Topaz (1969 film)

Topaz
original film poster
Directed by	Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by	Herbert Coleman Alfred Hitchcock
Written by	Samuel A. Taylor Leon Uris (Novel)
Starring	Frederick Stafford Dany Robin Claude Jade Michel Subor John Forsythe Karin Dor John Vernon Michel Piccoli Philippe Noiret Roscoe Lee Browne
Music by	Maurice Jarre
Cinematography	Jack Hildyard
Editing by	William H. Ziegler
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	December 19, 1969 (1969-12-19)
Running time	143 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$4 million

Topaz is a 1969 suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It is a Cold War and spy story, adapted from the book of the same name by Leon Uris and closely based on the 1962 Sapphire Affair (sapphire was replaced by another jewel hence the title) involving French SDECE spy Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli (a friend of Leon Uris) who "ha[d] played a considerable part in helping the U.S. discover the presence of Russian offensive missiles in Cuba".

It stars Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, Claude Jade, Michel Subor, Karin Dor, John Vernon, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, John Forsythe, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Per-Axel Arosenius.

Plot

The story is set in 1962 and opens with images of a Soviet military parade on the Red Square. In Copenhagen, a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer defects to the West with his wife and daughter. 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, André entrusts a familiar contact, Philippe Dubois (Roscoe Lee Browne) to get hold of some seriously damaging papers concerning Soviet plans in Cuba from the visiting Cuban official Rico Parra (John Vernon). 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, 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.

Screenshot from Trailer of Hitchcock's Topaz

The photos confirm that the Soviets are secretly transporting and placing 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 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 harbour. But Juanita's people are arrested and tortured, while Parra's man, during a big mass rally and lengthy speech by the "líder máximo", 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 searched thoroughly at the 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.

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, he 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. 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. Granville is exposed and apparently commits suicide.

Production

In the original ending, there was a duel between André and Jacques in a French soccer stadium, shot by associate producer Herbert Coleman when Hitchcock had to return to the U.S. for a family emergency. This ending was panned by audiences during test screenings.

Under pressure from the studio, Hitchcock shot an ending he actually liked better, with Jacques escaping on an Aeroflot flight to the Soviet Union just at the same time as André and Nicole are boarding their Pan Am flight to the States. But this ending apparently confused audiences.

So, as a compromise, Hitchcock used existing footage to create a new ending: Granville is exposed and expelled from a NATO meeting, and commits suicide behind his drawn curtains (since no footage of his doing so existed).

Eventually, the studio decided to release different endings in different countries: the suicide in the U.S. and France, the airport ending in England.

Cast

• Frederick Stafford as André Devereaux
• Dany Robin as Nicole Devereaux
• John Vernon as Rico Parra
• Karin Dor as Juanita de Cordoba
• Claude Jade as Michèle Picard
• Michel Subor as Francois Picard
• Michel Piccoli as Jacques Granville
• Philippe Noiret as Henri Jarré
• Roscoe Lee Browne as Philippe Dubois
• Per-Axel Arosenius as Boris Kusenov
• John Forsythe as Michael Nordstrom
• Edmon Ryan as McKittreck
• Sonja Kolthoff as Mrs. Kusenov
• Tina Hedström as Tamara Kusenov (as Tina Hedstrom)
• John Van Dreelen as Claude Martin
• Donald Randolph as Luis Uribe (as Don Randolph)
• Roberto Contreras as Muñoz
• Carlos Rivas as Hernandez
• Roger Til as Jean Chabrier
• Lewis Charles as Pablo Mendoza
• Sándor Szabó as Emile Redon (as Sandor Szabo)
• Anna Navarro as Carlotta Mendoza
• Lew Brown as American Official
• John Roper as Thomas
• George Skaff as René d'Arcy
• Ann Doran as Mrs Foryth

Reaction

The film was not particularly well-received or successful at the box office. Hitchcock changed the script shortly before the beginning of the filming and the distributor Universal forced a different ending to the one preferred by Hitchcock. For Topaz, Hitchcock engaged the 19-year-old French actress Claude Jade from Truffaut's Stolen Kisses. She and Dany Robin, cast as her mother, would provide the glamour in the story. "Claude Jade is a rather quiet young lady," Hitchcock said later, "but I wouldn't guarantee [that] about her behavior in a taxi".

Some critics liked Topaz. New York Times critic Vincent Canby in 1969 wrote of Topaz: "Alfred Hitchcock at his Best" and put the film on his Top Ten list for 1969. In 1969, Hitchcock won the Best Director Award for Topaz from the National Board of Review.

Criticism

Some American critics said that there was no Hollywood star in the movie—no Bergman, no Grant; the cast did however include renowned international film stars (Jade, Piccoli, Noiret), whose previous successes had been primarily in France. Some attribute Hitchcock's casting choices to the negative experience the director had working with Paul Newman on Torn Curtain; however, Hitchcock is said to have approached Sean Connery (who had worked with Hitchcock in Marnie) for Andre, and Catherine Deneuve for his wife.

Some critics have inferred that Hitchcock was hoping to groom the relatively-unknown Frederick Stafford as a star of his own making, similar to Tippi Hedren; however, Stafford remained an unknown in Hollywood, though he had a lengthy career in European films.

Alternate endings

When American Movie Classics aired the film in the 1990s it included alternative endings filmed by Hitchcock, which had been kept in the Universal vaults.^{[citation needed]} The "Masterpiece Collection" DVD released by Universal restores a number of deleted scenes and uses the ending in which Jacques escapes. All three endings appear as extras on the DVD, together with an "Appreciation" by Leonard Maltin in which Maltin discusses the deleted scenes and alternate endings among other things.

Hitchcock cameo

Hitchcock's signature cameo appearance occurs 33 minutes into the film, at the airport: he is seated in a wheelchair as he is being pushed by a nurse. She stops, and he nonchalantly stands and greets a man, proceeding to walk off screen with him.

Real-life influences

• The plot is based on the real-life Sapphire Affair of 1962.^{[citation needed]}
• The film begins with a Russian KGB agent defecting along with his wife and daughter. It was based on that of Anatoliy Golitsyn.^{[citation needed]}
• André Devereaux was based on French agent Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli of the SDECE.
• "Juanita de Cordoba" is loosely based on Castro's daughter Alina Fernández who fled Cuba and defected to America. Castro disowned her for her treason.^{[citation needed]}
• The red haired army captain known as "Hernandez" is based on Manuel Piñeiro.^{[citation needed]}
• Fidel Castro makes an uncredited appearance in the film along with Che Guevara. While in Cuba, Deveraux attends a Castro rally in order to keep up the appearance of his official cover, that of a French trade attaché. The film spliced in actual footage of a real Castro rally of the era to add to the realism.
• The French title is L'Étau (English : ~bench vice, ~stranglehold), to avoid any reference to Topaze, a well known 1951 French opus by Marcel Pagnol starring Fernandel and Yvette Etiévant. In the French script, the topaz gemstone is replaced by "l'opale" (opal).^{[citation needed]}

External links

• Topaz at the Internet Movie Database
• Topaz at AllRovi
• Topaz at the TCM Movie Database
• Topaz at Rotten Tomatoes
• Topaz Eyegate Gallery