After one week, gallons of Gatorade, and plenty of couch
time, I’m finally over the flu. This is the first year in ages that I didn’t
get my flu shot, so in addition to having to go through a week of illness I
also get to beat myself up for not getting vaccinated. What was I thinking?
Turns out I had Flu A, which is widespread in the US right
now. If you also have it, you have my condolences.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike the flu, but there is
one thing about the flu that I can honestly say I look forward to. Couch time.
Couch time – that time when you feel awful but are conscious
enough to enjoy a movie or television show – is the only good thing about having
the flu.
My illness coincided with Turner Classic Movies Thirty Days
of Oscar celebration. For the month of February, their programming has been
Oscar nominated films from A to Z, so I was able to watch some of my favorites (“The
Maltese Falcon”) and some films I’ve always wanted to watch (“The Quiet Man”)
and some I’d never heard of but decided looked interesting.
“The Razor’s Edge” starring Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney
was the latter. This 1946 film based on the blockbuster novel by W. Somerset
Maugham was gripping for several reasons, some unintentional. It was probably
the fever talking but some parts of this very serious film struck me as
hilarious.
The film follows an American pilot, Larry Darrell, who has
just returned from serving in World War I. His best friend sacrificed himself
so Larry could live, and Larry is overwhelmed by emotions he cannot put into
words. He turns down a lucrative job offer, pushes aside his fiancé, and
decides to travel.
Nowadays we would say that he goes to “find himself” but at
the time of the movie, that phrase didn’t exist. So Larry tells his gorgeous fiancé
that he is going “to loaf.” And those questions he has? The only place he
thinks he’ll find the answers is Paris.
“So you’re going to loaf in Paris?” the shocked fiancé says.
As far as I'm concerned, this is as good a life plan as you’re going to find.
So Larry goes to Paris and eventually finds himself on a
mountaintop in India with a holy man played by Cecil Humphreys. This is only
the midpoint of the film. In part two the unenlightened decisions of Larry’s
friends lead them to tragedy and unhappiness.
His impoverished childhood friend loses her husband and
child in a car crash and decides to move from Ohio to Paris to become a dance
hall floozie. Larry and Somerset Maugham (yes, he is a character in the film) both
just happen to be staying on the Riviera when this friend’s body washes up on
the beach.
Did Part Two really occur or was it the fever talking? You
decide.
How do you cope when you are ill?
