Topaz

While Leon Uris' book is a good read, Hitchcock's adaptation of the book for cinema captures much of the book's selling points. The killing of Juanita by Rico Parra is central to book and the film. The book has a sensual scene where Juanita distracts Parra to allow Andre to escape before she is killed. In the film, Hitchcock dispenses with the sexual distraction to go directly to the killing. The killing of Juanita captured by the overhead camera, shows the purple gown spreading in the floor as blood would have spread. No blood is shown—only the gown. What a brilliant shot from Hitchcock and cameraman Jack Hildyard! The second remarkable facet of the movie is the performance of Phillip Noiret as a French bureaucrat and spy. The lunch sequence (a typical Hitchcock food event) may look simple but the montage of shots capturing Noiret's apparent interest in the food than the conversation is truly engaging. Noiret is a fine actor. So is Michel Piccoli. The two of them outshine Frederick Stafford and John Forsythe.

The third most fascinating shot is post-torture interrogation of Mrs Mendoza—the whispered response from a posture that reminds one of Michelangelo's Pieta—with her dead husband replacing the dead Christ.

Hitchcock's perseverance with "marriage" continues. Andre blandly tells his daughter of his wife "She left me. I did not leave her" after a tryst with his lover in Havana. The Michel Piccoli character says of Andre's wife "Andre, his wife and I were very close. She married him." We know later that Andre's wife was cheating on him as she recognizes the Piccoli character's phone number at his secret love nest.

The defection sequence in Copenhagen might look clumsy—but Hitchcock's style is everywhere—faces in mirrors, close up of a porcelain figure about to be dropped with no music in the background, etc. What was most amusing was the criticism of the American espionage agents: "We would have done it better" and the exchange of words by the defector in Washington, D.C. Andre's outburst to his bosses on the outcome of French intervention in the defection would lead to the defector's assassination is equally poignant had the film ended with the French spy defecting to Russia (one of the alternate endings).

Finally, Hitchcock's use of the newspaper headlines during key scenes in the background was interesting: The Pieta shot had the newspaper shot in the background and the newspaper left behind on a bench in Paris is the final shot. The alternate endings—the duel and the departure of the spies to two cold-warring countries would not have served well as well the suicide of the spy suggested by the gunshot in his house.

Unfortunately, I'd only come across the weak ending version. Despite of that, it's a truly Hitchcockian film. The memorable scenes are pure and exclusively visual: the intriguing start, the stealing of the documents, the death of Juanita, the torturing of the cuban spies, the discovery of the body at Jarre's apartment, the meal of the french officers...

Hitchcock used to take technical challenges in every one of his films, I assume that here he committed to deliver the most complicated information concerning the plot without using dialogue, and he succeed.

There's a lot of subtle humor and some clever twists. The cuban officers are just great, absolutely surreal. I loved the atmosphere in that hotel room, with people doing paperwork, smoking cigars and drinking, and the detail of the hamburger wrapped in the document. I think the very broad differences in tone between the three main sections of the film affects the pace and the appreciation of the story as a whole.

It's amazing how Hitchcock managed to survive in it in the light of the multitude of trouble this film went through.

Watching the video version edited in Norway had its extra. Amazingly, all subtitles were delayed a good five, six minutes throughout the entire film, so you actually had text during the silent scenes and incongruities such as love words during killings.

Topaz was the third from the last of the great Alfred Hitchcock's films and in those last few films Hitch eschewed using big American box office names. No doubt he'd come to the conclusion that his was the biggest box office name on the credits.

But if the leading and many of the supporting players were not known to American audiences they were certainly known to French audiences. Dany Robin, Frederick Stafford, Phillippe Noiret, Michel Subor, Michel Piccoli all have had substantial careers in the French cinema.

Topaz is certainly an international thriller with the action going from Copenhagen, to Harlem, to Cuba, and finally Paris. Only Cuba was not shot on actual location for obvious reasons.

The film is based on a spy novel surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis. A Russian defector whose defection with his family is very nicely shot in Copenhagen hints at some major problems coming our way in the Pearl of the Antillies. Our biggest problem though is that because of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion, we've got no real intelligence on the ground in Cuba. What to do?

Well if you're John Forsythe there's been a reason you've been cultivating the French for years. He goes to Frederick Stafford of French intelligence and asks him to find out what's happening in Cuba.

History in 1962 bares witness to what was happening in Cuba at that time, but also Stafford is concerned the Russians have a spy real high up in the French government, code name, Topaz.

There's a romantic angle here to, so very French. Stafford makes use of his mistress, a Cuban girl played by Karin Dor who wife Dany Robin has reasons to be suspicious of. Then again she's not sitting home waiting for the grass to grow under her feet. She's having a fling with Michel Piccoli who is a friend of her husband.

International Geopolitics and romantic affairs are all tied together in this novel which Hitchcock serves up with his usual touch.

What a sad end both the leads in this film had. Frederick Stafford was killed in a plane crash in 1979 and Dany Robin and her husband died in an apartment house fire in 1995. Truly a cursed film.

Besides those mentioned look for good performances by John Vernon as a Castro aide and wannabe and from Roscoe Lee Browne who's an operator for French Intelligence in Harlem. I kid you not.

It's not one of Alfred Hitchcock's best films, but Topaz is entertaining enough and Hitchcock fans won't be disappointed.

Based on Leon Uris' novel of the same name about the tense days of the Cuban missile crisis, Alfred Hitchcock's `Topaz' is an underrated cold-war thriller - - underrated by English-speaking audiences and critics probably because the chief protagonist is a Frenchman! The first half of the movie is especially exciting, starting as it does with the defection (very realistically filmed) of a top Soviet official to the U.S, who hints at the existence of Soviet missiles in Cuba.. Frederick Stafford very adequately plays Andre Deveraux, the French trade official with Cuban connections whose help is requested by the Americans. Karin Dor is excellent as his beautiful Cuban paramour. Hitchcock's initial portrayal of Castro's Cuba is that of a rather benign place, but quickly changes to a frightening place later in the movie when the director clearly delineates the full brutality of his terrible regime. Deveraux's allies in Cuba are tortured and killed. The last third of the film, set in France, is not as exciting. The movie takes it own time exposing the members of the Topaz spy ring. The transition of the action from Cuba to France is abrupt and is another weakness of this flick. Maybe, `Topaz' should have been filmed in 2 parts, one about the Cuban missile crisis and another about French fellow-travellers! This is, perhaps, the only movie in which Hitchcock seems to show some sympathy towards those who get murdered, as evidenced by the final scene, which shows the ironical contrast between the superficial newspaper headline about the Cuban missile crisis ending and the grim fates of the unsung secret agents who helped end it. `Topaz' is one of the best cold-war movies ever made. Critics should re-evaluate it. But it is only a good Hitchcock movie, not his best.

"Topaz" is one of Hitchcock's least satisfying films, yet the same time it's one of his most interesting ones, as well. Usually people don't remember it, maybe because there are no famous Hitchcock stars. Either the director didn't get any, or he didn't want them, because the audiences should tightly concentrate on the complex plot.

The film clearly divides into three parts. The one in the middle, which takes place in Cuba, is the best of them. It involves the films most memorable scene, the beautifully photographed murder. Weakest part is the last one, where you might get confused with the messy intrigues.

There are too many characters in the movie, which leaves many of them just bystanders, for example the worried wife (Dany Robin), who doesn't do really anything. The films brightest spot is Karin Dor, who gives an excellent performance as the beautiful Juanita. Too bad that her screen time is quite short. And the ending climax shines with its absence: the film ends like bumping into a wall.