Topaz

Plot synopsis:
The story is set in 1962 and opens with images of a Soviet military parade on the Red Square. In Copenhagen, Denmark, a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer defects to the West with his wife and daughter after a chase through the streets from the Soviet embassy to the US embassy. Upon arrival in Washington, DC, CIA agent Nordstrom (John Forsythe) debriefs him and learns that Russian missiles are to be posted in Cuba. Nordstrom enlists the aid of his friend and French agent André Devereaux (Frederick Stafford), encouraging him to accompany his daughter Michèle (Claude Jade) on her honeymoon with journalist François Picard (Michel Subor) as a premise to get him to New York. André accepts, but his wife Nicole (Dany Robin) is worried for him.In New York City, André entrusts a familiar contact, a Hatian immigrant and former French secret agent named Philippe Dubois (Roscoe Lee Browne), who currently runs a local flower shop in Harlem, to get hold of some seriously damaging papers concerning Soviet plans in Cuba from the visiting Cuban official Rico Parra (John Vernon playing a Fidel Castro-esq character). Parra is in New York to appear at the United Nations and stays at the Cuban consulate in Harlem to show solidarity with "the masses". Dubois, taking the identity of a black journalist from Ebony, sneaks into the embassy (which is seething with visitors and surrounded by an enthusiastic mob), manages to take photos of some of the documents and then runs away, chased by Cuban revolutionaries. While cunningly dodging away, Dubois shams bumping into and overthrowing André Devereaux, who was watching events from the other side of the street, and slips the camera into his hand. A Cuban guard helps André to get up, stares at him, and lets him go. Dubois manages to escape from his Cuban persuers and returns to his job at working in his flower shop.After examinting the photos, Devereaux confirms that the Soviets are secretly transporting and placing nuclear missiles in Cuba. Devereaux, unheeding of his wife's fear and jealousy, jets off to Cuba to find out more details. He catches up with his Cuban mistress Juanita de Cordoba (Karin Dor), widow to a former first-hour wealthy "hero of the Revolution", and herself now leader of the local underground resistance network: she acts undercover and collects information as Parra's lover. André, on arriving, finds Parra leaving Juanita's mansion. During a scene of intimacy in the mansion, Devereaux asks her to somehow take photos of the missiles as they are unloaded from Russian boats at the harbor. But Juanita's people are arrested and tortured, while Parra's man, during a big mass rally held during a lengthy speech of the "leader màximo" recognizes André's face from the incident in front of the hotel.Parra, who has heard from the maimed and tortured female underground member that Juanita is their leader, confronts Juanita and, hugging her in his arms, shoots her to save her from being tortured to death.In one of the film's most memorable shots, Juanita is seen from overhead, her dress spreading out on the floor like a bloodstain (although it is purple not red) on the big black-and-white pavement tiles, as she collapses.André is arrested is searched thoroughly at the Havana airport on departure, but the Cuban authorities are unable to find the carefully hidden microfilms, which provide crucial information for the CIA about Soviet activities in Cuba. André finds them hidden behind the cover of a book that Juanita gives him prior to leaving just before she is killed by Parra.At this point, the plot of the movie completely changes course. When André arrives back in Washington, he finds his home empty: his wife deserted him due to his Cuban love interest and returned to Paris. He is also recalled to Paris, but before he leaves, he is informed by Nordstrom about the existence of a Soviet spy organization called 'Topaz' within the French intelligence service. He is given the name of one certain member, NATO official Henri Jarré (Philippe Noiret), who leaked documents to the KGB.On arrival back in Paris, Andre attempts to get to the bottom of the leak, while his daughter Michèle wants to reconcile her parents. He invites some of his old friends and colleagues, including Jarré, to a lunch at a fine restaurant, "Chez Pierre". While Jarré eats, André tells the others about Topaz in order to provoke some reaction. Jarré answers that all this is a piece of misinformation, since he knows that the Russian official in fact died a year ago. But he begins to panic, and visits the man who is the leader of the spy ring, Jacques Granville (Michel Piccoli). But Granville, in his night gown, is "waiting for somebody". As Jarré is leaving Granville's house, a woman arrives. It is Nicole, André's wife, and as they kiss we see a photo on a stand: Devereaux, Nicole and Granville were old friends from their days together in the French Resistance...Devereaux sends his son-in-law François to interview and extract information out of Jarré. François calls Devereaux from Jarré's home, but the call is cut short. Devereaux and Michèle rush together to Jarré's flat, and find him dead having been thrown from his second floor window and landing on the roof of a parked car. François has disappeared.André and Michèle return to Nicole's, and a short time later François arrives: he was clubbed, but came to and managed to escape from his captors' car. He has overheard a phone number and shows a sketch of Jarré. Nicole, who was staring at the window then turns around and tells her family, with tearful eyes, that the phone number is Granville's, so he must be the leader of the "Topaz" organization.Devereaux goes to meet Agent Nordstrom and the Presidential entourage at Orly Airport, and to tell him about Granville. Nordstrom and company then tell the French they will brief them on the missiles in Cuba, but insist Granville not attend.The next morning, Devereaux and his wife, now obviously reconciled in mutual forgiveness, board a Pan Am flight back to Washington. And watch, she in revulsion, he in sardonic good humor, as Granville, bidding Devereaux "Bon voyage," boards an Aeroflot flight back to Moscow. "He never misses a trick," observes Devereaux. "But at least that's the end of Topaz."A few days later, the New York Herald-Tribune prints the news that Khruschev has agreed to dismantle the Cuban missile bases. An anonymous reader, sitting on a bench on l'Avenue des Champs-Élysées (with l'Arc de Triomphe in the background), reads the article. He then folds up the paper, sets it on the bench, and walks away.Note: The above is one of three endings for this film that Hitchcock shot. The DVD release has all three:1. In which Granville boards a flight to Moscow in front of Devereaux, who shrugs and says, "Well, at least that's the end of Topaz." The final scene plays out as above.2. In which, after the French authorities dismiss Granville from the meeting, we look down the street where Granville lives. A single shot rings out. We presume Granville has committed suicide. The final scene shows the headline about Khruschev withdrawing the missiles from Cuba, against a montage of those who lost their lives to achieve that result. But this time the passerby, instead of leaving the paper for others to read, puts it into a public trash basket.3. In which Granville and Devereaux arrange and fight a duel with pistols. Granville, of course, loses.American TV networks, showing this film on their prime-time movie slots, typically showed the second ending. So also did various broadcast stations who acquired Topaz in syndication. But HDNet-TV, showing this film for its 2015 Alfred Hitchcock festival, showed the first ending.

Tags: suspenseful, intrigue, murder

Review:
Although not as humorous, nor as romantic, nor even as exciting as the director's best films, the movie is nonetheless an intelligent and intriguing spy drama, one that compares more to a motion picture like DAY OF THE JACKYL than usual Hitchcock fare.His other spy dramas, like NORTH BY NORTHWEST, may be more fun, but none of them are as realistic.
Dany Robin, Frederick Stafford, Phillippe Noiret, Michel Subor, Michel Piccoli all have had substantial careers in the French cinema.Topaz is certainly an international thriller with the action going from Copenhagen, to Harlem, to Cuba, and finally Paris.
A French intelligence agent named Andre Deveraux (Frederick Stafford) befriends American official called Michael Nordstrom (John Forsythe) and both of whom become involved in the Cold War politics to dig out info , first with uncovering the events leading up to the 1962 Cuban Missle Crisis, and then back to France to discover a secret conspiracy .
Meanwhile, an ex-KGB official defector flees to USA where he is interviewed and tells him about Topaz, the codename for a group of French officials in high circles who work for the Soviet Union , as the protagonists attempt to break up an international Russian spy ring (Philippe Noiret , Michel Piccoli) infiltrated in French government .This suspenseful Hitchcock film contains cloak-and-dagger intrigue , whirlwind plot , thrills , twists and results to be pretty entertaining .
Good support cast mostly formed by European actors who give nice interpretations such as : Dany Robin as Nicole Devereaux , Vernon as Rico Parra , gorgeous Karin Dor as Juanita Cordoba , Michel Piccoli a Jacques Granville , Philippe Noiret as Henri Jarre , Claude Jade as Michèle Picard and Roscoe Lee Browne as Philippe Dubois .
One aspect of "Topaz" that should be kept in mind is that while American and British critics were belittling Hitchcock as a "mere entertainer," the French New Wave critics, led by Francois Truffaut, were lionizing him and Truffaut even published a book-long interview with Hitchcock published in 1967.Hitchcock hadn't worked in years and was desperately trying to get another movie going when Universal showed him the book "Topaz" -- about spies in the French government, with a French protagonist and climactic scenes in Paris.
I think that Hitchcock may have -- unwisely -- decided to do "Topaz" so he could do a "French picture."There are some great individual scenes in Topaz -- the opening defection in Copenhagen, the suspenseful mission to get secrets from the Cubans in Harlem's Hotel Theresa (Hitchcock in Harlem?!); the hero's dangerous mission into Cuba and the death of his key contact there.But Hitchcock really didn't like making "Topaz," he was bored and ill and resentful (Universal had killed a project called "Frenzy" -- not to be confused with the 1972 film he made of that name -- and Hitchcock was bitter about it.)  So we end up with a very half-hearted Hitchcock movie with a few good scenes, no real stars, THREE failed endings (all available to see on the DVD), and an attempt to "make nice with my French friends.".
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 memorable scenes are pure and exclusively visual: the intriguing start, the stealing of the documents, the death of Juanita, the torturing of the cuban spies, the discovery of the body at Jarre's apartment, the meal of the french officers...Hitchcock used to take technical challenges in every one of his films, I assume that here he committed to deliver the most complicated information concerning the plot without using dialogue, and he succeed.There's a lot of subtle humor and some clever twists.
"Topaz" is at its best when Alfred Hitchcock lets the camera tell the story: there are several small but brilliant moments in this film.
Based on Leon Uris' novel of the same name about the tense days of the Cuban missile crisis, Alfred Hitchcock's `Topaz' is an underrated cold-war thriller  - - underrated by English-speaking audiences and critics probably because the chief protagonist is a Frenchman!
This is, perhaps, the only movie in which Hitchcock seems to show some sympathy towards those who get murdered, as evidenced by the final scene, which shows the ironical contrast between the superficial newspaper headline about the Cuban missile crisis ending and the grim fates of the unsung secret agents who helped end it.
This film is better to me than the star powered Torn Curtain spy thriller he did previous to it.There are times where the story is a little predictable.
It is interesting that Maltin observes the fascinating use of no sound for suspense employed by Sir Alfred in this movie, but he is not smart enough to realize where Hitchcock got it from.Hitch was definitely still a great film maker in 1969.
Topaz (1969) is the 51st Alfred Hitchcock movie.In the year 1962 there's the cold war going on.The story takes you to Denmark, NYC, Washington DC, Paris and Cuba when it was ran by a man named Fidel Castro.Remember?
Topaz is based on the novel by Leon Uris.This is not Hitchcock's best work but it's not bad either.He couldn't make a bad movie.Hitchcock at worst would be a masterpiece to some directors of our time.One thing this movie was criticized about was that it didn't have any big stars there.That may be a little problem, but just a little.There still are some great actors performing their parts.The most known name would be the now 90 year old John Forsythe.Also the late Roscoe Lee Browne is in the movie.Frederick Stafford is there.Michel Subor, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret and so on.There are many French actors in this movie and people were probably expecting Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart.Nevertheless this is a good movie.Not the best of Hitch but for a man with so many masterpieces under his belt you couldn't expect him hit the jackpot every time..
In Washington, Boris discloses the Russian movement in Cuba, and Nordstrom asks the French agent and his friend Andre Devereaux (Frederick Stafford) to get further documents from the Cuban leader Rico Parra (John Vernon) using his anti-American corrupt secretary Luis Uribe (Don Randolph).
Excellent Cast (Stafford is the Right to play that role!, internationally acclaimed french stars Robin, Jade, Subor, Piccoli and Noiret, great: Karin Dor and John Vernon, charming: Roscoe Lee Browne) In my opinion one of the best Hitchcock's..
I have to put a 10 in, cause I loved it, and I loved that Mr. Hitchcock went for unknowns and foreign performers.What I can't fathom is what led so many contemporaries to say that Stafford wasn't anything but Amazing, a French intelligence officer friends with a CIA man, who have a working friendship/exchange going on.He is a man of conscience, and when he sees what Castro has planned despite his nations neutrality on the subject is moved by conscience.AND the fact that he knew what he was risking did it anyway, and It was an amazingly believable and compelling story.I just don't get fickle critics..
Alfred Hitchcock directed this cold war thriller that stars John Forsythe as American agent Michael Nordstrom, who is sent to interview a high-ranking Russian official who has defected to the U.S. with some vital information: that a ring of French spies codenamed Topaz has been stealing and selling top secret NATO information to the Russians.
Watching it again, I found myself enjoying the 1960s ambiance and gear-shifting plot, along with a few of the performances, enough to gain a healthy appreciation for what's good in this Hitchcock version of the globetrotting spy story.It's still not THAT good.It's 1962, and just as the real-life drama of the Cuban Missle Crisis unfolds, Soviet spy master Boris Kusenov (Per-Axel Arosenius) defects to the United States with his family.
He knows things the U.S. intelligence man Michael Nordstrom (John Forsythe) wants to know, about both Cuba and a ring of mysterious Frenchmen known as "Topaz" who are passing secrets to the U.S.S.R. To get at the bottom of both, he enlists a trusted friend in French intelligence, Andre Devereaux (Frederick Stafford).Forsythe is the biggest American name in the cast, and the only one with prior experience with Hitchcock, but he's really just M to Stafford's James Bond, whose Devereaux proves a surprisingly amiable gopher for Uncle Sam.At one point, Nordstrom pulls Devereaux from a dinner with his family for an on-the-spot spy mission in Harlem involving gun-toting Cuban revolutionaries."You understand, this can't have anything to do with us," Nordstrom tells Devereaux after the latter agrees to this escapade.
"If anything goes wrong, it's your operation." "I know," Devereaux replies.Stafford makes the character even harder to grasp by playing him so woodenly, his casting by Hitchcock in such a central role being a major weakness of the film.The best performances in this film are Roscoe Lee Browne as a Harlem florist Devereaux enlists for the above-mentioned mission; Arosenius as the defector, with a clipped way about him as he plays for the maximum advantage ("I gave you no understanding" he sneers as Nordstrom presses for info); John Vernon, implausibly cast as one of Comrade Fidel's loyal lieutenants but pulling it off with the help of some sinister eyeliner and deadpan humor; and Karin Dor as a Cuban beauty with secret ties.I can spend a whole evening just staring at the freckle on Dor's lower lip, and you get the feeling Devereaux can, too, in some swoony romantic scenes that show the director of "To Catch A Thief" still could shoot a love scene.
There's no reason why information about the missiles can realistically help uncover Topaz, but we are meant to think it somehow can, so the story can move forward.Not one of Hitchcock's best, or even a good one, "Topaz" still entertains with the odd shot, the funny line, or just the evocative Henry Bumstead set designs.
This isn't Hitchcock at his best, but it is an interesting movie about a French agent and how he is caught up in the Cuban Missile Crisis.The sequence involving the defection of the KGB official was very tense.
Overall, he was good as the French agent.Compared to Hitchcock's previous effort, Torn Curtain, Topaz is a much better spy movie.
On the other hand, the film's pacing is plodding, and while there are some nice touches- the murder scene- and an entertaining cameo Hitchcock didn't seem to have his heart in it as much of it seemed rather flat.There are too many characters, and a lot of them are thinly sketched, and nobody else really shines in their roles with Frederick Stafford especially stone-faced and wooden throughout.
There's a reason you don't hear much about Alfred Hitchcock's 1969 Cold War opus, TOPAZ, and that's simply because it's not that great a movie.
There are still some great moments – the scene in which a man attempts to photograph some secret documents is a 'how to' guide in building suspense – but by the time the action shifted to Cuba, back to America and then to France for the long-winded climax, I'm afraid to say I just didn't care much anymore.It all feels like an attempt to emulate the globe-trotting hijinks of James Bond, especially when Stafford takes time out to romance exotic beauty Karin Dor. But it lacks the excitement and danger that made those films so popular during this era.
Similarly, the great John Vernon is on hand as a larger-than-life Cuban leader, but his villain is underutilised and just seems to disappear from the story as it goes on.At over two hours and twenty minutes in length, TOPAZ is by far Hitch's longest movie.
Clearly one of Alfred Hitchcock's more experimental movies, "Topaz" focuses on Frenchman Andre Devereaux (Frederick Stafford) getting involved in espionage right before the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Incidentally the French star of Topaz was killed in a plane crash some years after working on the film, while that other great character actor John Vernon died about two years ago after acting in some fine films over the years..
Hitchcock had already worked with French actors:Pierre Fresnay in "the man who knew too much ,1st version" Brigitte Auber and Charles Vanel in " to catch a thief" or Louis Jourdan in " the Paradine case".But in Topaz ,French actors outnumber the others.And it is a very strange gathering: Dany Robin was a romantic female lead of the two previous decades ;Michel Subor was an earnest intellectual thespian ;Michel Piccoli and Philippe Noiret were two sixties favorites;and Claude Jade was François Truffaut's protégée ,which may help her or not become part of the cast.Add the poor man's James Bond F.Stafford( OSS 117 in France) and you realize that it was impossible to get a high standard Hitch.In the "Hitchcock/Truffaut "book, the French director reveals that AH had to cut some scenes which made the audience laugh (a duel between Piccoli and Stafford);that he did not know,for the first time in his life,how to end his film;that he (and it's obvious) imitated Costa-Gavras's "Z" ending ."Topaz" ,unlike " torn curtain" ,an underrated spy thriller,is probably AH's latter days' worst movie..
Still, it's not as bad as John Addison's music for Torn Curtain.True to Hitchcock's tradition of having at least one memorable shot in each film, in Topaz it is the magnificent murder scene between two lovers, made as if it were a love scene, with sexual implications.
I can't remember I have seen Topaz before, but, on the alike many other viewers here, I was not "put off" by the name of Alfred Hitchcock; as I knew the plot briefly, I did not expect any thrilling suspension in the style of Psycho.Nevertheless, I liked the movie in general, particularly direction and cinematography; as for the cast, there were no excelling performances, Frederick Stafford as André Devereaux was not very charismatic, and the French actors made conversations in English even if talking to themselves (a feature seldom visible in recent movies where dubbing or subtitles are used in scenes concerned).
Some people think that this movie was better than some of his later films like Family Plot, Marnie, and Torn Curtain.
As two examples, the early scene where U.S. agent Michael Nordstrom played by John Forsythe is leading the defection of a Russian diplomat and his wife and daughter on to a plane that is headed to the U.S. and also in a latter scene when French diplomat Andre Devereaux played by Frederick Stafford is running up an endless apartment stairwell to see if his son-in-law has been hurt was not the classic and suspenseful scenes that we have become accustomed to in Hitchcock films.
The trouble, however, is that it moves at such a glacial pace that it requires a bit of effort to finish.For a basic plot summary, "Topaz" is an espionage tale focusing on Andre Devereaux (Frederick Stafford), who (along with wife, child, Latin lover, and national government) finds himself in a mess of government secrets involving the Cubans, French, and Russians.The actual espionage portions of this film are quite interesting and compelling.
As cold war films go, this is unheralded and certainly far better than the more recent film that covered the same subject, the Cuban Missile Crisis.A Frenchman is co-opted to do some spying work for the Americans in Cuba and, in what is largely an unheralded cast, you are absolutely gripped as he works to uncover exactly what is going on with a Russians inflitrating the French secret service at the same time.The casting of the Cuban characters really did impress, as they were very Castro-esque.Not a usual Hitchcock thriller, but very well done all the same..
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.
there was a twenty or so year period where Alfred became Hitchcock and planted down the seed that made him the biggest director in the world, but the guy made movies before and after this period.When we think about the fat man, we think about movies like Psycho and Vertigo which are the highlights and if your a die-hard fan you are familiar with Rope and Strangers on a Train.I was curious about the movies he made out side that twenty year zone, and Topaz was the first that I came up on.Topaz is about a French intelligence agent who gets involved in Cold War politics that lead up to the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis.It's got Hitchcock's stank all over it with camera angles and story set up.
TOPAZ, based on a novel of the same name by Leon Uris, was Hitchcock's second (and final) foray into the Cold War, and is about a French agent who gets caught in between the Americans and the Russians.
The French characters are good, believable, but this segment of the movie moves along and ends too quickly to ever amount to anything beyond a tease.So, I like this film, but it's many grades below other Hitchcock films, no question.
It is a very good film, a thrilling spy story which works better not having a famous cast, you get the impression these are real people caught up in all of this.C.I.A agent Michael Nordstrom(John Forsythe)sends one of his friends a French agent called Devereaux(Fredrick Stafford)to Cuba to investigate something called Topaz.The mission becomes very dangerous and Juanita de Cordoba (Karin Dor)the Cuban woman Devereaux loves and who assists him in gathering information is tragically murdered.Filled with plenty of suspense,thrills and betrayal this is a gripping film filled with excellent performances..