"Mignonne, allons voir si la rose. . ."

Watched "The Razor's Edge" last night on TCM. It's a good old movie, and is close to the book, since the author Somerset Maugham wrote or supervised the screen play and is represented by one of the characters in the story. But the film itself is mostly a sketchy reminder of the book, and makes one want to read it again. In the book, Isabel is a cold, calculating female, and in the movie, Gene Tierney (incidentally one of the most beautiful women who ever lived) is more like a petulant child. Old Elliot Templeton is one of the delights of the book, but Clifton Webb makes him seem like a feeble-minded fool. Anne Baxter as Sophie is pathetic; reading the book, one thinks of Old Joan in "Rain" instead. The most satisfactory character in the movie is Herbert Marshall as Maugham. But it's a good movie, such as Zanuck and others made back then.