Topaz

Rating:
Summary: Return to the tangled web of the Cold War
Review: 1969's TOPAZ was Hitchock's second return in that decade to his earlier spy thriller films. Shot directly after 1966's TORN CURTAIN, Hitchcock's TOPAZ is a more matter-of-fact tale than a genuine thriller where real lives were at stake. Essentially an American intelligence head (John Forsythe) uses his friend in the French Intelligence (Frederick Stafford) to spy for the United States in Cuba and at the same time they try to ferret out a high French official passing on secrets to the Soviets. This all takes place during the height of the Cuban missile crisis. Roscoe Lee Browne as Philippe Dubois has the best scenes in the film as he has to get close to the Cuban United Nations delegation visiting Harlem and staying at the Theresa Hotel to photograph some secret papers from a high official (John Vernon as Rico Parra). These scenes were what Hitchcock called pure cinema. TOPAZ contains an interesting score by Parisian Maurice Jarre.

Rating:
Summary: Good, But You Can Certainly Do Better
Review: After 1966's "Torn Curtain" flopped, Hitchcock decided to make another spy thriller. "Topaz", based on Leon Uris's best - selling novel of the same name, is meant to be an exciting, suspenseful espionage thriller involving nuclear missiles in Cuba. Despite a few engaging sequences, that show Hitch still had it, the film comes off as a second - rate James Bond flick rather than a Hitchcock masterpiece.

John Forsythe (the only recognizable actor in the entire cast) plays a CIA agent who recruits a French Operative named Devereaux (Frederick Stafford, who gives a great performance despite the film's flaws)to help him find out if rumors of Russian missiles in Cuba are true. His investigation leaves behind a string of casualities who either kill themselves or get murdered. The plot seems cool, but it's slow - moving and hard to follow at some points.

The main thing that keeps "Topaz" afloat is the top - notch acting. Hitchcock clearly thought that great acting would triumph over starpower, which is why he filled the cast with highly talented unknowns. In the past, legends like Sean Connery, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, and a host of others starred in Hitchcock masterpieces and gave great performances in their roles, but at same points were unconvincing. The acting in "Topaz" is flawless; I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Good, But You Can Certainly Do Better
Review: After 1966's "Torn Curtain" flopped, Hitchcock decided to make another spy thriller. "Topaz", based on Leon Uris's best - selling novel of the same name, is meant to be an exciting, suspenseful espionage thriller involving nuclear missiles in Cuba. Despite a few engaging sequences, that show Hitch still had it, the film comes off as a second - rate James Bond flick rather than a Hitchcock masterpiece.

John Forsythe (the only recognizable actor in the entire cast) plays a CIA agent who recruits a French Operative named Devereaux (Frederick Stafford, who gives a great performance despite the film's flaws)to help him find out if rumors of Russian missiles in Cuba are true. His investigation leaves behind a string of casualities who either kill themselves or get murdered. The plot seems cool, but it's slow - moving and hard to follow at some points.

The main thing that keeps "Topaz" afloat is the top - notch acting. Hitchcock clearly thought that great acting would triumph over starpower, which is why he filled the cast with highly talented unknowns. In the past, legends like Sean Connery, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, and a host of others starred in Hitchcock masterpieces and gave great performances in their roles, but at same points were unconvincing. The acting in "Topaz" is flawless; I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: International Top-Cast
Review: After a Russian officer defects to the United States, the gouvernment learns of a special French intelligence agent in Cuba, called Topaz. It seems Topaz has access to NATO secrets and in turn, deals that information to the Russians, which means a double agent must be involved somewhere. The Russian agent reveals all this to Michael Nordstrom (John Forsythe), who decides the best course of action to call on his friend and trusted associate,Andre Devereaux (Frederick Stafford, who spend some days with his wife Nicole (Dany Robin), his young-married daughter Michèle (Claude Jade) and his son-in-law Francois Picard (Michel Subor) in New York. So Devereaux heads off to Havana, where he hopes to learn more about Topaz and also scout the potential missiles that have been rumored to exist in the area. There his love Juanita (Karin Dor) is killed by diplomate Parra (John Vernon). Andre follows his family to Paris to find out, who leads "Topaz". Michèle ask her mother for help to Andre, but Nicole says "There's nothing I can do" - Nicole haves an affair with the leader von "Topaz"... This movie turns out to be decent enough, but it seems like a real let down, since it came from the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Betrayal between all the persons, played by an international cast: young Claude Jade, made famous by Francois Truffaut's "Stolen Kisses" and "Bed & Board", as Andre's worried daughter, Dany Robin also from France as her mother, Michel Subor from Godard's "Little Soldier" as son-in-law, Michel Piccoli and Philippe Noiret as "topaz"-spies, the german actress Karin Dor as the cuban lady in Hitchcock's most underrated thriller.

Rating:
Summary: Story of Anatoliy Golitsyn and his work to defeat communism
Review: Alfred Hitchcock used the true story of the KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn [New Lies For Old, The Perestroika Deception] and made it into a brilliant movie.
Golitsyn's real escape from Helsinki's Russian Embassy in 1961 is portrayed here as real challenge although it is not shown how difficult it must've been in reality.
Russian communists were aware of Golitsyn's potential so much that the KGB operations in Finland had to be re-assessed and changed.
In the film Russian defector tells the CIA all important facts about the Soviet infiltration of France's intelligence services, in reality Golitsyn has not only uncovered many Soviet spies inside the US, U.K. and French governments and intelligence services, he also has warned the West of the Soviet long-range plans for the future "collapse of communism" which is not [unfortunately] mentioned in this movie.
Hitchcock has done a great job by illustrating how evil communism truly is, by showing the situation in Cuba, the tyrannical oppressive communist machine that will not stop at anything including torture and murder.
Topaz is a masterful movie and should be viewed by many people to remind them that communism, as hideous and horrific this ideology is, shouldn't be allowed to remain alive and well because of its deadly potential that threatens the mankind.


Rating:
Summary: Hitchcock's worst film
Review: At least the strange early Hithcock talkies, such as Number 17 and Rich and Strange, got you going with their sheer experimental weirdness, but Topaz is a horrible, wooden, melodrama that somehow doesn't even seem dramatic. And at the end, when one character goes inside in order to shoot (someone, I won't give away who), the character it's supposed to be isn't even the character we see. Hitchcock apparently changed the ending at the last minute, post-production, and used footage of another actor going into the building from a distance. It's incredible that he actually did this. Oh well, even Shakespeare wrote a few bad plays. There are some scenes between a man and his paramour that are interesting little vinettes, so the film is not a total loss.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant,if leisurely paced Hitchcockian spy thriller
Review: At the time of it's release in 1969,Topaz bombed at the boxoffice and was critically panned.But take a closer look at a film about the Cuban missile crisis, filled with brilliant images and interconnecting storylines.

Rating:
Summary: Betrayal
Review: Betrayals between all the leading roles: The CIA-Man (Forsythe) needs informations from the defector and takes them with blackmail, the French Intelligence (Frederick Stafford) prefers the journey to meet his cuban love (Karin Dor), who needs her Hacienda, the agent's wife (Dany Robin) needs to keep her daughter (Claude Jade) and to be worried when her lover (Michel Piccoli) leaves her for a duel against her husband... Sympathy only for the agent's daughter, the son-in-law (Michel Subor looks older than his father-in-law!), the coloured florist and the cuban couple Mendoza's. That's not enough for five stars.

Rating:
Summary: Thriller With A Few "Hitch"es
Review: Director Alfred Hitchcock's TOPAZ from 1969, is supposed to be tense, globe-trotting cold war thriller. Instead, what we get is a rather talkie film, with not much else. CIA Agent Michael Nordstrom (John Forsythe) hires French spy, Devereaux (Frederick Stafford), to head to Cuba. Once he arrives, Devereaux must see if rumors of Soviet missles are true, and to investigate the whereabouts of, NATO spy, called Topaz. The trail leads to Governments in crisis, murder, suicide, and a double agent. At 143 minutes, the film gets bogged down by too much exposition and doesn't really get good until its last 45 minutes. I am an admirer of Hitchcock's films, but I would say the movie is, one of only a handful of true mis-steps, in his career. The film does feature an inspired perfomance by actor John Vernon (ANIMAL HOUSE), as Rico Parra, a Castro-like character.

The DVD's best extra is the documentary on the film hosted by film critic Leonard Maltin. He is wise to point out the film's weaknesses, rather than, glossing over them. The 3 alternate endings further illustrate possible problems with the movie. A photo gallery, a rare production diary, theatrical trailer, cast and crew information, and more production notes top off the disc's extras. TOPAZ proves that, even Hitchock, wasn't immune from mediocrity.

Rating:
Summary: Could have been great
Review: First of all, I am a huge hitchcock fan. If you are as well, definitely check out this film. If not, I would certainly check out others of his first, or even skip this one alltogether.

The main problem with the film is that there are way too many characters and none of them get fully developed. Also, with the exception of a few scenes, the audience never really gets the sense that anybody is in danger and thus causing the audience to not really care. It is long and the ending is just plain bad. It seemed like they could have changed a few things and wrapped up things about a half an hour earlier. The first hour or so is pretty cool, but the film tends to drift off, with only a few inspired moments.

The film is slow moving at times. The fact that all the actors are speaking english and at times choose to use an accent is a bit distracting as well.

Also, the film will build up a little suspense with one of the many subplots and the next scene will be 3 days later and we will hear about how the issue was resolved with some boring dialogue (including the ending that was used on the DVD... Ill get to the endings in a minute).

That being said, there were some great scenes that fans of hitch will enjoy. I thought the film started out great. The scene in the hotel was great (getting the briefcase). The ending shot of the Cuban girl being killed was especially great. Unfortunately it came a little to late and I was not too focused on the film.

The DVD is great. Included are the 3 propsed endings (as I have mentioned the horrible ending). None of them are really very good at all. They are basically excuses to wrap things up, but still, it is very interesting. Also the Leonard Maltin piece on the film is interesting.

All in all I gave it a 2 star rating worth checking out if you are a fan. I feel that if this were NOT a hitchcock film, it would not get the attention that it does. Definitely see Rear Window, Psycho, Strangers on a Train, Frenzy, North by Northwest, Shadow of a Doubt, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, Lady Vanishes, 39 Steps, etc. first.