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Post by wmcclain on May 29, 2020 10:48:40 GMT
The Razor's Edge (1946), directed by Edmund Goulding. After WW1, a man cannot settle down but must seek the meaning of life. The film is partly spiritual quest and partly soap opera. It was a prestige film of that year with a large number of lavish sets and hundreds of extras for the crowd and ballroom scenes. Sadly, it lacks passion and intensity. The major problems: - Tyrone Power is a likable actor but lacks the depth for this. He made another film with Edmund Goulding that I liked better: Nightmare Alley (1947).
- The nature of his quest is fuzzy and undefined. Which, to give them credit, prefigures modern notions of "spirituality": vague and lacking content.
- The production code was partly to blame: religious advocacy of Vedanta or Hinduism had to be constrained.
- Same for sex, drugs and alcohol: the limitations hurt the story in this case.
- We're supposed to accept the limitations of studio-bound productions, but the painted Himalayas are a bit painful. See Black Narcissus (1947) for a (color!) contrast of what's possible in the studio.
- Length: 2h24m is way too long for this.
The really good scenes all feature Gene Tierney: exotic beauty, powerful but controlled sexuality, malicious intellect. Even though married, she is still infatuated with a former fiancé and no other woman can have him. In a terribly evil moment she pushes a friend back into alcoholism to get her out of the way. The best segment is a carefully plotted sex trap: she puts on the Evening Gown of Death, dances with her target all night and then leads him back to her place. He's ready, and if sex ensues then marriage will follow. But, unexpectedly, she lets him go. This is so erotic you can hear the Code squeaking in protest. Her uncle has been watching and critiques her performance. This is the acidic, exquisitely bitchy Clifton Webb, together again with Tierney after Laura (1944). Misc notes: - The film's problems were known and discussed even as it was being made, but audiences liked it anyway.
- The film features Tierney's own wedding dress, never used by her because she eloped.
- Niece: "I want to spend my last night with him". Uncle: "I trust you mean evening". (Actually, she did mean overnight).
- Anne Baxter is described as "tight", meaning drunk, "if not worse", the only hint at drugs they are allowed. That and what looks like an opium den / bordello.
- Remade in 1984 with Bill Murray: The Razor's Edge (1984).
- The title is from a Hindu verse; I always thought it was a Shakespeare quote: "The tongues of mocking wenches are sharper than the razor's edge invisible".
Alfred Newman score. Available on Blu-ray. The commentary track has long silent stretches, but gossipy interest now and then. For example: director Goulding was bisexual and had drug parties and orgies of what you might call "both kinds". He had to be sent out of the country to cool down now and then. 
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Post by wmcclain on May 29, 2020 10:48:58 GMT
The Razor's Edge (1984), directed by John Byrum. Shaken by his experience as an ambulance driver in WW1, a man leaves his conventional life and becomes a seeker. After finding his enlightenment in India he returns and tries to repair the damaged lives of his friends. This was made before as The Razor's Edge (1946). Neither version is entirely satisfactory. The strongest part of this one is in the final third, with Theresa Russell's heartrending portrayal of doomed Sophie, drunken and prostituting herself after the death of her husband and child. It's a dilemma without a solution: how do you save someone from themselves? Sometimes you don't. Bill Murray had been all comedy before this. Like John Cleese and Phil Hartman he is so good at the comic mugging of seriousness that we don't quite know how to take him in a dramatic role. And yet: why can't "Larry Darrell" be a funny guy? Class clowns hurt, too. In the 1946 version he was played by a swashbuckling actor. Which is the more common type of character in the real world? Murray has done more serious roles since then, perhaps making it easier to accept him in this one now. I always kept a look out for Theresa Russell in those days. A beautiful woman doing dangerous things; she had a whole series of edgy, experimental roles. This was aided by her work with sometime husband and director Nicholas Roeg. The dialogue is often cumbersome and Denholm Elliott's talent is wasted. Murray is our hero but he's no superhero and can't save the day. This gives the whole production a despairing tone. It was a critical and commercial flop. The deal with the studio was that Murray could make this in exchange for appearing in Ghostbusters. Available on DVD. 
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Post by petrolino on May 29, 2020 11:26:29 GMT
I adore Edmund Goulding's 1946 film. I studied Anne Baxter's performance in it religiously, she's a sentient being, other-worldly. I have the dvd positioned front and centre on one of my dvd shelves. Goulding was on fire in the late 1940s.
It also might just be classics writer Cliff Aliperti's favourite movie. As he says in the introduction to his review ...
"The Razor's Edge is a personal favorite. When I say favorite, it just might be, if you catch me on the right day, my favorite movie of all time. It's not without its faults but it's an impeccably cast 145-minute drama that moves at a swift pace carried by some big ideas. I love this movie, even if I do think that final execution of the biggest idea turned out slightly flawed.
I came back to write this and the next paragraph after noticing I had already written well over 3,000 words about The Razor's Edge and had barely scratched the surface of all it has to offer. I make no mention of the beautiful sets, Edmund Goulding's direction, and somehow barely mention Clifton Webb's name and so I thought I should probably come back and say what you will find here.
A good deal of this overlong article is about the quest of the Tyrone Power character, Larry Darrell. I also spend a lot of time comparing Maugham's book to the film made out of it. I really enjoy Maugham, I've read quite a bit by him, but the script really sculpts his text into near perfection. There's also a little bit about that journey from the page to the screen and another bit about it being overshadowed by The Best Years of Our Lives. I touch on the characters played by Gene Tierney and Anne Baxter, who are both incredible in this film, but I seem to keep returning to Larry Darrell's quest. Hope you enjoy it."
- Cliff Aliperti, Immortal Ephemera
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Post by OldAussie on May 29, 2020 12:51:44 GMT
I quite like the original, especially Tierney and Webb - together again.
Saw the remake once a long time again ago - wasn't impressed at the time except for Theresa Russell's great performance. Have the original in my rewatch pile, wouldn't mind seeing the remake again but very difficult to find in Australia.
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Post by bravomailer on May 29, 2020 13:29:22 GMT
As noted by the OP, the earlier version is flawed. Tyrone Power, though a veteran of WW2, just can't convey Larry Darrell's search for meaning. Never been able to make it through the remake. I hold a grudge against Murray for defiling a fine book.
Larry: “I’ve come too late into a world too old. I should have been born in the Middle Ages when faith was a matter of course; then my way would have been clear to me and I’d have sought to enter the order.”
Somerset Maugham: “I think it’s just as well you weren’t born in the Middle Ages. You’d undoubtedly have perished at the stake.”
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Post by marshamae on May 29, 2020 13:49:09 GMT
In the original I blame the script for the airy nature of Tyrone Power’s Quest. He seemed closer to answers when he was talking to the drunken ex-priest. His ability to be warm without being drawn in, his flash of passion for Isabelle at the end of the last night , especially his scenes with Anne Baxter and Elsa Lanchester were perfect, affectionate, chummy, but still distanced in some way. The film falls flat as he starts to climb, as if a higher mountain or an older monk will provide the answers. I always use that Indian part to make a snack. When I come back to find Clifton Webb buying monogrammed underwear I haven’t missed a thing.
I think that Maugham himself had the same problem. He was bright enough and inquisitive enough to ask the big questions but he did not really have answers.
JIHN Payne never gets any credit , and , aside from Anne Baxter, he is the only character who makes real changes His confusion, his efforts not to complain about his suffering and his incredible relief at Larry’s help were very well played. I don’t count Larry as changing because he starts the film seeking and continues to seek throughout.
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Post by mikef6 on May 29, 2020 16:21:36 GMT
The 1946 “Razor” is one of the best movies of the ‘40s. It is one of my favorites, but I disagree with the (what seems to be ) consensus about Anne Baxter. She is terrible. There isn’t a moment of genuine truth in her entire overwrought performance. The thought of her thrashing in a hospital bed screaming, “Baby, baby, baby, baby” is hard to erase. (Have you ever noticed that people in movies always refer to their infants as “the baby” whereas Real People refer to them by their names?) The rest of her “performance” is making faces rather than acting.
One the other hand, the 1984 “Razor” is one of the worst movies of its decade. Although this version retains the novel’s setting in the decade or so after WWI, the major characters of Larry and Isabel are jarringly modern. Furthermore, the two actors, Bill Murray and Catherine Hicks, seem totally lost. Murray, who has proved himself since in dramatic roles, looks like he doesn’t have the foggiest idea who he is supposed to be or how he is supposed to say these lines he is given to recite. Murray is equally at sea as Polonius in "Hamlet" from 2000. Hicks, in her dress, posture, and vocal mannerisms is a modern hippie chick instead of a 1920s Chicago debutante.
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Post by cynthiagreen on May 29, 2020 20:12:08 GMT
Very fond of the novel, and the 46 version did a pretty good job even if Power not the most spiritual of actors. Tierney was excellent in a basically unsympathetic part and Webb was on top form. The remake was atrocious except to the fantastic Russell (she was on fire in the 80s)  |
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Post by bravomailer on May 29, 2020 20:29:16 GMT
“The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to salvation is hard.”
- Upanishad quote at the beginning of the book
"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight... razor... and surviving."
- Col Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
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Post by OldAussie on May 29, 2020 21:37:57 GMT
In the original I blame the script for the airy nature of Tyrone Power’s Quest. He seemed closer to answers when he was talking to the drunken ex-priest. His ability to be warm without being drawn in, his flash of passion for Isabelle at the end of the last night , especially his scenes with Anne Baxter and Elsa Lanchester were perfect, affectionate, chummy, but still distanced in some way. The film falls flat as he starts to climb, as if a higher mountain or an older monk will provide the answers. I always use that Indian part to make a snack. When I come back to find Clifton Webb buying monogrammed underwear I haven’t missed a thing. I think that Maugham himself had the same problem. He was bright enough and inquisitive enough to ask the big questions but he did not really have answers. JIHN Payne never gets any credit , and , aside from Anne Baxter, he is the only character who makes real changes His confusion, his efforts not to complain about his suffering and his incredible relief at Larry’s help were very well played. I don’t count Larry as changing because he starts the film seeking and continues to seek throughout. How true! Deserves a mention for sure. |
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Post by bravomailer on May 29, 2020 21:39:05 GMT
I like the closing scene with Larry shipping out rather than fitting in.  |
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Post by london777 on May 30, 2020 1:47:03 GMT
What I want to know is: does anyone get either a close shave or their throat cut? If not, I am posting it in the Fraudulent Titles thread. I have no interest in watching either version to find out myself.
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