Topaz (1969)

Alfred Hitchcock’s Topaz came out in 1969 and it’s a movie that was doomed from the start for various reasons that we’ll get to later.

It’s a spy thriller based on a novel by Leon Uris. He’s now entirely forgotten but was once hugely popular. His books were immensely long and there are good reasons that he’s forgotten.

It is 1962. The Americans have a top KBG defector and he’s told them how to get the information they need about what’s happening in Cuba. The problem is that the necessary contact cannot be made by an American. This contact will only deal with the French.

So CIA bigwig Michael Nordstrom (John Forsythe) persuades his friend Andre Devereaux (Frederick Stafford) to make the contact. Devereaux is a French spy, but he can only act unofficially since the French have no desire to get mixed up in America’s problems.

Devereaux has to travel to Cuba, with unexpected personal consequences. He is having an illicit affair with the influential but fiercely anti-Castro Juanita de Cordoba (Karin Dor). She’s also involved with the Cuban chief of security, Rico Parra (John Vernon).

That KGB defector mentioned Topaz but refused to give any information. No-one knows who or what Topaz is, but it’s something very important. And Topaz will also have personal consequences for Andre Devereaux.

There are therefore two espionage plots running in parallel.

So what went wrong? Firstly, there’s no star power here. No star power at all. John Forsythe is the only cast member who had any profile at all in the U.S. and he’s OK but it’s a minor supporting role. Frederick Stafford is dull. He has no charisma. In fact he has negative charisma. John Vernon is great fun but he was not an A-list star. Karin Dor was a huge star in Germany and a fine actress but was pretty much unknown to American audiences. Dany Robin (as Andre Devereaux’s wife Nicole) was a minor star in France.

With zero star power there was no way of effectively marketing this movie. There is a fascinating rumour that Hitchcock wanted Sean Connery and Catherine Deneuve.

The second problem is that it feels so old-fashioned. Hitchcock revolutionised the spy genre with North by Northwest in 1959 but three years later the first Bond movie, Dr No, came out and immediately made Hitchcock’s style of spy movie seem ridiculously old-fashioned. Dr No felt faster, more energetic, cooler and sexier. And Dr No helped to usher in the whole Swinging London thing.

Hitchcock’s 1960s spy movies, Torn Curtain and Topaz, feel very 1950s.

In Topaz the problem is made worse by the fact that it was made in 1969 but set in 1962 which made it seem even more outdated.

The third problem is that at 2 hours and 23 minutes it’s very very long.

A lot of the problems probably go back to the source material. Leon Uris saw everything in simplistic good vs evil terms. As a result the Cubans are portrayed as cartoonish villains, there’s no questioning of the morality of the manner in which the Americans deliberately lie to their French allies and there’s no questioning of the morality of the appalling manner in which the Americans deliberately lie to their French allies and there’s no questioning of the morality of Nordstrom’s manipulation of a man who is supposed to be a friend. I get the impression that Hitchcock was trying here to make a serious hard-hitting spy movie but I think the script needed more work.

On the other hand it’s a superbly crafted movie. There are so many very Hitchcockian very stylish visual set-pieces. They’re not violent action set-pieces and they are perhaps the sorts of subtle visual flourishes that a mainstream audience will miss. The initial escape is very nicely done. And there’s that one superb moment which I won’t spoil for you, involving the use Hitchcock makes of a blue dress.

On more than one occasion Hitchcock shoots dialogue scenes in which we cannot hear a single word. It’s a clever touch and it works. We can imagine what is being said.

And then there are the endings. Three of them were shot. There’s a ridiculous cartoonish ending, the “duel” ending. That was the original ending but preview audiences hated it. Hitchcock shot a different much bolder ending (the “airport” ending) which he preferred to the original. Eventually a third very conventional ending was chosen. The Blu-Ray gives us the airport ending which makes sense since it’s the one Hitch liked. The others are included as extras. Depending on which ending is used Topaz becomes three different movies, with the airport ending version being by far the best.

Topaz is superbly crafted. Hitchcock had lost none of his visual touch. It’s not a bad movie at all but it’s too slow and it needed more energy and it desperately needed some star power. Certainly not top-tier Hitchcock but worth a look.

You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

You Were Never Lovelier is a 1942 musical starring Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth. It includes absolutely every ingredient you could ask for in a bubbly musical romance.

Robert Davis (Fred Astaire) is a famed New York dance star and he’s in Buenos Aires and he’s just lost his last dollar at the racetrack. He needs a job pronto. He figures he can talk his way into a dancing gig at the Sky Room, the swankiest night spot in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately the Sky Room is owned by the irascible Eduardo Acuña (Adolphe Menjou) who takes an instant dislike to the New Yorker. But then Acuña doesn’t get along with anybody.

Acuña has his own problem. He has four daughters. They’re lovely girls but family tradition demands that they should get married in birth order. The oldest has just been married. That means it’s the turn of Maria (Rita Hayworth). And Maria isn’t interested in marriage.

Maria has the reputation of being an ice queen. The truth is the exact opposite. She’s a wildly romantic girl. That’s why she hasn’t fallen in love. She is waiting for a dashing man to sweep her off her feet.

Acuña has cooked up a crazy scheme to make Maria think she has a secret admirer. To his horror Maria gets the idea that Robert Davis is her secret admirer. Acuña thinks Davis is a scoundrel.

All the expected romantic complications and misunderstandings ensue. Robert did not expect to fall in love with the girl.

And those complications are handled skilfully and wittily and charmingly by the script.

Adolphe Menjou is delightfully scheming and cantankerous. He’s not villainous. He’s just used to getting his own way and thinks he can manipulate his daughter because he thinks that he understands how to handle women. In his own way he means well but he creates emotional chaos.

Fred Astaire plays another variation on the hyperactive but charming persona he had perfected at RKO in the 30s.

Rita Hayworth is breathtakingly gorgeous and adorable.

Of course if you’re going to be Fred Astaire’s leading lady you’re going to have to be able not only to dance but dance superbly. And Rita Hayworth most certainly could dance. Astaire was apparently very impressed indeed by her dancing abilities. Their dances together are terrific. As usual her singing voice is dubbed.

And they have good chemistry. The main reason to see this movie is most definitely to see Astaire and Hayworth together. It is a pity they only made two movies together.

It’s all delightful but somehow it just can’t quite match the best of the Astaire Rogers musicals of the 30. RKO gave those movies a distinctive aesthetic (with a touch of fantasy) which this movie lacks. The settings look good but a bit generic. It doesn’t have the same magical flavour.

These minor quibbles aside this is a charming lightweight escapist musical. Recommended.

I don’t think it’s had a Blu-Ray release but the older DVD release looks fine.

The Key (1934)

The Key (1934) is one of four pre-code movies included in the Warner Archive DVD set William Powell at Warner Bros. The Key was directed by Michael Curtiz. The script (based on a play by by R. Gore Brown and Jocelyn Lee Hardy) is by Laird Doyle.

The setting is Ireland in 1920. Ireland is a dangerous place. Tensions are high between the Sinn Fein separatists and the British troops. British soldiers are constantly being shot by snipers.

Captain Andrew Andy Kerr (Colin Clive) is a British intelligence officer and the stresses are starting to get to him. His wife Norah (Edna Best) worries about him.

Then Captain Bill Tennant (William Powell) arrives on the scene. He has just been posted to Dublin. He had a colourful career, full of brave deeds and scandals. The scandals invariably involve women.

Bill and Andy are old friends.

Things could get awkward, since Bill Tennant and Norah have a shared past - a passionate love affair before she met Andy Kerr. That’s all over now. At least that’s what Bill and Norah thought.

Dublin is more and more unsettled. It’s more or less open guerrilla warfare.

Andy’s task is to track down Sinn Fein leader Peadar Conlan (Donald Crisp). A very dangerous task indeed.

Bill and Norah soon discover that they’re still madly in love. Breaking this news to Andy is not going to be easy.

Obviously this could all end very badly, with plenty of emotional turmoil and the constant background threat of sudden death.

William Powell gets a rather nuanced role here. Bill has been a hell-raiser but now he’s thinking that he should have married Norah when he had the chance. Bill is a man who finds that he will to re-evaluate his life. Powell manages to make him sympathetic even while he’s stealing another man’s wife.

Edna Best is good. In this same year she landed her best-known role, the lead in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much.

As so often Colin Clive is the weak link. He’s as pompous and stuff as ever which is a problem because the audience needs to sympathise with him as the wronged husband.

Andy is a brave man but a man obsessed by duty. Bill has some sense of duty but given a choice between duty and love he will choose love every time. And given a choice between duty and friendship he will choose friendship every time.

The most pre-code element is that it’s made very obvious that while Andy was out hunting Sinn Fein leaders Bill and Norah spent the night together.

Although it was shot in Hollywood this film has a mostly English cast. The casting of William Powell as a British officer is neatly explained when we’re told he is a Canadian.

The subject matter was potentially dicey. The movies tries not to pick sides but since the two male leads play British officers we inevitably get more of the British viewpoint. It tries to be both a thriller and a romantic intrigue and does so fairly successfully.

William Powell is the reason to watch this one. It’s reasonably enjoyable. Recommended.

The Key gets a very good DVD transfer. I’ve reviewed other movies in this set - The Road to Singapore, Private Detective 62 and the excellent High Pressure.