I managed to make a trip to the movies this holiday weekend to see the new Sweeney Todd “The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” movie starring Johnny Depp. I was surprised to discover that Tim Burton did not pay much attention to learning the proper straight razor stropping(sharpening) technique before filming. Mr. Todd, played by Johnny Depp, was stropping his straight razor blade in the wrong direction along his leather strop belt throughout the entire movie. This would result in a very very dull straight razor in real life! Not very believable behavior for someone who is supposed to be the best barber in London. One would think that proper stropping technique would be an important detail in a movie with so many leather stropping scenes. I did notice that the Italian barber played by the Borat guy was stropping his straight razor blade in the right direction.
