When Invoice Murray Unexpectedly Tailored a W. Somerset Maugham Novel: The Razor’s Edge (1984)

In sum­mer of 1984, Amer­i­can pop­u­lar cul­ture was dom­i­nat­ed by Ghost­busters, a block­buster that com­bined sharp com­e­dy and spec­tac­u­lar visu­al results on a scale — and in an in contrast to­ly har­mo­ny — film­go­ers had nev­er seen earlier than. Its nice suc­cess superior the careers of each­one concerned, not least that of Invoice Mur­ray. Hav­ing already been an ear­ly (if not imme­di­ate­ly beloved) Sat­ur­day Evening Dwell forged mem­ber and giv­en much-praised per­for­mances in come­dies like Cad­dyshack, Stripes, and Toot­sie, he introduced his well-known­ly indifferent sen­si­bil­i­ty to the function of the ghost-bust­ing Dr. Peter Venkman and there­by grew to become probably the most in-demand com­ic actor in Hol­ly­wooden. When, lower than six months lat­er, The Razor’s Edge opened with Mur­ray within the star­ring function, followers purchased tick­ets in hopes of extra laughs.

It’s not as if they’d­n’t been warned. The Razor’s Edge was adapt­ed from a nov­el by W. Som­er­set Maugh­am, a pop­u­lar author in his day, however onerous­ly a straight­for­ward humorist. On the professional­mo­tion­al cir­cuit, Mur­ray burdened that this was “a seri­ous film,” not a com­e­dy however a dra­ma. Nev­er­the­much less, each crit­ics and audi­ences on the time had trou­ble settle for­ing him within the function of Lar­ry Dar­rell, a once-light­coronary heart­ed younger man who comes again from World Warfare I over­whelmed by the necessity to ven­ture again out into the world in the hunt for the ulti­mate truths of exis­tence. Mur­ray was dri­ven to make the movie (for which he took pay solely as co-screen­author) out of the deep iden­ti­fi­ca­tion he felt with the char­ac­ter, which may solely have inten­si­fied the sting of its fail­ure.

That Lar­ry was a fel­low Chicagoan solely explains a part of the attraction. Mur­ray’s thir­ti­eth delivery­day, the delivery of his first youngster, and the demise of associates like Doug Ken­ney and John Belushi (who’s indi­rect­ly eulo­gized within the movie) had put him in a reflec­tive mind-set, whereas his develop­ing wealth and fame introduced per­son­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal chal­lenges of their very own. The prospect of exot­ic loca­tion shoots in Paris and the Himalayas, the place Lar­ry’s peri­patet­ic search­ing takes him, might have candy­ened the deal. Revis­it­ed right now, the outcome has plen­ty of mem­o­rable moments, a few of them pos­sessed of gen­uine beau­ty and grandeur. Alas, the sto­ry Maugh­am tells within the nov­el, wealthy with the sub­tleties of mem­o­ry, per­cep­tion, and decep­tion, does­n’t sur­vive the Hol­ly­wooden ten­den­cies towards over-com­pres­sion and lit­er­al-mind­ed­ness.

It should be stated that among the blame lies with Mur­ray him­self, whose goof­ball instincts conflict towards the 9­teen-twen­ties set­ting; as he lat­er admit­ted, he and direc­tor John Byrum had been flawed to insist on a peri­od piece. (Simply imag­ine the pos­si­bil­i­ties of Mur­ray play­ing a returned Viet­nam vet­er­an as a substitute.) Regard­much less, he con­tin­ued to fol­low his inside Lar­ry within the after­math, decamp­ing to Paris together with his younger fam­i­ly to be able to reside and be taught removed from the Amer­i­can scene he knew. It was there that he encoun­tered the educate­ings of the mys­tic G. I. Gur­d­ji­eff, whose influ­ence on Mur­ray’s per­sona we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture. That marked anoth­er step alongside the trail of expe­ri­ence that will lead him to play wis­er, unhappy­der, but nev­er complete­ly unfun­ny char­ac­ters in pic­tures like Wes Ander­son­’s Rush­more and Sofia Cop­po­la’s Misplaced in Trans­la­tion — and, in so doing, win dra­mat­ic respectabil­i­ty in any case.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Phi­los­o­phy of Bill Mur­ray: The Intel­lec­tu­al Foun­da­tions of His Comedic Per­sona

The Zen of Bill Mur­ray: I Want to Be “Real­ly Here, Real­ly in It, Real­ly Alive in the Moment”

Lis­ten to Bill Mur­ray Lead a Guid­ed Med­i­ta­tion on How It Feels to Be Bill Mur­ray

An Ani­mat­ed Bill Mur­ray on the Advan­tages & Dis­ad­van­tages of Fame

Bill Mur­ray, the Strug­gling New SNL Cast Mem­ber, Apol­o­gizes for Not Being Fun­ny (1977)

15 Great Films Adapt­ed from Equal­ly Great Nov­els

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the writer of the newslet­ter Books on Cities in addition to the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social web­work for­mer­ly referred to as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.