The Razor's Edge Film Site | Bill Murray and John Byrum

Lost scenes

Bill in a scene cut from the film The cafe' fight

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 lovers.

Left: A still from the scene cut from the final film.

John Byrum says:

"I cut it from the film because the movie was just running too long. But it was one of a number of interesting little one-shot scenes that quickly told stories of the character's growth as he lived in Paris. It was something that I'd learned from Jules And Jim Truffeut - Truffeut told a sprawling story in little one-shot scenes that encapsulated what most directors would take twenty minutes to say.

Unfortunately, Maugham and Truffeaut don't make that great a mix. But in that scene which no one will ever see, Bill looks up from his book to see two Left Bank lesbians having a slap-down catfight at the next table, and the look on his face said whole worlds about Larry Darrel' s emergence as a human being, and Bill's emergence as a world-class movie star- two separate journies that both have done with grace and style. I wonder how Somerset Maugham would tell the story of Bill these last twenty years?"

44 A MONTPARNASSE CAFE

Larry sits at a battered table in a seedy cafe full of shouting PAINTERS and their MODEL MISTRESSES. He eats a bowl of greasy soup, a hunk of bread, and drinks a beer, deep in animated conversation with a couple of BEARDED ARTISTS in paint-stained clothes.

A lover's quarrel breaks out at the next table. A sultry bobbed-haired FRENCH GIRL throws her glass of wine at her wild-haired WHITE RUSSIAN BOYFRIEND. He ducks. The glass sails past Larry's table. Everyone ignores it and keeps talking. In the cafes of Paris in the 20's, a little broken crockery is to be expected.