O Fio da Navalha

Producer Darryl F. Zanuck fashioned a major production for Tyrone Power upon his return to 20th Century Fox after a stint in the military service. No expense was spared in terms of production values, and special care was taken to cast each role to "perfection."

With master story teller W. Somerset Maugham joining in writing the screenplay from his sprawling, multi-character novel, and Edmund Gouling doing the direction and Alfred Newman the score, it was a setup that couldn't miss.

The cast works at a thoroughly respectable level, and the film emerges likewise. Yet, it falls strangely short of the genuine masterpiece Zanuck obviously planned.

There is a rather cold center to "The Razor's Edge," which prevents one from being able to completely empathize with and feel for these characters and their respective plight. While they are interesting, the characters fail to ignite a deep emotional response in the viewer. One ends more observing this enactment, which has the feel of a somewhat slick presentation.

It also represents the best of what 20th Century Fox had to offer in the mid-forties. Power next went on to do "Nightmare Alley," for which he received some of the best notices of his lengthy film career.

I discovered this movie only recently and have watched it three times in the last two months. It's the kind of movie that rewards repeated viewings. The story, as others have commented, is moving and inspiring and way ahead of its time, dealing as it does with topics (the philosophical/spiritual quest for meaning in life, alcoholism, psychic healing, class divisions, post-war trauma, greed vs. self sacrifice) that one would expect in a movie taking place in the nineteen sixties rather than one taking place immediately following World War I. It offers the pleasure of Hollywood glamour of a very high order with one spectacular set-piece after another. Over and over, one is amazed at the staging of scenes set at balls, restaurants, night-clubs, Paris streets, factories, etc. Many jaw-dropping, pre-steadycam long takes involve the choreography of dozens of elements, e.g. one long take outside a Paris railway station, or another crane shot in a Paris night club as the camera searches the crowd for the protagonists. Everyone involved with the film seems to be working at his or her peak, from director Goulding to composer Alfred Newman, to all the perfectly cast actors. The screenplay is filled with brilliant cinematic story-telling devices (ironic voice-overs, montage sequences, foreshadowings, symbolism (the use of water and the ocean in so many scenes)that keep a long and complex story moving so smoothly that the two-hour-plus running time is hardly noticed at all. The cinematography by someone named Arthur Miller is gorgeous with lighting effects and moving camerawork that rank in the pantheon of Hollywood's visual creations. This is a great film.

W Somerset Maugham's is a character in his own "The Razor's Edge". He's played by Herbert Marshall and he's given the hardest lines to deliver: "He looks extraordinarily happy, calm yet aloof" He's talking about Larry, Tyrone Power's character, after his enlightening trip to India. Power returns and reintroduces himself in the life of Isabel, played by the impossibly beautiful Gene Tirney. The world that Powers discovers in India will give this all consuming melodrama a spiritual tinge. Edmund Goulding choreographs the unfolding with surprising results. Tirney's beauty permeates the whole film and her character is as truthful as it is cruel although she doesn't mean to be neither truthful nor cruel. Anne Baxter as the tragic Sophie gets an Academy Award while Clifton Webb camps it out shamelessly. Loved the scene of the coin and John Payne's headache. Gene Tirney's reaction to Tyrone Power, as he works the "miracle", is the best acting of her entire career. Deserves to be seen.

This has got to be one of my favorite films of all. It ranks in my books up there with PLACE IN THE SUN, REAP THE WILD WIND and THE HURRICANE.

Made in the 40s by 20th Century Fox and Producer Darryl F. Zanuck, it stars Tyrone Power as Larry Farrell, a man on a journey to find the values of life. This fascinating journey takes him all over the world until he reaches a summit in India and there he meets a Holy Man, superbly played by Cecil Humphreys, who helps him understand his questions and then sends him back to the real world where he must then take his place in life. Based on the 1943 book of the same name, by W. Somerset Maugham, it does the story justice with the help of Lamar Trotti in transferring it to the screen. I read the book before seeing the film and was not disappointed. Congratulations also goes to director, Edmound Goulding for bringing the truth of the book to life.

Other noteworthy performances were delivered by the lovely Gene Tierney, as Isabel, again in Cassini dresses, and yet another co-starring Tyrone Power film; John Payne, as Gray, in a different type of role as Miss Tierney's husband, Anne Baxter, as the doomed Sophie, in her Academy Award performance, and was she excellent, Clifton Webb as Elliott Templeton, another of Webb's limp-wristed performances and another Academy Award nomination. Herbert Marshall as Maugham himself. Did anyone get the "gay" relationship between he and Templeton? Then there's Lucile Watson, Frank Gilmore and the delightful Elsa Lanchester in supporting roles. I liked Fritz Kortner as Kosti, the de-frocked priest Larry meets at a bar when he is working the mines.

Ray Dorey along with Alfred Newman wrote the theme song "Mam'selle" for the film. This is the best of the times. You can't get better. Power was superb in this. He was an underrated actor because he was such a handsome man. Yet, his abilities as an actor were terrific. He brought the intelligence of Maugham's writing to focus. Miss Baxter showed you the stuff good performers are made of with her shaded performance in this film. Also watch Marshall's reactions. His eyes are fantastic. They way his looks go from actor to actor. And look for the gay undertones between he and Clifton Webb as the eccentric uncle who delves in the upper crust life. Even to the extreme of having a coat of arms embroidered on his underwear. In the final minutes of the film Marshall speaks to Isabel after Larry leaves her for good, saying, "Goodness is, after all, the greatest force in the world . . .and he's got it." This speaks for the film and it's greatness. I think Marshall should have been nominated for his underplayed performance. He is credited with many fine roles in his career. See this classic. It's on VHS. Not to be confused with the pale remake with Bill Murray.

Old Hollywood was always in trouble when dealing with Deep Think. That's because of the medium's commercial nature. When flirting with spiritual or religious beliefs, the studios simply didn't want to risk offending potential ticket buyers. So, when dealing with Deep Think (not their many biblical epics which were unabashedly Christian), the studios compromised to the point of absurdity by either flattening out the message or trivializing it. Here it's trivialized. After all, who's against Goodness. As a result, we wait 145-minutes to find out that, yes, Goodness is in fact a good and noble thing, and with that, Larry (Power) is on his way to enlightenment. And naturally, no one's offended, except maybe those who had expected something more.

Of course, the profundity is wrapped in lavishly mounted studio soap opera, with two of Hollywood's most beautiful people surrounded by whirling hosts of well-clothed extras. In fact, that opening ballroom scene is a marvel of orchestrated staging as the characters are introduced by serially playing off one another.

At the spectrum's other end, however, is that dreadful monastery scene with its painted mountain backdrop and facile dialog. Flattening the import of that pivotal scene are the repeated references to god as though that's where all paths must inevitably lead. And that's along with the spectacular alpine vistas fairly shouting celestial light from a heavenly above. I'm sure all that window dressing comforted nervous audiences who could then wink at Larry's spiritual quest and not feel the least bit threatened. But it also reduced a profound subject to a superficial level.

Another area that gets a Hollywood treatment are values and class, always tricky topics for an industry backed by Wall Street. The movie goes to pains circulating Larry among the gilded elite of Chicago as epitomized by the petulantly snobbish Templeton (Webb) and the selfishly insulated Isabel (Tierney). But, the elite's values are clearly materialistic, a spiritual dead-end in Larry's view as he heads off to learn from suffering with the working class. The screenplay thus sets up an implicit critique of the gilded class and the values that guide them. Well and good. But then the screenwriters can't seem to decide what to do with this point of view; after all, that's another touchy topic among audiences, especially coming so soon after the societal upheaval of the 1930's.

As a result, Larry never really criticizes the peer group he's been a part of, never really explains, that is, why he sees his social class as a spiritual dead-end, which of course would delve into a socially touchy subject. Nor, for that matter, does Larry explain why "salvation" lies through sharing a working class experience. We're left, I guess, to suppose the answer has to do with the suffering caused by hard physical labor and poor pay this class must endure. This subtext, however, is never really brought to the surface and remains unresolved at movie's end. Thus, big studio TCF and its head honcho, producer Zanuck, nibble around a second tinderbox topic, tantalizing us but never really delivering.

The movie does have a definite upside. For one, it's exquisitely well photographed, compensating somewhat for the 2-hour-plus run time. At the same time, the ballroom scenes are especially well choreographed and lavishly upholstered, creating an impressive air of wealth and breeding that makes Larry's renunciation a genuine material sacrifice. Then too, there's Webb's lively version of an unregenerate snob, a character he could do to waspish perfection. Also, Marshall's quietly observant author provides a needed contemplative note. However, in the film's pivotal role Power fails to provide the needed depth his character requires, or as another reviewer observes, Larry is pretty much the same after his trip to India as he was before. Fortunately, Power would later find that depth in Nightmare Alley (1947).

All in all, the movie remains an overlong visual treat that fortunately includes the exquisite Tierney. But as one might expect from old Hollywood, the film fails crucially at coming to grips with its two overriding themes—spirituality and class. As a result, two of life's most important questions are given unchallenging treatment. In short, here as elsewhere, where Deep Think is concerned, commercialism precedes all else.