Topaz (1969)

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

Leon Uris (novel)
Samuel A. Taylor (screenplay)

Release Date:

19 December 1969 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

Hitchcock takes you behind the actual headlines to expose the most explosive spy scandal of the century!

Plot:

A French intelligence agent becomes embroiled in the Cold War politics first with uncovering the events leading up to the 1962 Cuban Missle Crisis, and then back to France to break up an international Russian spy ring.

Plot Keywords:

Agent | Spy | Cold War | Mistress | Cuba

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Frederick Stafford	...	Andre Devereaux
Dany Robin	...	Nicole Devereaux
John Vernon	...	Rico Parra
Karin Dor	...	Juanita de Cordoba
Michel Piccoli	...	Jacques Granville
Philippe Noiret	...	Henri Jarre
Claude Jade	...	Michele Picard
Michel Subor	...	Francois Picard
Roscoe Lee Browne	...	Philippe Dubois
Per-Axel Arosenius	...	Boris Kusenov
John Forsythe	...	Michael Nordstrom
Edmon Ryan	...	McKittreck
Sonja Kolthoff	...	Mrs. Kusenov
Tina Hedström	...	Tamara Kusenov (as Tina Hedstrom)
John Van Dreelen	...	Claude Martin

Runtime:

143 min | 127 min (edited version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Spain:18 | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Manitoba/Ontario) | UK:PG (DVD rating) | Iceland:12 | UK:A (original rating) | Brazil:14 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:15 | Norway:16 (1970) | Peru:14 | Sweden:11 | USA:M (original rating) | USA:PG | West Germany:12 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Copenhagen, Denmark

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

Director Cameo: [Alfred Hitchcock]about 30 minutes in at the airport getting out of a wheelchair.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Later in the film, as the camera pushes through the open front door into the house party, the closed door to the left of the screen can be seen to slide out of the way before it has gone out of shot (allowing the camera to continue forwards).

Quotes:

Francois Picard: I've been shot...Just a little.

Movie Connections:

Featured in 'Topaz': An Appreciation by Film Critic/Historian Leonard Maltin (2001) (V)

Brilliant sequences in an unsung Hitchcock film

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.