The Razor’s Edge (1946)
The Razor’s Edge (1946)
„The Razor’s Edge“ is a 1946 Black & white romantic drama film directed by Edmund Goulding. The screenplay by Lamar Trotti and Darryl F. Zanuck is based on the 1944 novel of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham.
W. Somerset Maugham, the story’s narrator, drifts in and out of the lives of others.
In the summer of 1919, at a Chicago country club party, expatriate Elliott Templeton returns to the United States from France to visit his sister, Louisa Bradley, and his niece, Isabel. Isabel’s fiancé, Larry Darrell, recently returned from service as a pilot during the Great War. Among the party guests are Larry’s childhood friend, Sophie Nelson, and her boyfriend, Bob MacDonald).
Larry refuses a job offer from the father of his friend, Gray Maturin, a millionaire who is also in love with Isabel. Larry and Isabel agree to postpone their marriage for a year so that he can go to Paris to find out what meaning life has since being traumatized by the death of a comrade who sacrificed himself to save Larry.
In Paris, Larry immerses himself in the life of a student. After a year, Larry asks Isabel to marry him, but she cannot bear to live in poverty. Isabel marries Gray, to provide herself with the elite social life she craves.
Sophie and Bob MacDonald have a baby. Meanwhile, Larry works in a coal mine in France, where a drunk, debauched defrocked priest, Kosti, urges him travel to India to learn from a mystic. Larry studies at a monastery in the Himalayas under the tutelage of a holy man, experiencing a moment of elightenment on a mountaintop. The holy man urges Larry to go back to his people but to not lose his awareness of the infinite beauty of the world and of God. Meanwhile, in the States, Bob and the baby die in a car crash.
Back in Paris, Maugham meets Elliott by chance and learns that Isabel and her family are living with Elliott after being financially ruined by the stock market crash of 1929.
A year later, Sophie is murdered.
Maugham and Larry visit Elliott on his deathbed in Nice, where he tells Gray that he will now have enough money to pay his father’s debts and rebuild the business.
Isabel tells Maugham that she loves Larry, but has lost him and still does not understand what he wants. Maugham tells her that Larry has found what most people want and never get. "I don’t think anyone can fail to be better and nobler, kinder for knowing him. You see, my dear, goodness is after all the greatest force in the world, and he’s got it." Larry, on the deck of a storm-tossed ship, hoists cargo in the rain.
Cast:
- Tyrone Power – Larry Darrell
- Gene Tierney – Isabel Bradley
- John Payne – Gray Maturin
- Anne Baxter – Sophie MacDonald
- Clifton Webb – Elliott Templeton
- Herbert Marshall – W. Somerset Maugham
- Lucile Watson – Louisa Bradley
- Frank Latimore – Bob MacDonald
- Elsa Lanchester – Miss Keith
- Cecil Humphreys – the Holy Man
- Fritz Kortner – Kosti
- Ted Billings – Miner
- Eugene Borden – Sea Captain
- Reed Hadley – Party Waiter (voice)
- Stanislas Bielski – Man at Bar
„Auf Messers Schneide“ (The Razor’s Edge“ ist ein romantisches Drama in Schwarz-Weiß aus dem Jahr 1946 unter der Regie von Edmund Goulding. Das Drehbuch von Lamar Trotti und Darryl F. Zanuck basiert auf dem gleichnamigen Roman von W. Somerset Maugham aus dem Jahr 1944.
W. Somerset Maugham, der Erzähler der Geschichte, taucht immer wieder in das Leben der anderen ein.
Im Sommer 1919 kehrt der Auswanderer Elliott Templeton auf einer Party in einem Chicagoer Country Club aus Frankreich in die Vereinigten Staaten zurück, um seine Schwester Louisa Bradley und seine Nichte Isabel zu besuchen. Isabels Verlobter, Larry Darrell, ist vor kurzem von seinem Dienst als Pilot im Ersten Weltkrieg zurückgekehrt. Unter den Partygästen sind auch Larrys Jugendfreundin Sophie Nelson und ihr Freund Bob MacDonald).
Larry lehnt ein Jobangebot des Vaters seines Freundes Gray Maturin ab, eines Millionärs, der ebenfalls in Isabel verliebt ist. Larry und Isabel vereinbaren, ihre Hochzeit um ein Jahr zu verschieben, damit er nach Paris gehen kann, um herauszufinden, welchen Sinn das Leben hat, seit er durch den Tod eines Kameraden, der sich geopfert hat, um Larry zu retten, traumatisiert ist.
In Paris taucht Larry in das Leben eines Studenten ein. Nach einem Jahr bittet Larry Isabel, ihn zu heiraten, aber sie kann es nicht ertragen, in Armut zu leben. Isabel heiratet Gray, um sich ein Leben in der elitären Gesellschaft zu ermöglichen, nach dem sie sich sehnt.