The Razor's Edge

Returning from the First World War, Larry Darrell refuses the life laid out for him: he turns down the job, will not build the household his fiancée Isabel wants, and finds making money meaningless. He goes to Paris instead, works in a coal mine, then travels to India and sits in a monastery. Isabel marries a rich man but will not let him go. There is also Sophie, an old friend who has lost everything and taken to drink. The question at the centre is what a person does to those around him while seeking his own salvation. Larry finds enlightenment and the story does not reward him for it; the person most damaged turns out to be the one he tried hardest to help. Edmund Goulding directed, from W. Somerset Maugham's novel, with Maugham entering the story as a character. Tyrone Power plays Larry, Gene Tierney plays Isabel and Anne Baxter plays Sophie, with Clifton Webb in the cast. Anne Baxter won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for the part, and the film was nominated for best picture. Who it is for: anyone who likes classic Hollywood literary adaptation and stories of spiritual search. Who it is not for: anyone who will question the view of India; the film uses the East as a store of answers, and it runs close to two and a half hours.