This is a BIG Hollywood PRODUCTION. It must be Big because it deals with Big Ideas. And it's long too, very long. And it has 20th-Century Foxes most scintillating troopers doing their things. Also it must be big because, if I remember, there was a monstrous billboard advertising it over one of the theaters near Times Square. "The Razor's Edge," proclaimed the billboard -- in Big Letters. Starting next week: The Second Coming.
Actually it's kind of an interesting story, full of romance, intrigues, slight conflicts -- all very dignified and full of civility, as Somerset Maugham's works tended to be. He was always understated in a British manner. When he was in the fullness of his years he gave a presentation on aging. "There are many advantages to being old," he said from the stage, and then stopped. There was a long pause. Too long. The stooped old Maugham stood still at the platform until the audience began to cough and squirm. Finally he spoke up: "I'm just trying to remember what they are." I don't think I want to try outlining the plot because it would begin to sound a little like a Russian novel. Basically, Tyrone Power returns from World War One. (Kids: That was the one before World War Two. PS: We won.) He's seen a lot of death and he asks his fiancée, Gene Tierney, out loud, "What's it all about?" It's always a poor idea to ask a question like this but in Power's case his search for an answer leads him to India, and although he loses his fiancée he gains a mystic experience.
The rest of the movie, which is to say most of it, is taken up with a gaggle of Americans in Paris and other parts of France. They keep bumping into one another. Let's see. There is Tierney, of course. She's a materialist and after Power takes off she marries the rich, blandly handsome, slightly weak John Payne. She never stops loving Power in her own bitchy way. Then there is Anne Baxter, whom Power has known since childhood as a true innocent. A car accident kills her husband and children and she becomes a drunk and a whore in some gin mill where Apache dancers perform. Then there is Clifton Webb as the rich, snooty, but not inhuman uncle of Tierney. Finally there is Herbert Marshall, playing Maugham himself, who drifts in and out of the narrative as a sort of sympathetic flaneur.
Over a span of more than ten years, a couple of the characters die, some "find themselves," others are disappointed and guilt ridden, and Power carries on secure in his knowledge of self -- a good, kind man.
Frankly I didn't notice much difference between pre- and post-epiphany Power, except that after he felt God in a Himalayan sunrise he stopped asking what it was all about. I've always had trouble with mystic experiences, though I studied Eastern psychology and meditation in graduate school. I've experienced what might be called "awe" but never when I sought it and never in the presence of other people. But maybe it IS all an illusion and some cosmic force is behind it all. I once observed what was undoubtedly a UFO that defied the kind of physical laws we take for granted. My mind remains open, and I'll give Tyrone Power his mystic experience, though I wish the rest of his life hadn't led him into such difficulties. He never does explain exactly how his experience improved his life or, indeed, changed it in any way. Possibly the experience itself is indescribably and transcends language.
The performances are all about what we'd expect from a cast of seasoned professionals. Anne Baxter, in particular, must have been a brave young lady because make up and wardrobe have turned her into a dumpy sloven. That takes guts. It may be the role into which Gene Tierney put most effort. It's a variation on her murderous narcissist in "Leave Her to Heaven," but more candid, more defiantly selfish. Clifton Webb was an aristocratic flit in "Laura," two years earlier, but here he seems to come brazenly out of the closet and it's amusing as hell.
It's a masterpiece of middlebrow movie making. It ought to set most of us thinking. Here's one of the things we might wind up ruminating. In praise of the new Power, Herbert Marshall says something like, "He's a good man -- kind, gentle, forgiving." Is that today's idea of a good man?
Actually it's kind of an interesting story, full of romance, intrigues, slight conflicts -- all very dignified and full of civility, as Somerset Maugham's works tended to be. He was always understated in a British manner. When he was in the fullness of his years he gave a presentation on aging. "There are many advantages to being old," he said from the stage, and then stopped. There was a long pause. Too long. The stooped old Maugham stood still at the platform until the audience began to cough and squirm. Finally he spoke up: "I'm just trying to remember what they are." I don't think I want to try outlining the plot because it would begin to sound a little like a Russian novel. Basically, Tyrone Power returns from World War One. (Kids: That was the one before World War Two. PS: We won.) He's seen a lot of death and he asks his fiancée, Gene Tierney, out loud, "What's it all about?" It's always a poor idea to ask a question like this but in Power's case his search for an answer leads him to India, and although he loses his fiancée he gains a mystic experience.
The rest of the movie, which is to say most of it, is taken up with a gaggle of Americans in Paris and other parts of France. They keep bumping into one another. Let's see. There is Tierney, of course. She's a materialist and after Power takes off she marries the rich, blandly handsome, slightly weak John Payne. She never stops loving Power in her own bitchy way. Then there is Anne Baxter, whom Power has known since childhood as a true innocent. A car accident kills her husband and children and she becomes a drunk and a whore in some gin mill where Apache dancers perform. Then there is Clifton Webb as the rich, snooty, but not inhuman uncle of Tierney. Finally there is Herbert Marshall, playing Maugham himself, who drifts in and out of the narrative as a sort of sympathetic flaneur.
Over a span of more than ten years, a couple of the characters die, some "find themselves," others are disappointed and guilt ridden, and Power carries on secure in his knowledge of self -- a good, kind man.
Frankly I didn't notice much difference between pre- and post-epiphany Power, except that after he felt God in a Himalayan sunrise he stopped asking what it was all about. I've always had trouble with mystic experiences, though I studied Eastern psychology and meditation in graduate school. I've experienced what might be called "awe" but never when I sought it and never in the presence of other people. But maybe it IS all an illusion and some cosmic force is behind it all. I once observed what was undoubtedly a UFO that defied the kind of physical laws we take for granted. My mind remains open, and I'll give Tyrone Power his mystic experience, though I wish the rest of his life hadn't led him into such difficulties. He never does explain exactly how his experience improved his life or, indeed, changed it in any way. Possibly the experience itself is indescribably and transcends language.
The performances are all about what we'd expect from a cast of seasoned professionals. Anne Baxter, in particular, must have been a brave young lady because make up and wardrobe have turned her into a dumpy sloven. That takes guts. It may be the role into which Gene Tierney put most effort. It's a variation on her murderous narcissist in "Leave Her to Heaven," but more candid, more defiantly selfish. Clifton Webb was an aristocratic flit in "Laura," two years earlier, but here he seems to come brazenly out of the closet and it's amusing as hell.
It's a masterpiece of middlebrow movie making. It ought to set most of us thinking. Here's one of the things we might wind up ruminating. In praise of the new Power, Herbert Marshall says something like, "He's a good man -- kind, gentle, forgiving." Is that today's idea of a good man?