THE RAZOR'S EDGE - The Holyman

This film was way ahead of its time. Larry Darrel travels to the mountains of India searching for meaning in life. He meets holyman (Sri Ganesha?) and later undergoes a spiritual transformation. Maugham visited to India in 1938 and met Sri Ramana Maharshi at Arunachalam in Tamil Nadu state. Special thanks to user vijaymohanrao for names and locations in India.

Tyrone Power - Larry Darrel
Cecil Humphreys - Holy Man

Music by Alfred Newman
Screenplay by Lamar Trotti
Directed by Edmund Goulding
Novel by Somerset Maugham

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• India
• ideals
• morals
• mystic
• spiritual
• values
• enlightenment
• search
• quest
• transform
• saint
• pilgrimage
• religion
• God
• truth

[FalseFlag369]

What is interesting is the fact that Germany put Lenin on a train near the end of WWI and rushed him into Russia so as to spearhead a revolution that ushered in the Bolsheviks that the Germans came to hate in the 20's & 20's. It was all done to get Russia out of WWI so that the Germans could concentrate on the Western Front. The hatred the Nazis had for Lenin/Stalin and Jewish/Soviet Bolshevism seems ironic in light of the fact none of it would have happened if they had not sent Lenin in.

[shanghaibenny2]

@FalseFlag369

Lenin may have spearheaded the take over of parliament, i.e, silence the opposition, but the main uprising was largely over already. It broke out spontaneously in many part of Russia without the help of anyone in particular.The communists were a minority party. There were many other political factions as well. For more information read "Russia in the 20th Century" by Robert Service.

[FalseFlag369]

Somerset Maugham is one of my favorite authors. Stories like this and The Letter have been made into excellent films. A life without introspection is no life at all, and Larry is alive and wondering why. Many returning veterans ended up in Paris as the Lost Generation, because they saw WWI as a waste of human life perpetrated by machinery that could tear a body to pieces. Wall Street War Mongers were blamed for the carnage. PTSD was called shell shock back then, and aptly so!

[shanghaibenny2]

@FalseFlag369

WWI did not really end with the armistice; the carnage was extended into WWII. We might call this time period The Thirty Years War of the Twentieth Century.

[FalseFlag369]

@shanghaibenny2I agree. The problem with "peacetime" is that it is war by other means on an economic front. One has to ask: Peace on whose terms? The victors always write history their way, and those that win become the dominant forces in the world, especially the U.S. after WWII. The fascism & the axis bloc was partially the product of the economic times. Japan needed resources it couldn't get from its island nation, and Germany was also pushed into a corner of debt due to the Armistice.

[shanghaibenny2]

@FalseFlag369

We might say grimly, war is the natural state of man interrupt by periods of peace. WWI was about empire building (Germany) and empire preservation (all the other guys). It also gave rise to communism to which fascism is a reactionary movement. Japan wanted natural resources and huge chunks of China. Trade disputes cause war. "If goods do not cross borders, then armies will." - Bastiat. That's why the US kicked opened the door to Japan - as an outlet for overproduced goods.

[FalseFlag369]

@flaminia5 I agree that some books do stand the test of time better than others. What books do you put in that category? I would select books that deal with the human condition as the ones I will read over again. Some of Maugham’s, Steinbeck, Hemmingway, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, Dreiser etc. In any case, I think soul searching is a good endeavor. Some of us will compromise our ideals by going to work in bomb plant while never questioning what we are doing.

[flaminia5]

@FalseFlag369 it has to do with the time, yes, but the greatest books don't lose their importance with the time passing; nevertheless i see your point, greetings!

[FalseFlag369]

@shanghaibenny2 The Bolsheviks were the extreme movement and Lenin was the catalyst when compared to others in opposition to Kerensky. What's the point of going tit for tat over this? We could give each other history lessons all day. I could also recommend a lot of good books such as "A Concise History of the Russian Revolution" by Richard Pipes, "Fighting The Bolsheviks" by Donald E. Cary, "A History of Russia" By Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, and of course Robert Service's LENIN!

[FalseFlag369]

@flaminia5 One has to look at the time it was published (1944) when we were in another conflict. A good book is by Selina Hastings "The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham." "Of Human Bondage" is supposed to be his best work. Theodore Dreiser is another great author of that era ("An American Tragedy" is my favorite). I also like "The Moon and Sixpence", and "Catalina" which I thought was excellently researched on his part about the Catholic Church. See DVD "Bhutan" Taking the Middle Path.

[FalseFlag369]

@shanghaibenny2 True, but the term fascist comes from the Roman fasces (which you can see on each side of the speaker’s chair in congress). The Roman Empire was the first fascist system. Fascism is a totalitarian, dictatorial system, where unlimited power rests in the Executive branch. In Hitler's Germany, close association with industry helped in his rise to power, just as the Industrial-Military-Complex Eisenhower warned us about now controls government domestic and foreign policy.