With script in progress, Zanuck began selecting actors. Tyrone Power, for his first role after three years as a Marine aviator, was cast as Larry Darrell, with Gene Tierney as leading lady. Behind them Zanuck arrayed a costly group of supporting players, headed by Clifton Webb as Miss Tierney's uncle. Since the novel was written in the first person, a character was needed to play Maugham himself. Herbert Marshall was chosen and is called "Maugham" in the picture. Many of the roles required exhaustive tests of actors, particularly the part of Sophie, a nice girl who goes on the skids in Paris, which was won by Anne Baxter over Bonita Granville, Susan Hayward and Annabelle Shaw.

The scene which LIFE covers is shown in the previous page as written in the novel by Maugham -- 10 lines of description -- and then as written for the screen -- 26 lines of dialog -- complete with notes for action. Shooting time was three days, for which expenses amounted to $70,714. The sequence is an important one but will consume only 4 minutes, 25 seconds of the 160-minute running time of The Razor's Edge.