Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

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.

Patryk Czekaj Being an intellectually engrossing, enormously stylish, deeply emotional picture, The Razor's Edge is both the most captivating and the most satisfying adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's inspiring novel of the same title. Even though in its core subject the film has much to do with spirituality and self-realization, it also ponders such considerable topics as obsession, greed, alcoholism, war-related traumas, etc. Wrapped up in a neat package of astounding visuals and fascinating camera shots, The Razor's Edge proves to be a very successful collaboration between the director Edmund Goulding and the cinematographer Arthur C. Miller. Splendid performances by the stellar cast only confirm that The Razor's Edge is an irrefutable masterpiece of the Golden Era of Hollywood.The literate and dramatic script gives a thorough psychological insight into all the character's minds. Tyrone Power plays Larry Darrell, the main character, who is about to begin a long and demanding search for the true meaning of life. Gene Tierney is his fiancée Isabel Bradley, a girl who tries to trap him into a marriage she wants, but ultimately realizes that she won't be able to. Clifton Webb is Elliott Templeton, a shallow, pompous, and supercilious uncle who – surprisingly so – turns out to be a rather likable and reliable old gentleman.Larry goes to France and then to India, discovering many new facts about life and fulfilling his destiny as the passionate truth-seeker. In the meantime, Isabel marries Gray Maturin (John Payne), a man who's always been in love with her. Along with her uncle and a few relatives they move to a classy palace located in France and stay there until the heavy depression hits them really hard.The turning point of the film comes when a long-time family friend Sophie MacDonald (devastating performance by Anne Baxter) loses her husband and child in a car crash and starts drinking in order to forget about this horrible accident. After a while, all the characters meet up in France at the most unexpected time. Though married, Isabel is still fully in love with Larry. He, on the other hand, decides to help poor Sophie and proposes to her instead. Thing turn ugly, as Isabel tries to cause Sophie's final fall into alcoholism and dejection, just to get Larry only for herself. As the obsessive behavior progresses, she realizes that many people, even those that she truly cared about, desert her.Starting in the period ingeniously named the roaring 20's and following up to the difficult times of the Great Depression, the film exhibits – in an utterly realistic manner – how a social and economic situation in the USA shaped the way people corresponded to one another. Pretentious, shallow and greedy members of the aristocracy cared only about their own, mostly material, needs. However, after the horrible stock market crash in 1929 everything suddenly changed. It's perfectly exemplified in the way Isabel Bradley's closest relatives handled the loss of money, and how it actually lead up to the beginning of the respected family's end.Undoubtedly, Tyrone Power's performance is the greatest force of this picture. Avoiding many clichés, he presents a man who is as confused as he is curious about life in general. Handsome and charismatic, it's not hard to see why Gene Tierney was so obsessed with his persona. Her awe-inspiring portrayal of a woman who can't distinguish between what's good and what's bad is as convincing as it is heartbreaking. Exploring both an ill-fated love affair and a promising spiritual journey, the film is a 144-minute ode to effective and convincing filmmaking. Enhanced by marvelous supporting performances, The Razor's Edge cuts deep and uncovers a deeply sorrowful intrigue, promising neither second chances nor happy endings.

lewis-51 This is a very good movie that should have been better. It is full of excellent little scenes and fine touches, such as the scene at the coal mine with the ex-priest. The photography and quality of the sets are wonderful. There are wonderful scenes in very believable little French hotels and bistros. There are subtle recurring symbols of a philosophical and religious nature.As others have written, it is centered on the story of a WWI veteran (Larry, played by Tyrone Power) who can't get serious about the routine kind of life everyone else seems to be pursuing in Chicago after the war. He wants more. He gives up marrying the beautiful Isabel (Gene Tierney) and has enough money to travel to Paris, then to India, seeking enlightenment and wisdom. That could be hokey, but it is handled well. He is gone long enough for Isabel to give up on him and marry someone she doesn't really love named Gray (John Payne). Also, an old friend of Larry's named Sophie (Anne Baxter) meets tragedy in her family life.Years later, Larry returns from India to Paris and meets Gray, Isabel, her rich uncle Elliott (Clifton Webb) and others there. The stock market has crashed and Gray and Isabel have lost most of their money. They are living with Elliott. Larry has an unusual hypnosis scene with Gray. I was intrigued and thought the situation really had a lot of potential. I loved the scenes with Anne Baxter in Paris. But somehow, after that the main thread got lost. It is a long movie, but maybe not long enough to really do justice to all the subplots. Some of them should have been toned down or dropped, though I admit choosing which one wouldn't be easy.Anne Baxter was superb. Every scene she was in was gripping. Clifton Webb was good, but I got tired of him. There was too much about him. Having Somerset Maugham appear in the movie as a character had its advantages, but somehow didn't really work for me, though the scene where he starts to seduce Tierney is great. Music, direction, plot, production values -- all are first rate. But the movie lives or dies based on the plot and the characterizations. For me, the two main flaws are Tierney and Power. Tyrone Power is just too handsome, in a plastic sort of way, and ultimately fails to be believable. Tierney is in one sense perfectly cast for the villainess -- maybe too perfectly. She is too obvious, too one-note. The contrast with the performance of Anne Baxter is striking. So it's a very good movie that makes me want to see the 1984 remake, and read the novel. I wish they could have cast someone other than Tyrone Power.

dougdoepke 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.