Making the film

Prologue - The '1946 version'

"Homage is when you have a feeling for a genre and you create a new story in which you invest that feeling, rather than simply redoing the story that you like"

Rob Cohen, Producer The Razor's Edge (New York Times-1/1/84)

In 1945, the writer W Somerset Maugham (left) ventured to Hollywood to begin writing a screen adaptation of his novel The Razor's Edge.

Twentieth Century Fox had bought the rights to the book in October 1944 for $150,000. However, Maugham had agreed to write the screenplay for no fee, with only his expenses being paid. His reason was that he had seen adaptations of his earlier work, which had less than impressed him and he wanted this novel to be recreated as faithfully as possible. Whilst Maugham collaborated with Writer/Producer Lemar Trotti, he was surprisingly unprotective of his novel.

When Trotti had tentatively advised a change in dialogue, Maugham simply replied, "You have more respect for Maugham, the writer than I have". Maugham had also admitted that The Razor's Edge had a "pedestrian quality which invited the injection of cinematic stimulus"

After three months, Maugham completed the screenplay and on the insistence of producer, Daryl F Zanuck accepted payment in the form of a painting by Matisse worth $15,000. On the cover of the script, Maugham had written, “Please note that this is, on the whole, a comedy, and should be played lightly by everyone except in the definitely serious passages.”

However, Zanuck never used the script, instead using what became a twelfth draft by Trotti himself. Maugham commented, "You see he (Zanuck) didn't use a single line from my script…they took a lot of liberties with my original novel in the final shooting script". Maugham felt glad to be "eliminated for $15,000".

Hollywood star, Tyrone Power was cast in the lead role of Larry Darrell. He had recently returned from service in World War 2 and had been famously quoted as saying "I'm sick of all these 'knights in shining armour' parts, I want to do something worthwhile like plays and films that have something to say"
Hollywood legend has it that Power agreed to star in one more Zorro film if he could be allowed to play the lead in The Razor's Edge.

The film opened on 20th November 1946 at the "Roxy" in New York City to a star-studded premiere. Reviews were mixed, The New York Times had made references to "vacuous dialogue". The film however, was a major box office success, grossing $5million (At the time of the re-make this amounted to the equivalent of nearly $28 million)

Zanuck had later approached Maugham about the idea of a sequel with a Midwestern American setting. Maugham replied by saying "The only example of a sequel being as good as the original is Don Quixote, and I should be crazy to attempt one to The Razor's Edge". Although a sequel never materialised, around 20 years later, Director, John Byrum and Actor, Bill Murray collaborated on a re-interpretation of The Razor's Edge, which would attempt to bring the story to a new and younger audience and which would suffer much harsher criticism in the process.