AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

dromasca 'Topaz' is quite different than most of the previous movies in the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock and also lacks the (American movie) stars in its distribution, as his fans were accustomed in the 20 or 30 years that preceded its release in 1969. These may be two of the principal reasons that the movie is less credited in by the critics and historians of cinema. There are, however, sufficient reasons of satisfaction for the movie fans, and the film does not fall in my opinion lower than 'Torn Curtain' that preceded it by three years, and also brought to screen a Cold War spy story. On the contrary, I would say.The film brings to screen a novel by Leon Uris which tells a true story of a Soviet spy ring in the high French political environments during the critical days of the Cuban missiles crisis. The events in the fall of 1962 that brought the world closer than ever to an atomic war were since then the subject or background of many books and films, but Hitchcock was the first well-known film director to bring what was at that time very recent history to screen, in a moment when the story was still under censorship in France. However, this was not in the area of comfort for Hitchcock who liked to be very involved in the writing of the story and building of the suspense, an opportunity that was lost with 'Topaz' . This may be also why there is less Hitchcock thrill in this film than we are used. There is yet quality, but more in the details than in the overall architecture.One of the best parts of the film is the rendition of the atmosphere of the time and places where the action takes place. Washington, Moscow, Copenhagen, Paris are all well served by filming on location, the only exception is Cuba, for obvious reasons. We can say that Hitchcock was a pioneer (also) of the international spy thriller, and we can only imagine what would have happened if he had been trusted with a James Bond movie. He also uses in a flawless manner the combination of documentary clips cut and edited together with filmed fiction. The lead actors are not doing great service to the movie, but we can see a progress and less stiff acting than in previous films. It is with the supporting roles that the good surprises appear, with the beautiful and exotic Karin Dor in the Cuban episode, and the French stars Michel Piccoli and Philippe Noiret giving style and credibility to the French episode of the action. It is in the humor of dialogs and situations, in the use of music (composed by Maurice Jarre) and in the creative games of colors that we find some of the Hitchcock touch. Otherwise, we can just enjoy a good action movie based on a Cold War story which has the merit to have been filmed at the time of the Cold War. Not a bad film, but not really one of the best Hitchcock films either.

BA_Harrison After a string of box office hits, director Alfred Hitchcock's career went into something of a decline in the mid-sixties, with disappointing psychological thriller Marnie, followed by mediocre cold war thriller Torn Curtain, about an American defecting to East Germany.So what did Hitch do next? Why, direct another cold war thriller, of course, only this time he made it even less exciting—a 143 minute long, dialogue heavy snooze-fest that once again starts with a defection, a high ranking Russian leaving his homeland for America. Once on US soil, the defector tells his new hosts about his country's involvement in Cuba. Keen to find out more, the US recruit a French intelligence agent to investigate, which ultimately leads to the discovery of a spy ring in the French government.All of this moves at a snail's pace, with very little of Hitchcock's style in evidence, making it a real struggle to get through to the very end. The sad, pathetic whimper of an end.2/10: I've not seen them all, but this must be a contender for the director's worst movie.

Hitchcoc Hitchcock ventures into politics in this spy drama and it doesn't really work to perfection. Part of the problem is that at this stage in his life, we had such incredible expectations for his movies. Here he thrusts us into the middle of the Cuban missile crisis, creating danger for the principles involved. The whole point is to find evidence of the wrong-doing of the communists and bring it to the world. A Castro like dictator is at the center and when things go wrong it costs people their lives. I think that the shortcoming here is dealing with newsworthy issues and contemporary history. I don't know that Hitchcock ever got that specific in any of his other movies. Obviously, he has done spy dramas before but they don't get into caricatures of political leaders.

sol- Set in the weeks leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, this Hitchcock thriller details the attempts of the CIA and France's intelligence agency to work out what Cuba is planning to do with their reported missiles. With a basis in real life events, 'Topaz' sounds interesting enough, however, the film was apparently a very troubled production full of scene rewrites, and this uneasiness is very visible. Calling the plot 'muddled' would be an understatement as the screenplay awkwardly tries to weave in espionage intrigue (what does the codeword 'topaz' mean?) with all the tension regarding Cuba. The most disappointing aspect of the film is, however, the characters and performances. There is not a single likable character who is engaging or interesting to follow around. Hitchcock reportedly disliked how two dimensional the antagonists in the source novel by Leon Uris were, and to his credit, John Vernon comes off relatively well as a Fidel Castro type, oozing danger yet never a caricature of evil, however, the fact Vernon is far more fascinating than protagonists Frederick Stafford and John Forsythe never feels right. The film is not, however, quite as worthless as some of its dissenters claim. There are several tense moments throughout, with a clear highlight being an exciting sequence in which the French try to get hold of a red briefcase full of secret documents; the opening defection is also nail-bitingly intense - but these solid bits are few and far between as the film relies far too heavily on dialogue for a movie where the characters are secondary to their actions.