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| Director: Edmund Goulding
Actors: Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb
Studio: 20th Century Fox
List Price: $19.98
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Rating:  64 reviews
Sales Rank: 1760
Format: Black & White, Color, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 145 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 3.8 x 1.1
ISBN: 6303333079
UPC: 086162104930
EAN: 9786303333076
ASIN: 6303333079
Theatrical Release Date: December 1946
Release Date: March 13, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 21-25 of 64
And What A Sharp Edge It Is! March 2, 2006
Gypsy (Canada)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
A wonderful, home-hitting post war film that definitely succeeds in its touching and sometimes searing portrait of a young man searching for the meaning of life after witnessing such suffering, pain and sacrifice. After serving and surviving WWI, he is at a loss as to where to go from there.
Larry Darrell wants to find himself, but his need is not understood or appreciated by his fiancee, the beautiful but selfish Isabel, who wants a good society position and money. Her stuffy, snobbish uncle Elliot wants Larry out of her life for those exact reasons - he's not wealthy enough. So we have the foundation for a watchable drama.
Gene Tierney looks lovely, and Tyrone Power (who, along with Dana Andrews, was one of her best leading men) more than matches her, and they look gorgeous together. Their performances are superb and flawless, and the same can be said for Clifton Webb, Herbert Marshall, John Payne, and of course, the Oscar-winning Anne Baxter as the ill-fated Sophie.
Biblical symbolism is evident in many of the scenes, and one cannot help but compare Isabel to Tierney's Oscar-nominated performance a year earlier in "Leave Her To Heaven". Isabel, like Ellen, is a manipulative, controlling and jealous woman, who wants Larry all to herself, even after she marries the gentle, wealthy Gray (John Payne), who doesn't realize how he's been used. Tierney's character is dressed in black and a floppy black hat when flaunting a drink in front of Sophie, tempting her like a serpent. And when Larry asks her about this incident, she proceeds to spin a lie, trying to make it look like an innocent misunderstanding, until he calls her on it. As with LHTH, she admits the truth with the line, "I did it and I'd do it again!", and goes into detail of how she did this for his own good, all for the love of him, trying to "save him" from what in her view was a disastrous mistake. How she could turn on a woman who was once her close friend is a question that, besides the jealousy factor, isn't really explained.
Baxter's portrayal of Sophie is brilliant, and she justly deserved the Oscar she received. Sophie is like Mary Magdalene or Eve, tempted by the demon liquor (no thanks to Isabel) and lured into prostitution, and Larry tries heroically and compassionately to save her. Her death is something that she began seeking after the tragic accident that claimed the lives of her husband and baby daughter. It is so easy to tear up during the sequence in the apartment when Sophie looks at the photograph of Isabel and Gray's eldest daughter and thinks about her own little girl that she lost, and Isabel almost looks sympathetic. After Larry tells a shocked Isabel of Sophie's demise, he compassionately and gently states, "There's no need to be shocked about Sophie any longer, Isabel. I've had the feeling all day that Sophie's where she wants to be most - with Bob and Linda. I know that's a simple way to look at it, but it's comforting." Marshall is wonderful as Maugham, the narrator, who observes all this drama and who comments on it, and who even goes so far as to appeal to Isabel's vanity in order to get back on her good graces. The scenes with Isabel and Gray's children are very sweet, with Isabel speaking to them in French (Tierney was fluent in that language, as she attended a finishing school in Europe). Larry can't bring himself to be angry with Isabel, despite what she's done, and Isabel can't bring herself to hurt Gray, as much as she loves Larry. And Larry's travels (although those bogus backdrops do little to convince that he actually is in those exotic locations), are a definite plus, his experiences shared with the viewer in order to find what he's looking for, and in a sense, to help us discover the meaning of life too. "Do you know what it's like to see another man give up his life for you? That someone deliberately died so that you might go on living?" Larry asks Isabel, who obviously has never experienced what he refers to. Even as she declares her love for him, regretting how she rejected his marriage proposal years before, we know that a life with Isabel is no longer in the cards. And when Larry says, "Goodbye, Isabel, and take good care of Gray. He needs you now more than ever", it is a fitting exit line as Power decides to continue on his journey of self-discovery.
"You see, my dear, goodness is no doubt the greatest force in the world, and he's got it," Maugham explains to a sorrowing and astonished Isabel, letting her (and the audience) know what quality Larry possesses and what he is in search of - goodness.
And we watch as Maugham's protagonist boards a ship, still in search of himself, but much more at peace.
It's well worth the running time, although the novel was very difficult to adapt to film, and it's a rewarding experience for those willing to sit down and absorb the message of "The Razor's Edge".
 Seeker, visionary. May 16, 2005
Krystyna Bublick (Virginia Beach)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is my favorite movie of all time. It is intellectually, artistically, soulfully, authentic, honest, rare, uplifting, and truly divine. A masterpiece.
BRAVO!
Krystyna
Virginia Beach
www.krystynavabeach.com
www.loveabye.com
www.ceb-associates.com
 Mumbo-Jumbo June 5, 2005
Vince Perrin (Stockton, CA USA)
6 out of 14 found this review helpful
The beautiful Gene Tierney is lucky to have "Laura" and "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" to her credit because the wicked women she plays here and in "Leave Her to Heaven" (in both she engineers the deaths of sympathetic characters) might have typecast her. She has never been more ravishing than she is in "The Razor's Edge," which makes her various manipulations all the more cunning.
And in this story of a privileged young loafer in search of, well, maybe his soul (it's never made clear), it is Miss Tierney who nails the character in a single line: "Oh, Larry, what you need is a psychiatrist!" It would seem so. After almost two hours of rejecting her and lucrative jobs, we last see him alone on a tramp steamer bound for America to become a taxicab driver. This is a happy ending, by the way.
Tyrone Power is certainly sincere as the soul-searcher, and he does get to kiss Elsa Lanchester, with whom he would much later appear in "Witness for the Prosecution." Somerset Maughm made himself a character in the novel on which the film is based, and Herbert Marshall acquits himself nicely in the role. Clifton Webb is unusually effective as the kind of insufferable snob he also plays (with Tierney) in "Laura."
Maughm's stories are always engrossing, and this all-star screen adaptation is sinfully entertaining, given the restrictions at the time of Hollywood's production code and the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency. It is told on a broad canvas that cries out for real locations (Paris! London! India!) but is confined to lavish studio settings. Up for numerous Academy Awards, only Anne Baxter in a supporting role, as a dypsomanical widow, walked off with one.
Although Edmund Goulding directed, producer Darryl Zanuck called the tune, except for (literally) a little song Goulding composed that later became popular as "Mamselle." The black-and-white cinematography in this DVD transfer looks terrific, and there's a spare but gossipy commentary. Would that the script had more spiritual clarity and less moralizing. But at least it's better than the dismal 1984 remake (on actual locations this time) starring, of all actors, the comedian Bill Murray in his first dramatic role.
Sharp Adaptation August 14, 2000
Stephen Reginald (Chicago, IL United States)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Although not true to the Maugham novel of the same name, it captures much of its spirit. Tyrone Power's first film after returning from WW II was a huge blockbuster. Packed to the gills with top stars of the era, there is much to savor. Gene Tierney is perfectly cast as Power's possesive and superficial ex-fiancee. Anne Baxter (in her Academy Award winning role) is touching and affecting as the tragic Sophie. And Clifton Webb give a deliciously hammy performance as Tierney's class conscious uncle. Running 146 minutes, this film doesn't seem quite as long as it is because of the wonderful performances and good pacing from director Edmund Goulding. All in all an enjoyable film.
 sick syrup December 24, 2000
supastar (brooklyn)
5 out of 17 found this review helpful
Never have i seen a book perverted for the screen so miserably. From the conversion of Larry from a rough coal mining wanderer to the weak hearted half-mystic that can't stay in the room with Maugham while Eliot dies, to the synthesis of Larry's travels, this movie wallows in melodrama of the worst sort, and all the more ignobly because it is from a good novel. The scenes in India are the worst, music swelling as Larry is supposed to be having an epiphany while a light bulb in the studio is turned on representing the sun rising. A silly British guy plays his supposed Indian guru, a horrid Hollywood sterotype of a positive Indian stereotype with a "(w)acccent." The screenplay and dialoge is horrid, the way actual dialogue is actually worked into the movie is almost blasphemous, and overall, the movie is long, melodramatic and serves to take the weaker moments of the book and exploit them to the fullest, while never bringing out any of the true messages of the book. The actors that play Maugham, Eliot, and Gray Maturin are quite good. The choice of actor and the preformance by Larry are miserable. I haven't seen the remake starring Bill Murray, but it cannot possibly be this bad.
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