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I tried to watch THE RAZOR'S EDGE last night

And went to the bath house instead.. Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, JOHN PAYNE the man himself ,-DL icon JOHN PAYNE, were'nt enough to save this bore. I forgot how lovely Gene was in her prime, how ethereal and graceful, she'd be the perfect DAISY BUCHANAN. Yet there's something about her, that I find annoying. Anne Baxter is GROSS. She's SO bad. Another movie she's ruining. She was equally disgusting in ALL ABOUT EVE. She must have sucked dick like a champ, why did Zanuck ever give her a contract? she's the worst actress who ever lived, and she's fug. Joan Fontaine would have been wonderful in that part.

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by Anonymousreply 51March 5, 2022 2:29 AM

Which bathhouse?

by Anonymousreply 1July 5, 2021 9:27 AM

R1 I'm currently in Europe

by Anonymousreply 2July 5, 2021 11:30 AM

Glad to hear I'm not the only one, OP. This movie gets so much critical acclaim and I've never been able to sit all the way through it.

by Anonymousreply 3July 5, 2021 12:00 PM

Was "The Razor's Edge" dull?

by Anonymousreply 4July 5, 2021 12:28 PM

Well R4 I don't know because I never got past the first 5 minutes. It was so stagey and cringey, Whoever wrote the stale dialogue should've been fired by Ty the first day of shooting, and Anne Baxter just was too much to take. Shame because the association of Ty, Johnny Payne and Gene should've = fireworks

by Anonymousreply 5July 5, 2021 12:48 PM

The book is terrible.

by Anonymousreply 6July 5, 2021 3:12 PM

I disagree with all of you. I liked the movie.Tyrone Power was at his most beautiful and Clifton Webb was at his queeniest. The book filled in some of the blanks.

by Anonymousreply 7July 5, 2021 10:02 PM

what about John R7 ? I'll try again to watch, just for him

by Anonymousreply 8July 5, 2021 10:09 PM

I thought it was pretty good. The bill Murray version has less eye candy but is also rather good. I loved the book though too.

by Anonymousreply 9July 5, 2021 10:19 PM

I watched La partida, a cuban movie about young guys in love. It didn't make me horny, though the boys were lovely. I drove past the cruise park and didn't stop to hoover cocks in the bushes.

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by Anonymousreply 10July 5, 2021 10:19 PM

Gene is always so ... ethereal. it works in LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN but she's annoying. Also she can eat an apple through a picket fence

by Anonymousreply 11July 5, 2021 10:24 PM

John Payne taking a supporting role in this movie sealed his fate.

Wiki says "Zanuck thought of him as a secondary Tyrone Power". They didn't know how to use him and they released him from his 7 year contract.

He appeared in Grade westerns after that.

by Anonymousreply 12July 22, 2021 3:16 AM

Somerset Maugham stole all that Eastern Mumbo-jumbo that Tyrone spouts from this Englishman living in California.

Gerald Heard believed homosexuality was "an evolutionary phenomenon with a deeper spiritual dimension".

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by Anonymousreply 13July 22, 2021 4:48 AM

I'm a Millennial and I don't know the difference between a Gene Tearney and a Gene Kelly. So there!

by Anonymousreply 14July 23, 2021 12:45 AM

I love Gene Tierney in this. Her reaction when she learns Ty Power is going to marry that slut Anne Baxter is classic.

by Anonymousreply 15July 23, 2021 12:53 AM

One of my favorite books of all time but it simply doesn't translate to film. If you think this one is bad, did you ever see the Bill Murray version? One of the worst movies ever made. The deal was that he only agreed to do a sequel to Ghostbusters if they let him do Razor's Edge.

by Anonymousreply 16July 23, 2021 1:00 AM

[quote] Bill Murray version? One of the worst movies ever made

I refuse to watch that one. He is so ugly.

He looks as though he doesn't wash. He's like that Jack Nicholson who thinks impertinence is attractive.

by Anonymousreply 17July 23, 2021 1:04 AM

I bumped this thread for Datalounge's resident John Payne Fan who was so upset that the other thread was so rudely cancelled yesterday.

(Though I still don't know how you can claim this picture shows him naked)

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by Anonymousreply 18July 23, 2021 1:16 AM

Love the movie--but until 105 years back, I'd both never watched or knew it existed. Then I was unexpectedly hit and sideline with painful emergency surgery that had me recuperating at home for some time and I randomly caught it on TCM. Maybe it was the timing and the state of my mind at the moment, but its message, storyline, characters and outcome all really had a profound effect influencing thereafter how I appreciated both my life and my ability to decide what I control doing and healing in my life. :) I found it powerful. And, yes, Ty was magnetically gorgeous, Gene was bitchy beautiful, and Anne was a delightful mess à la pre-"The Ten Commandments." lol

by Anonymousreply 19July 23, 2021 1:30 AM

^...Until 15 or so years back, not 105 -- I was a recuperating human, not a vampire healing up! (Sorry for typo.)

by Anonymousreply 20July 23, 2021 1:31 AM

I love “The Razor’s Edge.” Way ahead of its time. Perhaps the first attempt to show a man willing to give up materialism for a spiritual path. Since it’s culturally transitional, it still uses the trappings of country clubs and villas in Paris. But the core of it is revolutionary. A great movie.

Can’t say the same for the Bill Murray version, which falls flat. And, sadly, for all his effort, Mr. Murray is miscast. (My older brother was a minor film critic in New York at the time, and he took me to a press screening, where we sat behind. Rex Reed and Judith Crist, no less! After it was over, as we all wearily proceeded out, I quipped, “Where’s Gene Tierney when you need her?”)

by Anonymousreply 21July 23, 2021 1:38 AM

[quote] Where’s Gene Tierney when you need her?”

Yes, the first version was luxurious, glamorous with overly beautiful people.

The second version seemed determined to be as tawdry and ugly as possible.

by Anonymousreply 22July 23, 2021 1:42 AM

[quote]Anne Baxter is GROSS. She's SO bad. Another movie she's ruining. She was equally disgusting in ALL ABOUT EVE. She must have sucked dick like a champ, why did Zanuck ever give her a contract? she's the worst actress who ever lived, and she's fug.

And yet, she won the Oscar for that performance.

Plus, she was Frank Lloyd Wright's granddaughter.

Plus, she was Hitchcock's personal first choice for the leading role in REBECCA (he was overruled by Selznick).

by Anonymousreply 23July 23, 2021 1:56 AM

[quote] And yet…Plus… Plus…

And yet she had a rather wide face and was incapable of subtlety.

by Anonymousreply 24July 23, 2021 1:59 AM

Never seen either film but tried to read the novel and couldn't bear it. Horribly pretentious! I was surprised because I have enjoyed several of Maugham's other novels particularly The Painted Veil, Theatre and Cakes and Ale.

I wonder if this film was a big break for John Payne who had mostly starred in light weight B pictures and Fox musicals supporting Alice Faye and Betty Grable until then.

by Anonymousreply 25July 23, 2021 2:06 AM

^ 1. The Razor's Edge is the longest of the four Maughams you mention.

2. The Wiki biography, below, suggests he had a bad relationship or bad contracts with the studios who owned him.

And all that messing around used up his valuable good-looking years and he suddenly got middle-aged and fat in the face.

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by Anonymousreply 26July 23, 2021 2:16 AM

John Payne may have aged rapidly (who didn't in those days?) but he never got "fat in the face" r26. Please post a photo if you think he did.

by Anonymousreply 27July 23, 2021 2:26 AM

TRE is one my favorite novels and the film version with Tyrone Power is excellent. He was at his best as Larry Darrell, the man in search of himself. I won’t speak of that remake abomination with Bill Murray.

by Anonymousreply 28July 23, 2021 2:39 AM

Tyrone Power was gorgeous. I want to lick the screen.

I like that Alamy stock photo of tyrone-power-outside-his-dressing-room-with-his-stand-in-tommy-noonan

by Anonymousreply 29July 23, 2021 3:14 AM

I loved Tyrone in Nightmare Alley. He was gorgeous and evil.

by Anonymousreply 30July 23, 2021 3:39 PM

I like Tyrone but there was always something old mannish about his appearance.

by Anonymousreply 31July 23, 2021 3:43 PM

R31 Yes, he never looked really young. He was always looked mature on the screen.

by Anonymousreply 32July 23, 2021 4:26 PM

That's not true about Ty Power. Check him out in one his earliest hits like JESSE JAMES, in technicolor no less. He and young Henry Fonda are absolutely gorgeous. But by the 1940s, true, he'd already begun his dissipation.

by Anonymousreply 33July 23, 2021 5:44 PM

Power and Fonda

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by Anonymousreply 34July 23, 2021 5:45 PM

Power and Fonda had the jaw line that Robert Taylor craved.

by Anonymousreply 35July 23, 2021 5:48 PM

R34 Thanks for that link. I never saw Power look that young! He's adorable, great jaw and nose.

He had beautiful eyebrows. Supposedly, Ty had a unibrow so constantly had to have those eye brows manscaped.

by Anonymousreply 36July 23, 2021 8:55 PM

r36 and everybody else, just google color photos of Ty in Jesse James. He is magnificent!, made for color film!

He doesn't have his hair all greased back like usual and his tanned golden skin glows.

by Anonymousreply 37July 23, 2021 8:59 PM

Gorgeous as a Sikh doctor in The Rains Came (1939).

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by Anonymousreply 38July 23, 2021 9:24 PM

R38 Tyrone had dental problems on this film. You can see the gap beside his right-side incisor.

by Anonymousreply 39July 23, 2021 10:54 PM

He used a temporary filler to cover the gap with a strange Malayan name.

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by Anonymousreply 40July 24, 2021 5:47 AM

I’m currently reading “The Secret Life of Tyrone Power”, a bio written in 1979 all about his career and bisexuality.

by Anonymousreply 41July 24, 2021 12:19 PM

R41

Does it have footnotes?

Does it have any documentary evidence with names, places or dates?

by Anonymousreply 42July 24, 2021 12:28 PM

R42: not at all, it’s kind of poorly written but still interesting. Seems he was more centered on men but went through marriages, and had children, for the sake of protecting his career.

by Anonymousreply 43July 24, 2021 1:03 PM

“The Rains Came” is wonderful. Myrna Loy walks off with it. Also based on a very good novel. Won an Oscar for special effects, which are still shockingly effective.

by Anonymousreply 44July 24, 2021 10:03 PM

Power had a son who grew up to be Dad’s spitting image. Has a minor role in “Cocoon.”

by Anonymousreply 45July 24, 2021 10:06 PM

R44, the Louis Broomfield novel is magnificent, and the 1939 film is great, especially those Oscar winning special effects. The 1955 remake - The Rains of Ranchinpur with Lana Turner and Richard Burton - is dire and makes dreadful changes from the book.

However, I'd love to see a new version, with modern effects and appropriate casting, like Fawad Khan as the doctor/heir to the throne.

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by Anonymousreply 46July 24, 2021 10:21 PM

That should be Bromfield

by Anonymousreply 47July 24, 2021 10:22 PM

While shooting the movie "Jesse James" in the Missouri Ozarks, close to the town of Pineville, supposedly Power had an affair with a local girl who became pregnant. After the baby (boy) was born, she put the infant up for adoption.

The story was that Power later spent time and money looking for the child, but was not successful in finding him.

by Anonymousreply 48July 24, 2021 11:49 PM

It was pretty much an open secret that Power was bi but a much, much more closely guarded one that he was into scat.

by Anonymousreply 49July 25, 2021 12:11 AM

R48 Whether true or false, I love the story.

by Anonymousreply 50July 25, 2021 2:40 PM

Shitty thread.

by Anonymousreply 51March 5, 2022 2:29 AM
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