The Razor's Edge (1946) on Netflix
Larry Darrell comes home from the Great War, and his fiancée Isabel finds him unwilling to take a job. He postpones their wedding and leaves for Paris to find meaning.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb7.3/107,540 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes56%
Trailer
Plot summary
After the Great War, the expatriate Elliott Templeton returns to the United States and finds his niece Isabel engaged to Larry Darrell, a pilot just home from the fighting. Larry has no interest in taking a job to support a household and intends to live on a small inheritance, so he and Isabel put off their wedding while he goes to Paris to work out what his life should mean. He spends a year there as a student. When Isabel and her mother arrive, he asks Isabel to marry him, but she will not live on little money and marries millionaire Gray Maturin instead.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Razor's Edge (1946)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Darryl F. Zanuck cast Maureen O'Hara as Isabel and told her to keep it secret; when she told Linda Darnell, he fired her and hired Gene Tierney, the actress W. Somerset Maugham had in mind when he created the character.
- W. Somerset Maugham wrote an early draft of the screenplay, but not one word of his version was used in the final script; he then declined Zanuck's request to write a sequel and never worked in Hollywood again.
- Darryl F. Zanuck originally hired George Cukor to direct The Razor's Edge, but creative differences led to Cukor's removal from the film.
- In August 1945, Zanuck sent a second unit to the mountains around Denver, Colorado, to stand in for the Himalayas; with the stars uncast, Larry Darrell was played by a stand-in filmed in extreme long shot. Zanuck delayed casting until Tyrone Power finished his Marine service in January 1946.
- Betty Grable and Judy Garland were originally considered for the role of Sophie Nelson before Anne Baxter was cast in the part.
- The film's first week at the Roxy Theatre grossed $165,000, surpassing the theater's previous record of $160,000 set by The Cock-Eyed World in 1929.
