The Razor’s Edge (1946)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Razor’s Edge (1946) – E. Goulding

Once upon a time, this was an important movie to me (and I later read the book by Somerset Maugham).  Perhaps it still is.  My interest was always in the character of Larry Darrell (played by Tyrone Power), who returns from WWI hollowed out and searching for meaning.  He can’t bring himself to commit to the world of business and materialism and the usual domesticity.  His wealthy fiancée (Gene Tierney) promises to wait for him when he sails off to Paris to find answers to his questions.  However, the wait becomes too long and she breaks off the engagement and marries another friend, a millionaire who is much more traditional.  Meanwhile, Larry works in a coal mine and then goes on a quest, visiting a holy man in India and then choosing a period of solitude.  When he has learned what he can, he returns to Paris to find….melodrama.  Although the movie doesn’t make explicit the comparisons, the experiences of the people around Larry are filled with suffering and we witness their different reactions to it (different to the meaning-making reaction of Larry to the suffering in war).  Sophie (Anne Baxter, who won the Oscar) responds by drowning herself in booze (and you can’t help but think of Gene Tierney’s later travails).  Gray (John Payne) experiences psychosomatic symptoms. Larry tries to help them and we witness the public’s reaction to him through the shrewish sniping by Clifton Webb (Tierney’s uncle) and the fond but noncommittal approach taken by Maugham himself (played by Herbert Marshall).  I always felt some affiliation to Larry (and the movie must encourage this), thinking about life as something you guide and chart out, like a quest, rather than something that just happens to you.  The philosophy of existentialism, where one takes responsibility for one’s actions and one’s life, rather than ascribing it to destiny or some greater power, seemed/seems accurate.  But Larry Darrell found something that made him feel one with the universe (which I have only rarely felt) – he rejected the values of his society and sought a spiritual answer that potentially allowed him to transcend suffering (or to work through it). This seems the most challenging part of life, to handle stresses and tragedies with aplomb, and it might take a lifetime to master it.  Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t provide a blueprint, so we’ll have to work it out for ourselves.  However, it is a sumptuous production that explores deeper ideas than most Hollywood fare and I am forever returning to it.