Topaz (1969) User Reviews

Topaz

[jonathanruano · 7/10 · 13 November 2012]

Alfred Hitchcock's "Topaz" was unpopular and quickly forgotten about, largely because he dared to do something that most filmmakers avoided: make a realistic movie about espionage. "Topaz" has none of the glamour or excitement of the James Bond pictures nor does it even have much of a happy ending. The master spy Davereaux (Frederick Stafford) uses and gratuitously sacrifices the lives of his underlings to uncover information that merely serves to confirm other spy information that the Americans have already gathered. Davereaux appears to find his job particularly distasteful, but at the same time he goes ahead with his mission with a stoicism that could easily be confused for coldness. If you consider Davereaux's demeanour at the end of the picture and the flashback to all the casualties that he leaves behind, you'll see what I mean.

So "Topaz" is an austere and dark film. The brief torture scene has to be one of the most brutal moments ever depicted in any of Hitchcock's films, which for all their suspense usually spare the audience the horror of having to see uncompromising, graphic violence (Psycho and Frenzy, of course, are important exceptions). Lastly "Topaz" is also a surprisingly realistic film, in that the spies do not lead happy, glamorous lives, but are forced to perform very distasteful tasks that would drive a normal, decent person to despair.

Doing A Favor For An Ally

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 14 September 2007]

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.

Serviceable, workmanlike spy thriller that will never end up in anyone's "Top 10 Hitchcock films" list

[gridoon · 6/10 · 1 May 2007]

"Topaz" is at its best when Alfred Hitchcock lets the camera tell the story: there are several small but brilliant moments in this film. But while his direction is still masterful, his pacing certainly isn't - the film often feels talky and plodding. The abrupt ending is another problem - one of the alternative endings, the airport one, sounds much better (unfortunately I haven't had the chance to see it yet). Frederick Stafford is no Cary Grant or even Rod Taylor, but he does the job; so do the rest of the actors, with Phillipe Noiret a standout in a brief role and Karin Dor adding a touch of sensuality to the proceedings. On the whole, "Topaz" is not even among Hitchcock's Top 10 pictures, but his fans will still have fun spotting his touches here and there. His cameo - a wheelchair-bound man who suddenly gets up and starts walking (!) - is just one of them. (**1/2)

EDIT: I finally did see the airport ending: it is undeniably better than the present one, but still a bit too abrupt.

Interesting but unsatisfying

[fletch5 · 7/10 · 9 September 2000]

"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.

Brilliant sequences in an unsung Hitchcock film

[JuguAbraham · 7/10 · 8 April 2006]

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.

The French Connection

[ecarle · 2 April 2004]

One aspect of "Topaz" that should be kept in mind is that while American and British critics were belittling Hitchcock as a "mere entertainer," the French New Wave critics, led by Francois Truffaut, were lionizing him and Truffaut even published a book-long interview with Hitchcock published in 1967.

Hitchcock hadn't worked in years and was desperately trying to get another movie going when Universal showed him the book "Topaz" -- about spies in the French government, with a French protagonist and climactic scenes in Paris. I think that Hitchcock may have -- unwisely -- decided to do "Topaz" so he could do a "French picture."

There are some great individual scenes in Topaz -- the opening defection in Copenhagen, the suspenseful mission to get secrets from the Cubans in Harlem's Hotel Theresa (Hitchcock in Harlem?!); the hero's dangerous mission into Cuba and the death of his key contact there.

But Hitchcock really didn't like making "Topaz," he was bored and ill and resentful (Universal had killed a project called "Frenzy" -- not to be confused with the 1972 film he made of that name -- and Hitchcock was bitter about it.)

So we end up with a very half-hearted Hitchcock movie with a few good scenes, no real stars, THREE failed endings (all available to see on the DVD), and an attempt to "make nice with my French friends."

Suspenseful film from maestro Hitchcock with a confusing plot , thriller , intrigue , twists and turns

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 23 December 2012]

Good but no great Hitch film that maintains suspense level , including constant shift of scenarios keeps spectators on their toes . A French intelligence agent named Andre Deveraux (Frederick Stafford) befriends American official called Michael Nordstrom (John Forsythe) and both of whom become involved in the Cold War politics to dig out info , first with uncovering the events leading up to the 1962 Cuban Missle Crisis, and then back to France to discover a secret conspiracy . Andre travels to La Habana to obtain evidences of the Missiles , there meets his lover named Juanita Cordoba (Karin Dor who wears marvelous gowns by Edith Head and dubbed her own voice in the German Version) who is secretly embroiled with a local underground resistance whilst also being entangled in another way with Parra (John Vernon) . Meanwhile, an ex-KGB official defector flees to USA where he is interviewed and tells him about Topaz, the codename for a group of French officials in high circles who work for the Soviet Union , as the protagonists attempt to break up an international Russian spy ring (Philippe Noiret , Michel Piccoli) infiltrated in French government .

This suspenseful Hitchcock film contains cloak-and-dagger intrigue , whirlwind plot , thrills , twists and results to be pretty entertaining . Hitchcock takes you behind the actual headlines to expose the most explosive spy scandal of the century, though this was reportedly one of his most unhappy directing jobs , being Alfred's biggest failure , as it cost approximately $4,000,000 to make and received only $1,000,000 at the box office. According to Donald Spoto's book "The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years Of His Motion Pictures", Universal Pictures executives forced this project on Alfred Hitchcock. Overlong film as a running at 143 minutes, this is Alfred Hitchcock's longest film . The first draft of the script was hired Leon Uris to adapt his own novel , but Uris didn't care for Hitchcock's eccentric sense of humor, nor did he appreciate the director's habit of monopolizing all of his time as they worked through a script. Hitchcock was disappointed that Uris seemed to ignore his requests to humanize the story's villains , in his opinion the novel painted them as cardboard monsters , with only a partial draft completed, Uris left the film. Alfred declared it unshootable at the last minute and called in Samuel A. Taylor , writer of Vertigo , to rewrite it from scratch , as some scenes were written just hours before they were shot. According to Alfred Hitchcock, this was another of his experimental movies ; in addition to the dialogue, the plot is revealed through the use of colors, predominantly red, yellow and white , he admits that this did not work out. Good support cast mostly formed by European actors who give nice interpretations such as : Dany Robin as Nicole Devereaux , Vernon as Rico Parra , gorgeous Karin Dor as Juanita Cordoba , Michel Piccoli a Jacques Granville , Philippe Noiret as Henri Jarre , Claude Jade as Michèle Picard and Roscoe Lee Browne as Philippe Dubois . Of course , habitual Director Cameo , as Alfred Hitchcock appears about 30 minutes in at the airport getting out of a wheelchair . Emotive and sensitive score by Maurice Jarre , Jean Michel Jarre's father ; knowing that he had no ear for music, Alfred Hitchcock didn't even bother listening to Maurice Jarre's completed score for the film, slotting it onto the images without a quibble . Colorful and bright cinematography by excellent cameraman Jack Hildyard who photographed 'Bridge on the river Kai' and David Lean's usual . Appropriate production design by Henry Bumstead , Hitch's ordinary . This is a medium-to-rare Hitchcock picture in which was shot three versions with completely different endings , all are included in the Laserdisc , video , DVD and BluRays reissues.

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One of the Weakest Hitchcock's Films

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 10 December 2009]

In 1962, the highly ranked Russian intelligence officer Boris Kusenov (Per-Axel Arosenius) defects to the United States of America with his wife and his daughter under the protection of CIA agent Michael Nordstrom (John Forsythe). In Washington, Boris discloses the Russian movement in Cuba, and Nordstrom asks the French agent and his friend Andre Devereaux (Frederick Stafford) to get further documents from the Cuban leader Rico Parra (John Vernon) using his anti-American corrupt secretary Luis Uribe (Don Randolph). Then Devereaux travels to Cuba to get additional evidences of the Cuban Missiles with his mistress Juanita de Cordoba (Karin Dor). When Devereaux returns, he receives orders from the French government to return to France to explain his participation in Cuba. However Nordstrom schedules a meeting of Devereaux with Boris and the ex-KGB official tells him about Topaz, the codename for a group of French officials in high circles who work for the Soviet Union. Further, he tells that the French NATO representative Henri Jarre (Philippe Noiret) is the second in the chain of command of the spy ring Topaz, leaking classified information to the soviets, and the head of spies in known only by the codename of Columbine. Devereaux realizes that he can not reveal the truth before finding who the traitor is.

The dated "Topaz" is one of the weakest Hitchcock's films. The story, based on a true event (the Cuban Missile Crisis), is too shallow and long. Nicole is a key character but is not well-developed. Further, it is naive the explanation of friendship between Andre Devereaux and Michael Nordstrom to make the first to get entwined in the situation with Cubans and his government. This time, the cameo of Alfred Hitchcock is in the airport in New York, when he arrives in a wheelchair and walks under the United Air Lines to Planes plate while Nicole and Andre are welcoming Michele and her husband François Picard. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Topázio" ("Topaz")

Boring and poorly told, but with splashes of nice visuals

[davidmvining · 4/10 · 17 August 2020]

By about the halfway point, Topaz had completely lost me and never got me back. The overstuffed and unfocused international spy story of Frederick Stafford's Andre Devereaux, French secret agent, lurches from one storyline to another with only tangential connective tissue, creating an overlong drag of a film that feels quite unlike anything Hitchcock had ever made before. That the titular Topaz spy ring isn't actually important until the two-thirds mark is indicative of the movie's simple inability to understand what story it wants to tell. I think I tend to latch onto behind the scenes stories of Hitchcock being bored or disengaged when it helps explain poor films (though he was often described as bored on set as a side-effect of his levels of preparation going into production), but the information that Hitchcock was forced into this by the studio and they never had a completed script feels all too right for the problematic film we ended up getting as Hitchcock's third to last film ever.

The problems start from the very beginning. Apparently trying to reclaim something he felt was important to his movies from the silent era, Topaz begins with an extended cat and mouse game involving some Russians in Copenhagen. It's a slickly produced and assembled sequence, but it's emotionally empty because we don't know the players involved beyond some basic things like "High Ranking Soviet Official" and "His Wife" and "His Daughter". We end up getting introduced to a bevy of characters that don't really matter much, and it dominates the first half hour or so of the film. Our main character, though, is Andre Devereaux, the French secret agent working out of DC with a working relationship with the American agent Mike Nordstrom. Nordstrom is part of the interrogation of the Russian official and has heard about something called Topaz, but the Americans are more interested about what Cuba and Russia are doing right then in 1962.

Now, one of my major problems with the film is how episodic it feels and how unrelated major sections are from everything else. It would have been relatively easy to tie the existence of Topaz to Nordstrom asking Devereaux for help in finding out what's going on in Cuba, using it as payment for Deveraux's services, but Topaz is only mentioned once in the entire first hour and a half of the film. Deveraux's trip to the Cuban delegation in New York and then to Cuba itself dominate the middle hour of the film, and when we get to the final act, none of it matters. We've switched out antagonists from a Cuban (John Vernon, chewing up the scenery) to a circle of French spies and there's no connection between them. The French spies aren't getting information from the Cuban or anything, Deveraux just finishes his adventure in Cuba and starts another in Paris. There's a thin reed of connection because Deveraux gets sent back to Paris because his actions in Cuba weren't sanctioned by the French intelligence apparatus, but that's the sort of thing you start a story with, not use as a bridge from the second to third acts.

Because there end up being so many individual episodes, even considering its extended runtime of two hours and twenty minutes (Hitchcock's longest films), characters get thinned out to caricatures. Deveraux himself gets the most screen time, but he feels like a generic spy without anything interesting about him. His contact in Cuba, Juanita, never moves beyond strong Hispanic woman. The antagonists, especially the Cubans, are all thin, though the late introduction of Jarre gives us a decent bad guy, concerned about being found out, though it's far too little too late.

And that's ultimately the problem, the real story of the film is the final forty minutes or so. The first hour and a half is something else that doesn't matter. It feels like the adaptation of two books in a series rather than the adaptation of a single novel. Now, I've never read the source novel by Leon Uris, but I have a strong suspicion that it's not a classic of the spy genre.

I have read, though, that this is another movie that Hitchcock was forced to make for contractual reasons. I've also read that they never had a completed script and the final screenwriter Samuel Taylor (who also wrote Vertigo) was delivering scenes hours before they were filmed. There are three existing endings for the film as well, telling me that this was a heavily compromised production without a strong hand at the helm. Hitchcock didn't seem to care, and he largely just filmed what he got. He didn't get the opportunity to actually work through the story like he should have. However, Hitchcock was simply too good a filmmaker for the film to be completely worthless. It's lensed correctly and has some striking images here and there. There's one image of Juanita in her purple dress falling to the black and white tiled floor of her house that's often used in montages of Hitchcock's work because of the dress pools beneath her like blood, and there's no denying that it's a striking image. It's just the culmination of a storyline that never really works and doesn't actually matter that much to the overall narrative.

It's an overlong, uninvolving mess of a film. It's several stories that happen to involve some of the same characters squished together. It's a drag, but at least it looks pretty good.

Hitchcock's bloated Cold War outing

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 22 June 2012]

There's a reason you don't hear much about Alfred Hitchcock's 1969 Cold War opus, TOPAZ, and that's simply because it's not that great a movie. Oh, it has some great moments in it - come to think of it, what Hitchcock film doesn't? - but the director is unable to sustain that greatness for the movie's duration, which means there are long passages where nothing much in the way of anything happens. It's all very well directed, but with enough plot to fill three movies, this needed a faster pace to make it a snappier watch.

The complex storyline has many supporting characters and the film has a way of setting up one group of characters and situating them before dropping their storyline suddenly and moving on to someone else. That makes it very difficult to get emotionally involved in the proceedings, because all the time you're expecting the principles to disappear and for the story to move elsewhere.

It starts off well, for instance, with the defection of a top Russian official. Hitch is on top form, extracting every drop of suspense in detailing his escape. But then those characters disappear to be eventually replaced by Parisian spy Andre Devereaux, played by Frederick Stafford. Stafford is slightly stiff and definitely unmemorable as a Hitchcock leading man; he lacks the easy charm and charisma of a Grant or Stewart and the film suffers as a result. There are still some great moments - the scene in which a man attempts to photograph some secret documents is a 'how to' guide in building suspense - but by the time the action shifted to Cuba, back to America and then to France for the long-winded climax, I'm afraid to say I just didn't care much anymore.

It all feels like an attempt to emulate the globe-trotting hijinks of James Bond, especially when Stafford takes time out to romance exotic beauty Karin Dor. But it lacks the excitement and danger that made those films so popular during this era. Hitchcock's approach is too clinical when he needs to involve the feelings of his characters more, and the lack of any major sympathetic roles is another blow. Roscoe Lee Browne bagged by far my favourite role in the entire movie, yet he's in it for far too short a time. Similarly, the great John Vernon is on hand as a larger-than-life Cuban leader, but his villain is underutilised and just seems to disappear from the story as it goes on.

At over two hours and twenty minutes in length, TOPAZ is by far Hitch's longest movie. But it's too long. Half an hour could easily have been excised from that running time to tighten things up and improve the pacing a little, but as it stands there's just too much of nothing going on here for it to be worth more than a flawed watch.

Inside the cold-war.

[michaelRokeefe · 4/10 · 7 August 2000]

I'm sorry that I missed the thrills that others have proclaimed about this movie. I found it interesting; but easy to confuse the whole agenda; lacking action and a half an hour too long. Just my opinion.

A highly ranked Soviet official, who claims knowledge of Russian missiles in Cuba, defects to shelter in America. And a French agent with Cuban connections is asked to help the U.S. expose a spy ring.

The acting is calm and wooden. Passion is obviously missing in this tense drama. The cast includes Frederick Stafford, John Forsythe, Karin Dor and Dany Robin. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this by no means compares with his better known movies.

Atypical Hitchcock

[patrick.hunter · 8/10 · 10 August 2000]

Like so many Hollywood talents, Hitchcock was stereotyped. Also like so many Hollywood talents, whenever he tried to escape stereotyping, he would get criticized. That certainly was the case with TOPAZ. Although not as humorous, nor as romantic, nor even as exciting as the director's best films, the movie is nonetheless an intelligent and intriguing spy drama, one that compares more to a motion picture like DAY OF THE JACKYL than usual Hitchcock fare.

His other spy dramas, like NORTH BY NORTHWEST, may be more fun, but none of them are as realistic. In fact, very few spy films have the authenticity as TOPAZ. The story is based on fact. In 1962, a Russian top-level KGB defector informed the U.S. that some very high-level French diplomats, in a group called "Sapphire", were selling secrets to the Soviet Union. TIME Magazine printed this story in April 26, 1968, and did so using the same source that Leon Uris did: the U.S. sympathizing (and exiled) former Chief of French Intelligence, Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli.

Incidentally, a viewer needs to know the chronology and key events surrounding the 1962 Cuban Missile Crises as background, or else the film will be confusing. I suspect many critics condemn it because it's easier for them to dismiss the film rather than confront their own ignorance.

Not that this movie is without weaknesses. Hitchcock was no realist, and the grim world of films like THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD is probably the type of ambiance it should have presented, but doesn't. However, I definitely join the camp of those who consider it underrated. I read writers on Hitchcock who unthinkingly rank TOPAZ with his worst stuff, and yet many of us prefer it over THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY, MR. AND MRS. SMITH, and other Hitchcock works that don't get castigated as nearly as much. I can't help but suspect they receive less criticism because they are more typical Hitchcock. This film is atypical Hitchcock, so readjust your expectations accordingly.

lesser known Hitchcock

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 4 December 2013]

Russian KGB official Boris Kusenov defects with his family to the States. He is arrogant and gives some partial info to the CIA about Cuba. CIA agent Mike Nordstrom gets his French intelligence agent friend André Devereaux to investigate the Russians' involvement in Cuba. Meanwhile the defector discloses a French spy ring codename Topaz.

The defection works great. It is an exciting start to the movie. But I feel that there are a lot of static stationary scenes. It doesn't have enough movement to denote the needed action. On the plus side, there are other things here like the jealous wife of the French agent, and the spy craft minutia. But mostly it's a little bit slow.

The fact that the main protagonist agent is French may be a hindrance to this movie. This is not a Bond movie. But it's also not morally ambiguous. Director Alfred Hitchcock has made something in between. It's a French Bond without much of the action. And the ending just fizzles out. It is a fairly average spy movie with some interest Hitchcock-style scenes.

Forgotten Hitchcock Thriller.

[AaronCapenBanner · 5/10 · 13 October 2013]

Alfred Hitchcock directed this cold war thriller that stars John Forsythe as American agent Michael Nordstrom, who is sent to interview a high-ranking Russian official who has defected to the U.S. with some vital information: that a ring of French spies codenamed Topaz has been stealing and selling top secret NATO information to the Russians. Alarmed, Michael calls in his French friend and colleague to get to the bottom of this, and expose the spy ring, to minimize the National Security damage that has been done. Forgettable film has an unoriginal plot and uninspired direction by Sir Alfred. Not a bad film really, but entirely unmemorable.

Truly Hitchcockian despite its weaknesses

[TheFerryman · 10 March 2003]

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.

Costume Jewelry

[wes-connors · 7/10 · 4 October 2009]

It's 1962, and the United States suspects the Russians are getting too cozy with the Cubans. French agent Frederick Stafford (as Andre Devereaux) is recruited, by the Americans, to find out what's going on between the Socialist allies - and, as it turns out, the Soviets are secretly installing offensive nuclear missiles in Cuba. Go figure. Which country knows what, and how much they know, leads the film's characters to a spy ring called "Topaz". Surprising "romantic" entanglements move the plot along.

The sexual affairs, storyline, and "location" footage are only 50% plausible; the "multiple choice" endings are on even shakier ground. "The Airport" seems to be the current authorized (by Universal) ending, but none of the three work because there is no climatic pursuit, or conversation about the revelatory love affair involving the "Topaz" leader. Still, this is a marvelously directed and nicely performed film. Director Alfred Hitchcock knows how to shoot light bulbs, staircases, and Karin Dor in a purple dress.

******* Topaz (12/17/69) Alfred Hitchcock ~ Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, Michel Subor, Michel Piccoli

A mixed bag, some great ideas, just too long.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 6/10 · 22 July 2023]

One of The Great Alfred Hitchcock's later films, Topaz is an international espionage thriller, set across various locations.

Topaz doesn't have the feel of a Hitchcock movie, firstly it doesn't have the usual pace and intensity, and secondly the story just doesn't feel like Hitchcock, it put me more in mind of John Le Carre.

Topaz isn't a bad movie, it has some wonderful elements, but at times it's quite a frustrating affair. It seems to lack a clear focus, it's a bit messy at times.

The opening sequences were fantastic, scenes of that Russian family fleeing KGB Agents in Denmark looked fantastic, they were fast paced and energetic, sadly the rest of the film was more pedestrian, the Cuban sequences at times were too drawn out.

Pacing was a real issue, at over two hours long, this could have easily been edited down to about 90 minutes, it would have flowed so much better, it needed to be so much tighter, if it were a conversation, it would be full of waffle.

The music does not fit this film, it's way too jolly, it would have fitted one or Margaret Rutherford's Miss Marple films so much better, it really doesn't work.

The cast were pretty good overall, one or two were a little wooden, Karin Dor stole it for me.

The best element, the visuals, it's a remarkable looking film, it's a sumptuous, lavish production, it truly looks like it was done on a big budget.

80 minutes in and I needed a double espresso, as I was starting to nod off, the ending was pretty good.

6/10.

Interesting Cold War movie from Leon Uris' novel

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 19 July 2006]

This is a pretty odd Hitchcock film because the territory is pretty unfamiliar to his audiences. This and the prior film, THE TORN CURTAIN are both about the battle between Communism and Democracy instead of the usual individual stories about murder.

This movie is a background story about how the Cuban Missile Crisis came to the attention of the US government. The story is set in France and their government is inundated with Communists and Communist spies posing as defenders of the Republic. The focus of all this is a lone brave agent that stumbles upon the story but he finds due to infiltration, his own countrymen either don't care or won't allow themselves to believe that their country is so compromised. Ultimately, this brave man is forced to take another approach, as he understands that world peace might be at stake if something doesn't happen and fast! This film is a highly entertaining but cerebral look at the Cold War that would be of interest to most anyone but a die-hard nationalistic French person. They wouldn't find this movie interesting in the least--especially due to Uris' assertion that the French were in bed with the Russians, so to speak (say it isn't so!). I've also read the novel and the film adaptation is excellent.

Somewhat overlooked

[perfectbond · 7/10 · 29 November 2003]

While Topaz might not be in the top tier of Hitchcock's films, it is nonetheless a very engrossing espionage thriller. The aura of the Cold War intrigue in the various locales of America, Europe, and Cuba provides a very satisfying international flavor to the picture. The cast, although not star-studded, is more than competent. I felt myself transfixed on every development in the plot and felt that I enjoyed a two worthwhile hours of entertainment. 8/10.

Not a great movie, but it has some fair moments.

[wbeek · 4/10 · 22 March 2005]

This movie is not the best one Hitchcock has ever made I totally agree, but it does have some very good scenes. For example the opening scenes are filled with action. And I don't mean the Rambo-kills-all-evil-guys kind of action, but the ways in which the scenes are shot and thereafter edited, the camera angles, this subtle creation of 'suspense' Alfred Hitchcock is so well known for. I also remember the scene in which Juanita is killed, where again the camera angle is chosen splendidly so that her beautiful dress fills the screen. This is one of the most aesthetic killings I've ever seen. So the superior talent of the unquestionable master surely is present some times. So if one learns to value these moments and neglects the terribly eclectic plot (Hitchcock was forced to extremely cut down the movie), it's not so bad a movie after all.

Meta-flawed Hitchcock.

[revival05 · 6/10 · 25 April 2007]

When you talk about TOPAZ, I think that first and foremost, the most fair thing to do is to take it out of it's context as a Hitchcock film. Film criticism generally consists by far too much "loose opinions", and this has led to an ignorant popular belief that Topaz was "Hitchcock loosing touch" or a film made by the "senile" Hitchcock. It seems that Hitchcock couldn't make any kind of film he wanted, since his name held him captive as "the master of suspense" - with demands and expectations from the "thick" crowd. Now, I won't deny that Topaz is flawed. But it is an interesting, nearly fascinating film, nonetheless. More importantly, the flaws are quite complex and makes no real sense. Let me try to explain further.

Leonard Maltin claimed that the most difficult part of Topaz was it's "lack of stars". I think that the lack of stars is completely unessential. On the contrary, the idea of a more natural hitch film freed from stars is a nice one in my mind. It's possible that the absence of an Ingrid Bergman made matters worse to the general public, but all in all it's not a problem.

The problem lies in three things: The Plot. The Intrigue. The Editing. These three things, usually perfected with ease by Hitch, aren't properly working as they should in Topaz. First it's the story, the very idea of the film. It's puzzling in it's vagueness. Stafford's eligible French spy goes to Cuba to infiltrate Russian commie business. The mission succeeds, upon which a Russian leek in France is detected. The leek is tracked down. The end.

What?! There is no consistent story element that is anywhere near interesting in the film. Naturally, most Cold War-thrillers are bound to feel aged nowadays, but even when the Cold War was upon us this must have been a really thin plot. Now, if that wasn't enough, the intrigue is planned out with genuine dumb wit. First, we are led to believe that the story is about an espionage episode during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Diffusely we accept this plot and are gradually sucked into it with Hitch's talent to tell a story. Halfway through though, Cuba is abandoned for the trust-nobody-dramatics in France. The mood is suspenseful, but one must say that the story is genuinely uninteresting and more importantly out of cope with the pace of the film, which just started to get interesting. Another problem is that the first half of the film have some great characters: As we are led to believe that the film is about this spy operation in Cuba, we are also led to believe that John Vernon is our antagonist as well as Karin Dor is our heroine next to Stafford. These are great characters, but they are executed and dismissed the moment Stafford returns home. Instead we get a bunch of French suits, of which Philippe Noiret turns out to be the real villain. On Cuba, the film has a dramatic, flamboyant tone with colorful characters - in France, the color scheme is gray. It's simply a letdown.

It's no secret that Hitch had to re-cut Topaz, due to a catastrophe test screening. When you see some of the edited material, including the two endings where at least one (the duel between Stafford and Noiret) is a far better one than the bleak ending in the finished film. The biggest mistake in the editing process though is the reduction of the relations between the characters. Dany Robin's affair with Noiret makes no sense, but if you know how deep the story of Robin/Noiret/Stafford goes it's suddenly A LOT more interesting. The same goes for Stafford contra Noiret, who are longtime friends which doesn't come out clearly in the finished film. In this context, Vernon plays out as a great on-the-side-villain and Noiret's character is given a lot of strength.

Unfortunately, these crucial elements are basically abandoned in the finished film, leaving a strange and very unfocused film. Now, this comment deals with the flaws and not the upsides. In short, Topaz is a well-made film with good actors and a lot of typical, visual Hitch-stuff. It is completely impossible to make a bad film with those ingredients. But Topaz is definitely spoiled.

Not that bad but a disappointment from the master of suspense

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 13 April 2013]

Topaz I don't think is Alfred Hitchcock's- my favourite director- weakest film, Jamaica Inn still gets my vote for that. But it is one of his most disappointing. I cannot say though that it is an irredeemable film, because it isn't and I have yet to see a Hitchcock film to be so. It is a well made film, the sets are attractive and atmospheric enough and the camera work and editing in Juanita's murder scene was brilliant. The murder was also Topaz's most memorable scene for me, mainly because of how stunningly aesthetic it was. The brief torture scene was suspenseful and shocking also, and Hitchcock's cameo was very entertaining. There are a couple of good performances. Karin Dor was the most impressive, she was deserving of more to do but she was intensely sensual and seemed to genuinely care about her situation. Roscoe Lee Brown's is very colourfully characterised also. John Forsythe was quite good also, and Phillippe Noiret is engaging. On the other hand, the film's pacing is plodding, and while there are some nice touches- the murder scene- and an entertaining cameo Hitchcock didn't seem to have his heart in it as much of it seemed rather flat.

There are too many characters, and a lot of them are thinly sketched, and nobody else really shines in their roles with Frederick Stafford especially stone-faced and wooden throughout. John Vernon tries hard and has some nice deadpan humour but was severely underused for his villain to be any more of a threat. Dany Robin doesn't have anything to do and doesn't register as a result. The script is too talky and confused, and the storytelling suffers from too much going on to hide a rather thin structure for a film that is too long in the first place, a lack of excitement or nail-biting danger and three alternative endings that manage to be drawn-out and abrupt. It is also rather convoluted, and while Cuba was quite colourfully done atmosphere wise, everything else seemed drab and bland in comparison. Even Maurice Jarre's(responsible for the classic scores of Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago) score was a disappointment, there are moments but at the same time too much of it seemed inappropriate and would be more fitting in a different film. Unlike the two scores mentioned, it was also not very memorable, or at least not to me, of all the scores for Hitchcock's films only Torn Curtain's fares worse with me. Overall, I don't think it is as bad as some people have said both in the IMDb reviews, on various message boards and from critics but at the same time I can understand the disappointment. 5/10 Bethany Cox

A movie that needs to be revaluated ...

[Soledad-2 · 10/10 · 23 January 2001]

After reading some of the negative comments about Topaz, I have wondered if I saw the same movie. For reasons unknown to me, this precious film has been underrated. This is a very good Cold War thriller and critics should revaluate it. I recommend Topaz to Hitchcock's fans. They won't be deceived. I have seen it several times and still is one of my favorites.

Now what could Dean Wormer do as a Cuban agent?

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 16 April 2006]

Clearly one of Alfred Hitchcock's more experimental movies, "Topaz" focuses on Frenchman Andre Devereaux (Frederick Stafford) getting involved in espionage right before the Cuban Missile Crisis. The plot is actually somewhat convoluted. Something that nowadays makes us cringe is the casting of white people as Hispanics. An example is John Vernon - that's right, crotchety old Dean Wormer! - as Cuban agent Rico Parra. I have to admit that the only other cast members whom I recognized were Philippe Noiret and John Forsythe...unless you also count the footage of Fidel Castro speaking. All in all, sort of confusing, but worth seeing.

Semi-Precious

[BumpyRide · 5/10 · 31 October 2005]

As most reviewers have noted, there are some nice moments and there are also moments as exciting as watching grass grow. I think the basic flaw of the movie is too many characters combined with a very confusing, "talkie" script. I've watched this several times and come away scratching my head each time. The character of Juanita, along with the actress who played her, brought a nice touch of class to the film. In fact for me, she is the only charter I found interesting, and cared enough about. The opening is good, and several other scenes sprinkled throughout let us know that Hitchcock is still alive and well but this really was a miss fire of a movie, but still far better than what is cranked out today.