’s Edge doesn’t pierce the skin.
Sources
- TCM Website: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/87754/the-razors-edge#notes
- Darryl Zanuck Bio: http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.fil.067
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Can’t win’em all I guess. I remember my Mum having a thing for Tyrone Power in his Zorro days.
Haha, my Mom has a thing for him too. He’s not the problem, really. I think it’s probably a pretty good novel (I haven’t read it), just not the kind of story that can be told visually.
I’m going to make a stand for the Bill Murray remake which I think is a better version of this story. Has some great elements not in this one. Have you seen it?
I have not…..I originally envisioned this post as a Remake Rumble, comparing the two versions. But the first one was such an unpleasant experience I couldn’t bring myself to watch the Murray remake. I love Gene Tierney and think Power has some good roles, but I think even in 1946 I wouldn’t have enjoyed this one – it’s the type of story that’s hard to film, especially in the 1940’s – very introspective. Based on what you say, I might give Bill Murray a go……….
I think there was a certain vogue for stories that touched on some kind of Eastern Spiritualism, but that isn’t quite the exotic trump card now that it was then. The remake doesn’t quite work, but Murray was much more interested in making this that Ghostbusters, and personally threw himself into that film. It’s an oddity, but better than people say. But I ‘m not a fan of films without any visual appeal, and some older films are pretty square by today’s standards. I’m not sure if any of the Gatsby movies really work, the story is too internal…
Well, we don’t agree on this one. The Razor’s Edge is my all-time favorite book, and I thought the movie did a pretty good job capturing the themes of Somerset Maugham’s story. It was 1946, so the book had to be cleaned up a bit, but it stays pretty close to the book. The 1984 remake has its moments (Theresa Russell is brilliant as Sophie), but the casting of Bill Murray as Larry nearly ruined it for me.
I was hoping someone would disagree with me! It never gives me pleasure to pan an old classic, but this one just didn’t ring with me. I did feel watching it that it might be a good book….the hero’s journey seemed very introspective and seemed like it would lend itself much better to the novel instead of a visual format. It’s hard to imagine Murray as Larry, but I might have to give the remake a shot….
You either connect with a movie, or you don’t. Have you seen Eat Pray Love (2010)? I’ve always thought that the 2010 movie (and book) covered similar ground as Razord’s Edge.
Interesting. I have seen Eat, Pray (and read the book). I hadn’t made the connection between the films, but I like the thought. The woman in Eat Pray Love had a lot more fun on her spiritual journey!