The Razor’s Edge (1946)

The Razor’s Edge
Directed by Edmund Goulding
Written by Lamar Trotti from the novel by W. Somerset Maugham
USA/1946
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First Viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Elliott Templeton: The enjoyment of art is the only remaining ecstasy that’s neither immoral nor illegal.[/box]

This is a good movie but too earnest for my taste.

Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power) has returned from WWI with a burning desire to find himself following an incident in which a comrade died to save his life.  He has a modest trust fund to support him and a disinclination to live a conventional life as a bond salesman as envisioned by his fiancee Isabel Bradley (Gene Tierney).  She finally encourages him to take some time to think things over in Paris.

But in Paris Larry becomes more unconventional still.  Isabel cannot sway him from his course, thinks better of a plot to hook him through pregnancy, and breaks off the engagement.  Larry departs to study with a guru in India.  Isabel returns home and marries the extremely wealthy Gray Maturin (John Payne).

Fate has a funny way of settling scores and Gray loses all his money in the stock market crash of 1929.  Gray and Isabel and their two children are reduced to living on the same amount of money that Isabel initially spurned when she was engaged to Larry.  Larry, on the other hand, found inner peace in India.  He helps Gray recover from his nervous breakdown when the friends reunite Paris.

They all decide to go slumming in the seedier part of the city and encounter Sophie (Anne Baxter), an old friend, who has succumbed to alcoholism and possibly drug addiction after her husband and child were killed in an auto accident.  Larry remembers Sophie as a sensitive child and takes her under his wing.  He helps her stop drinking and they decide to marry.  But Isabel, who never stopped loving Larry, has other plans.  With Clifton Webb as Isabel’s effete uncle (and the best thing about this movie) and Herbert Marshall as Somerset Maugham in whom Isabel confides all her deepest secrets.

I can’t help it.  I just have a problem believing in Gene Tierney.  After her fantastic performance in Leave Her to Heaven, she is back to her old ways here.  Although the character is almost as evil as in the prior film, we have to believe that her love for Larry is genuine.  That’s where I have a problem.  Tyrone Power also seems to me miscast as a seeker of enlightenment.  Marshall is fine, if tired, Baxter is very good and Clifton Webb is at his catty best.  Webb’s dialogue is the highlight of the film.  If you like Tierney and this kind of melodrama with a message appeals to you, you will probably like this movie.  It’s almost 2 1/2 hours long and, even for me, the time flew by.

The DVD I rented had an excellent commentary by a couple of film scholars and a lot of juicy gossip about director Edmund Goulding.

Anne Baxter won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Razor’s Edge.  The film was nominated in the following categories:  Best Picture; Best Supporting Actor (Webb); and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White.  If the category had existed, it probably would have received a nod for Best Costumes as well.  Tierney’s husband Oleg Cassini designed her gowns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZZOnx6SfVM

Original featurette, Movietone News, with snippets from the 1947 Oscar ceremony