The Razor's Edge

1946 "Hunger no love... woman... or wealth could satisfy!"
7.3| 2h25m| NR| en
Details

An adventurous 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.

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Reviews

Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!
Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.
Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
evanston_dad This glossy adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's famous novel has a lot going for it that should have made it a classic: compelling themes about the meaning of existence and the struggle to be a good person in a selfish and self-absorbed society, big-budget production values, and even some inventive direction from Edmund Goulding, not the first director who comes to mind when I think of inventive directors, who sends his camera swirling around some impressive set pieces and turns them into something resembling carefully choreographed dances. But something about the film just falls flat, and the same problem plagued the book. It's too cerebral for its own good, and the character at its center, played by Tyrone Power, isn't interesting enough to carry the film. Unfortunately, Power is wooden and uninteresting already as an actor, so he can't do a thing to make up for what the character and story already inherently lack.The best thing about "The Razor's Edge" are the performances of the two actors who won supporting Oscar nominations: Clifton Webb as a swishy socialite and Anne Baxter (who won her award) as a doomed alcoholic and drug addict. Gene Tierney isn't really much of an actress either, beautiful though she may be, and it's hard not to fantasize about what a better actress could have done with her loathsome character.The film was also nominated for Best Picture and best black and white art direction, which runs the gamut from Parisian cafes to meditative retreats in the Himalayas.Grade: B-
johnpelaro If anyone had doubts about where Gene Tierney should stand in the vast pantheon of cinema's lading ladies, this understated masterpiece should put them to rest. The chemistry between Tierney and Power is palpable, and makes compromises from Maugham's masterpiece superfluous. This is a movie in which the acting is everything, as far from De Caprio's sensationalism as can be. However, this is a literary adaptation, like Gwen Terasaki's memoir, Bridge to the Sun, or Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, where reading the book beforehand is highly recommended. Watching Tierney and Power here makes it obvious why the gentleman turned down the lead in The Great Gatsby when Tiernney was rejected as being too pretty (as much as I enjoyed Alan Ladd and Betty Field); Mrs. Tierney was a fine actress, by any standard.
utgard14 Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power) returns home from World War I not sure what to do with his life, except that he doesn't want to work and marry just yet. He breaks off his engagement with his socialite fiancée Isabel (Gene Tierney) and travels the world seeking some answers to life's questions. While in India, he achieves some degree of enlightenment and also discovers a way to cure headaches! When he returns, Isabel has married another man (John Payne). Also his childhood friend Sophie (Anne Baxter) has lost her husband and child in an accident and has become a drunk living in a seedy part of town. Larry sets out to help Sophie but jealous Isabel doesn't take kindly to this.Thoughtful adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham story. Maugham appears as a character in the film, wonderfully played by Herbert Marshall. Power and Tierney offer solid performances. But the real stars are the supporting duo of Anne Baxter and Clifton Webb. Baxter won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Webb was nominated but did not win against stiff competition. He's fantastic though. Baxter gives possibly the best performance of her career. Despite the length, I never felt bored. It's an excellent movie. A little pretentious perhaps but much less so than many similarly-themed dramas made in the last few decades. The 1984 remake doesn't hold a candle to this, by the way.
moonspinner55 Lamar Trotti adapted this handsomely-produced, well-dressed version of the W. Somerset Maugham novel, starring Tyrone Power as the American WWI flier who shuns the corporate progress of his country (and the hand of débutante Gene Tierney) by 'loafing' in Paris, hoping to find himself; traveling to India to study mysticism, he later attempts to treat his ailing society friends with the methods of self-awareness he has learned. What promised to be a rich dissection of the classes (aided by Clifton Webb's lively portrayal of an insufferable--and insufferably wealthy--snob) is eventually whittled down into an episodic and overly-familiar tale of love and jealousy: man's need for self-discovery and woman's need to pin a man down. Anne Baxter won the Supporting Actress Oscar (most probably for her hospital breakdown sequence), however her role as a young widow who didn't marry for money and became a lush is rather preposterous (and Baxter's third-act scenes are unevenly performed). Power is handsome yet wooden, with a furrowed brow; Herbert Marshall (playing a humorless Maugham) is left rudderless; but Tierney, perhaps channeling the poisonous vibes from her role in "Leave Her to Heaven" the year before, glints with decadent evil like a society spider; explaining the meaning of goodness to this woman is just wasted breath! She steers the movie in an entirely different direction, as a weeper. This is both pro and con. Remade in 1984 with Bill Murray in the lead. ** from ****