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.