Thread: The Straight Razor in Film

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but I was watching Puss-N-Boots today and was suprised to see a rather extened seen in which "Jill" strops and then shaves "Jack" with a straight razor. My 4 & 5 year old daughts brought it to my attention. It made me proud that they said "Daddy, look at Jill STROPPING her razor." The only problem I have is they now want me to buy "Jill's razor."

Originally Posted by ShavingSrgn

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet, but I was watching Puss-N-Boots today and was suprised to see a rather extened seen in which "Jill" strops and then shaves "Jack" with a straight razor. My 4 & 5 year old daughts brought it to my attention. It made me proud that they said "Daddy, look at Jill STROPPING her razor." The only problem I have is they now want me to buy "Jill's razor."

She shaved him dry too!

Originally Posted by maddafinga

She shaved him dry too!

Yes she did!!! He didn't even flinch (most have been an incredibly sharp razor). Looks like she needs a new strop though.

Since this is a long thread, I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, here in Australia we've just been treated to a whole series about the infamous "razor gangs" in Sydney during the 1920's and 30's.
Apparently carrying both guns and knives resulted in instant jail time so to get around this gangs of thugs started carrying around straight razors.
For a while they did so with complete impunity as the police could really only confiscate them and they'd be unarmed until they passed the next barber shop (quite a common thing back between the wars).
There's a wiki page about the series Underbelly: Razor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I kinda liked it grusome as it was being the avid history buff that I am, can never help researching the characters for myself and seeing just how much of the story is fact and how much is...something else (in this case it's maybe about half and half).
Lots of references to the tried and trusty Bengall in the series too, which fits as they would have been almost the ubiquitous razor in Sydney at the time.

As to Bengalls in Australia, I wonder why that particular brand is/was so common?

Australia only achieved Federation in 1901, which is to say that prior to that it was for all intents and purposes a British colony.
Australia continued very close ties to Britain right through the 20th century and remains a member of the Commonwealth of nations to this day.
As Cadman produced something like 90% of their razors for the export market I'm thinking it's likely that Australia was seen as a likely destination right from the get-go.
Another reason MIGHT be that Australia was actually fighting AGAINST Germany in both the first and second world wars basically from the outbreak of conflict (those close British ties again) so there may have been some consumer resistance to German made products (such as razors) French razors I don't think were made in sufficient numbers and were probably a lot more expensive, same with Spanish ones and so on.
Basically left the door open for an enterprising British firm to pick up the lion's share of the razor market here.
As far as I know there wasn't any significant domestic razor manufacture going on here (ie in Australia) and also bear in mind there would have been some residual perception of Britain as being "the workshop of the world" as it was in Victorian times following the industrial revolution which started out in Britain during the mid nineteenth century.