'The Razor's Edge' is adapted from the 1944 W. Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage) novel of the same name. In fact Maugham is a character in the movie, played by Herbert Marshall the author is used as a sort of narrative device, as he chronicals events in the life of "a fascinating young man" he had encountered a number of times over the years.
Said young man is played by Tyrone Power, a WWI air fighter who Maugham first encountered at a party in the U.S. shortly after the advent of prohibition. Restless, Power leaves fiancee Gene Tierny behind to "loaf" around France for a year. She tracts him down in Paris, they breakup, she heads back to the States and marries a man of good prospects. Power stays in France, eventually he ends up working in a mine where he meets a defrocked Catholic priest who encourages him to go to India and study with Holy men there. Tyrone does this, has profound spiritual experiences that change his life.
Years later, were are in the Depression now, Power is back in Paris, meets Maugham and Tierney again, as well as a childhood friend Ann Baxter (who won an Oscar for this part). Ann lost her husband and baby in a car accident back in Chicago, became a drunk, and because she is a character in this movie ended up in Paris. Tyrone cleans her up, gets her sober, they fall in love and get engaged. Tierney, a jealous woman who never got over Power, facilitates Baxter's relapse into alcoholism, which unsurprisingly dosen't end well.
A somewhat awkward adaptation, even as a movie it feels like a book. A passion project of studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, he spent lavishly on it an it paid off, $5 million in the US and Canada off $1.2 million. The critical reaction was and remains mixed, the film most notable for Baxter's Oscar, Power's post war transition into more serious parts, as well as an unusually positive portrail of Hinduism for an American studio film of the time. The movie also boasts a nice chewy part for Clifton Webb as Tierny's rich uncle. ***
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