The Razor's Edge (1984 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the 1984 film. For the 1946 original, see The Razor's Edge (1946 film).

The Razor's Edge
DVD cover
Directed by	John Byrum
Produced by	Rob Cohen
Written by	John Byrum Bill Murray W. Somerset Maugham (novel)
Starring	Bill Murray Theresa Russell Catherine Hicks Denholm Elliott James Keach Peter Vaughan Brian Doyle-Murray Faith Brook Saeed Jaffrey
Music by	Jack Nitzsche
Cinematography	Peter Hannan
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	October 19, 1984
Running time	128 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$12,000,000
IMDb profile

The Razor's Edge is the second film version of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel. The film was released in 1984 and stars Bill Murray, Theresa Russell, Catherine Hicks, Denholm Elliott and James Keach. It was directed by John Byrum.

According to a recent interview with director John Byrum in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, he had wanted to film an adaptation of Maugham's book in the early 1980s. The director brought a copy of the book to his friend Margaret "Mickey" Kelley who was in the hospital after giving birth. Byrum remembers getting a call the next night at four in the morning, "and it was Mickey's husband, Bill [Murray]. All he said was, 'This is Larry, Larry Darrell.'"

Byrum and Murray proceeded to drive across America while writing the screenplay. When they returned, what they had written did not resemble the previous film version with a farewell speech to John Belushi included in the script. Even though Murray was attached to the project, Byrum still had trouble finding a studio to finance it.

Dan Aykroyd suggested that Murray could star in Ghostbusters for Columbia Pictures in exchange for the studio greenlighting The Razor's Edge. Murray agreed and a deal was made with Columbia. For the next year and half, cast and crew shot on location in France, Switzerland and India with $12 million budget. After the last day of principal photography, Murray left to make Ghostbusters.

This marked Murray's first starring role in a dramatic film, though Murray did manage to inject some of his dry wit into the script. The film grossed a mere $6.6 million at the box-office.[1] Murray's disappointment at the film's failure inspired him to take four years off to study at the Sorbonne.

In this version, the book's epigraph is dramatized as advice given to Darrell by a Tibetan monk: "The path to salvation is narrow and is difficult to walk as a razor's edge."