One of the many movies I’ve been meaning to see for decades, and finally have, is The Razor’s Edge. Not the Bill Murray 1984 remake, but the 1946 original, based on Somerset Maugham’s 1944 novel, published when he was seventy. As portrayed by Herbert Marshall, Maugham is both the narrator and a character in the movie.
Twenty years before the Beatles sought meditative enlightenment with the Maharishi, Maugham had his protagonist, Larry Darrel, travel to India to “find himself,” with the help of a guru. Only a British writer of Maugham’s generation would have sent his character to India to seek wisdom. The year following the release of The Razor’s Edge, England enacted the Indian Independence Act of 1947.
Tyrone Power as Larry is one of the post-World War I “Lost Generation.” Having been a flyer, not a doughboy in the trenches, Larry isn’t shell-shocked, as PTSD was called a hundred years ago. Rather, he returns from the war filled with metaphysical uncertainties and doubts. Side note: Herbert Marshall lost a leg during World War I.
Larry has money from an unexplained source that provides him with an annual income. It isn’t much compared to the wealth of his high society friends, but he has financial security that gives him the freedom very few people have, to “loaf about” and ponder the meaning of life. The premise reminded me of something Woody Allen says in Stardust Memories.
Let’s say you’re surviving. So then your problems become how can I fall in love, or why can’t I fall in love, more accurately, and why do I age and die, and what meaning can my life possibly have? You know, the issues become very complex for you.
That’s how it is for Larry. The movie follows him through the years in his pursuit of learning, while crossing paths with his circle of friends. They include Gene Tierney as Isabel, the love of his life, and Maugham as the objective observer.
By the second half of the movie, Larry has returned from India, where he found answers to many of his questions. In a curious twist, along the way he acquired hypnotic powers, not unlike the Shadow and Doctor Strange.
Maugham provides Larry with an antagonist in the person of Elliot Templeton, played by prissy Clifton Webb. True to his nature, Larry feels neither threatened nor even offended by Elliot. Larry seeks to change no one but himself, and a frustrated Isabel gives up on him to marry another man for his money.
With the focus shifting more to changes in the lives of the supporting characters, Anne Baxter makes a startling return to the story as Sophie, Larry’s childhood friend. Baxter is very impressive in this role, earning a well-deserved Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Having given Transcendental Meditation a try in my youth, The Razor’s Edge resonates with me. Being at the age Maugham was when he wrote the book, I can appreciate why he wrote it. The theme isn’t overtly religious, and as entertainment the movie works well as a sort of metaphysical melodrama and soap opera.
Here’s the entire movie. A year later, Tyrone Power followed The Razor’s Edge with an even more unorthodox and challenging role, in Nightmare Alley.
