The Razor's Edge (1946)

The Razor's Edge is the first film version of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel. It was released in 1946 and stars Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne, Anne Baxter, Clifton Webb, Herbert Marshall, supporting cast Lucile Watson, Frank Latimore and Elsa Lanchester. Marshall plays Somerset Maugham. The film was directed by Edmund Goulding.

The Razor's Edge tells the story of Larry Darrell, an American pilot traumatised by his experiences in World War I, who sets off in search of some transcendent meaning in his life. The story begins through the eyes of Larry's friends and acquaintances as they witness his personality change after the War. His rejection of conventional life and search for meaningful experience allows him to thrive while the more materialistic characters suffer reversals of fortune.

The Razor's Edge was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, with Anne Baxter winning Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

Synopsis

The film, in which W. Somerset Maugham (Herbert Marshall) is himself a minor character, drifting in and out of the lives of the major players, opens at a party held following World War I in 1919 at a country club in Chicago, Illinois. Elliott Templeton (Clifton Webb), an expatriate, has returned to the United States for the first time since before the war to visit his sister, Louisa Bradley (Lucile Watson), and his niece, Isabel (Gene Tierney), engaged to be married to Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power), of whom Elliott strongly disapproves for rejecting both inclusion in their social stratum and working in the common world.

Actors