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Lost scenes from The Razor's Edge
With a little help from John Byrum
I managed to get hold of a shooting script for the film which John Byrum confirms was "pretty near the final one". Despite this, there are a lot of differences between what is on paper and what ended up in the finished film.
Some scenes were shot and then abandoned at the editing process due to the film's running time. Some scenes were abandoned or simplified due to budgetary constraints. Other scenes appear in undeveloped or expanded form.
John
Byrum says: "There's a lot of stuff
on film that was changed on the spot from the script. Bill's whole background
up to that point was the same as of a lot of that pack that began their
careers at Second City, the improv nightclub in Chicago.
Most of those Second City guys were taken first into television with Lorne Michaels' Saturday Night Live, then via that, the movies. Bill's first couple films were made with Ivan Reitman, who encouraged him to use that improv acting in multiple takes of every scene. So when it came to Razor's Edge, he'd developed that method of acting. You either shot it in Reitman's way, or demanded that Bill emulate Tyrone Power and stick to the script. And when I finally saw boring Power's Razor's Edge, I think going with Second City's approach was a good move. This style rubbed the English actors the wrong way at first, but after a while they went with it. It was a strange way to shoot an English movie in the 80's, but that's what made it original. And probably what made it a flop."
Presented below are some of these scenes along with comments from John Byrum.
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Before his trauma in World War 1, Larry Darrell is a carefree and mischievous character. Early drafts of the script show a very different version of Larry . John Byrum had written a cocky character more in tune with John Winger from Stripes. |
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There was a scene scripted in which Larry and Gray spend a night out in Paris before moving on to the front as Ambulance Drivers. The scene looks at the love triangle that exists between the two of them and Isabel. |
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The film shows a series of scenes of Larry's time in Paris. A scene that was cut from the final film shows a fight break out between two Parisian Lesbians. |
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Larry whisks Isabel off on his motorcycle to show her the sights and sounds of Paris. There was an interesting scene that was cut from the finished film, in which Larry takes Isabel to a cathedral to witness a well documented phenomenon that draws visitors from all over the world. |
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Larry Darrell journeys to India to spend time at a Gompa in the Himalayas. Whilst meditating in the mountains, Larry appears to attain a state of enlightenment or 'Nirvana'. The original script called for a scene more suited to Ghostbusters than The Razor's Edge. |
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A few scenes that did not make the final edit that involve Larry and Sophie as they reunite on his return from India. They revisit some of the playfulness from the Lake Forest party and show two rekindling their love for each other. |
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The last scene of the film shows Larry climbing the Montmatre steps. However, a completely different ending was shot and then abandoned. In it, Larry has not returned home to America but has stayed in Paris to work in a factory. |