The Razor's Edge (1946)
What was the big deal about The Razor’s Edge? If someone out there knows, feel free to tell me because I missed it. Nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, as well as supporting actor nod for Clifton Webb and a win for Anne Baxter, this was one of the more famous movies to come out of the post-war period before the lush 1950s began. Clocking in at almost three hours and filmed with an aura of pretension, I expected something better than “shallow people are inferior to deep people” as the message and plot.
Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney start the movie engaged, but he wants to loaf around and postpone the wedding to try and find himself. She waits for a year, but when they reconnect and reassess, neither have changed. Ty is still lost and looking for the meaning of life, and Gene wants to live in luxury. They part ways and she marries the wealthy John Payne while Ty goes to India and learns to meditate and look at the mountains. In the meantime, Gene’s uncle Clifton Webb is obsessed by status, material objects, fashions, and society, her friend Anne Baxter is supposed to have a heart of gold, and Herbert Marshall floats around observing to gather material for his novel. Herbie plays W. Somerset Maugham, who wrote the original novel, and while the autobiographical character is included in the book, it still feels weird to have the actual author mingling amongst fictional characters. I don’t know why Herbie took the part, as it’s quite small and unimportant. Clifton’s character is a mere caricature, and his snippy, superior, silly attitude gets tiresome extremely quickly. He has one emotional scene, but it’s so silly and an obvious pretentious exploitation from Somerset Maugham, it’s difficult to appreciate. John Payne was probably glad to be cast in a straight drama, so I can’t really blame him for taking such a tiny role.
Now we come to the ladies. Gene Tierney plays into her typecast of calculating evil villain, and there’s no growth or differentiation between this role and the others she played. She’s a very beautiful woman, and would have made an excellent Daisy Buchanan, if 1949’s The Great Gatsby had been given a bigger budget. Anne Baxter’s performance felt like a community theater rehearsal, and while she was given a lousy, stereotypical part to begin with, she doesn’t make it realistic or sympathetic. Her “Eve” expression has made an appearance at this point in her career, and she seems as calculating and insincere as Gene, even though she’s not supposed to be.
Tyrone Power’s character is the most irritating of all, which, given Clifton Webb’s tirade about an embroidered crest on his bathrobe, is saying something. Ty is existential, bland, unsympathetic, whiny, and selfish. The setting is supposedly post-WWI, but with the hairstyles and outfits mirroring the 1940s it’s difficult to tell, and Ty plays a soldier who longs to know the meaning of life. American audiences who went to see this movie in the theaters were in the aftermath of WWII, and while I’m sure returning soldiers shared some of Ty’s character’s feelings, there were bigger problems on most people’s minds. It feels enormously pretentious, not to mention pedantic, that in the aftermath of nuclear bombs, amputee veterans, and the United Nations, for a movie character to whine about peace on a mountain top for two hours.
Want to watch it? Click here to see it on ok.ru and thanks "Classic Cinema Central Seleus B" for posting!
More Herbert Marshall movies here!
More Tyrone Power movies here!
More Gene Tierney movies here!
Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney start the movie engaged, but he wants to loaf around and postpone the wedding to try and find himself. She waits for a year, but when they reconnect and reassess, neither have changed. Ty is still lost and looking for the meaning of life, and Gene wants to live in luxury. They part ways and she marries the wealthy John Payne while Ty goes to India and learns to meditate and look at the mountains. In the meantime, Gene’s uncle Clifton Webb is obsessed by status, material objects, fashions, and society, her friend Anne Baxter is supposed to have a heart of gold, and Herbert Marshall floats around observing to gather material for his novel. Herbie plays W. Somerset Maugham, who wrote the original novel, and while the autobiographical character is included in the book, it still feels weird to have the actual author mingling amongst fictional characters. I don’t know why Herbie took the part, as it’s quite small and unimportant. Clifton’s character is a mere caricature, and his snippy, superior, silly attitude gets tiresome extremely quickly. He has one emotional scene, but it’s so silly and an obvious pretentious exploitation from Somerset Maugham, it’s difficult to appreciate. John Payne was probably glad to be cast in a straight drama, so I can’t really blame him for taking such a tiny role.
Now we come to the ladies. Gene Tierney plays into her typecast of calculating evil villain, and there’s no growth or differentiation between this role and the others she played. She’s a very beautiful woman, and would have made an excellent Daisy Buchanan, if 1949’s The Great Gatsby had been given a bigger budget. Anne Baxter’s performance felt like a community theater rehearsal, and while she was given a lousy, stereotypical part to begin with, she doesn’t make it realistic or sympathetic. Her “Eve” expression has made an appearance at this point in her career, and she seems as calculating and insincere as Gene, even though she’s not supposed to be.
Tyrone Power’s character is the most irritating of all, which, given Clifton Webb’s tirade about an embroidered crest on his bathrobe, is saying something. Ty is existential, bland, unsympathetic, whiny, and selfish. The setting is supposedly post-WWI, but with the hairstyles and outfits mirroring the 1940s it’s difficult to tell, and Ty plays a soldier who longs to know the meaning of life. American audiences who went to see this movie in the theaters were in the aftermath of WWII, and while I’m sure returning soldiers shared some of Ty’s character’s feelings, there were bigger problems on most people’s minds. It feels enormously pretentious, not to mention pedantic, that in the aftermath of nuclear bombs, amputee veterans, and the United Nations, for a movie character to whine about peace on a mountain top for two hours.
Want to watch it? Click here to see it on ok.ru and thanks "Classic Cinema Central Seleus B" for posting!
More Herbert Marshall movies here!
More Tyrone Power movies here!
More Gene Tierney movies here!