Old Stories: The Razor's Edge

Somerset Maugham's Novel and Its Film Adaptation

There are two sorts of people in this life: Those who have all the answers; and those who have all the questions. Of course that’s too stark a contrast, but deliberately so; the tension generated by the contrast makes for good story telling, and, in this case, for exceptional film viewing.

W. Somerset Maugham set out to write a story about the post war period in 1944, even before D-Day. Smart move on his part, of course, but he had the benefit of the memory of the the post WWI period. So he could see it all replaying, but still very prescient on Maugham’s part.

The Razor’s Edge is set in the post WWI era. It’s 1919, the war is over and the first huge American economic boom is on the horizon. The Yanks, victorious in war, are about to launch the greatest economic juggernaut the world has ever seen. The young and beautiful in Chicago jump on board and hang on for the ride of their life, they hope. But Lawrence Darrel has different ideas. Returning after the war, with it horrors and heroics still etched deeply in his mind, Larry has all questions and no answers; he rejects the false choices he’s offered. His girl Isabel, however, has all the answers, all the obvious answers: Get married, take a high end job in the market (Larry, not her), get rich, big house, and children. Oh, she’s a girl of the roaring 20’s alright; the modern version is nearly the same, just minus the obnoxious kids.

We are introduced to two other couples in the story. Gray, another of Isabel’s suitors, and his girlfriend, and Sophie and Bob, longtime friends. Gray’s father owns a lucrative bond trading business where Gray also works. Sophie and Bob are just young and thrilled to be in love. They take a more normal middle class path of building a life stone by stone; marriage, apartment, work, family.

Interesting that Maugham includes himself in the novel, and the film, as a character and narrator, giving the impression that the story’s characters and plot are not completely fictional. In the first paragraph he identifies himself as both writer and character:

This book consists of my recollections of a man with whom I was thrown into close contact only at long intervals, and I have little knowledge of what happened to him in between. I suppose that by the exercise of invention I could fill the gaps plausibly enough and so make my narrative more coherent; but I have no wish to do that. I only want to set down what I know of my own knowledge.

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The themes are familiar enough, but poignantly expressed. When Sophie lands in the hospital her visitors seem unable to process tragedy; theirs is a life fed only with gaiety, finery and good liquor. It’s a revealing scene. But the real reason to see the film is its depiction of envy which runs throughout but explodes when Larry decides to marry. The scenes surrounding his decision are really well done; whatever you thought of envy before, you will have a different view after. Somehow the accumulation of material wealth, and the status it brings, only exacerbates our worst behavior. This is also a conclusion reached by modern research into social psychology, so again Maugham was ahead of his time (or maybe we didn’t need research to tell us what we should have already known).

Of course Larry’s search for meaning is the main plot line of the film, but we are never given an idea of what he’s discovered. He tries to convey some of what he’s learned but its difficult for him. It isn’t until the last scene of the film we see that Larry has found a path that includes his youthful innocence and cheerfulness with unflinching honesty, but not cynicism. He’s learned to balance on the razor’s edge.

The film has several good character actors, but the stars are Tyrone Power as Larry and Gene Tierney as Isabel. Have there ever been two more beautiful people in a movie together?

The film came out to excellent reviews in 1946, just a year after the war. There was a lot of artistic output from WWII, as you would expect, but very little of it rises as high as The Razor’s Edge. It’s not easy to put a novel of this caliber into a motion picture and not lose a lot, as witnessed by a remake from 1984 starry Bill Murray which might be the worst movie ever made; avoid it at all costs.

With spring and summer just a few months away you may want to enjoy the novel first, before the film, but I think you’ll find either very entertaining. The film is free to watch on Youtube, although there will be a few of the strangest commercials you’ve ever seen, but that’s just Youtube. The Razor’s Edge is the rare accomplishment of both an excellent novel and an equally engrossing film adaptation.