B/B-


Topaz turned out to be another in the series of disappointments by Hitchcock. While not a bad movie, there's not much about this one that really stands out. Its running time of 120 minutes amounts to nothing in the end. It has a pretty interesting storyline, a good villain with John Vernon's Rico Parra and a decent leading actor. However all the build-up pretty much ends in nothing as the movie ends extremely abruptly (which, as I found out later, was not Hitchcock's original vision of the ending, but much rather a result of test screenings). Now I have thought many times in the past that Hitch's films end very abruptly and have very short climaxes, but this one defiitely tops them all, not even showing the villain's demise (granted, the actor was not even available to shoot it, but still...it all felt somewhat compromised).

As for the good stuff, there are still some great pieces of inventive camera work here, something we can observe in all of Hitch's film. I think the scene that stands out the most in terms of great cinematography is Juanita de Cordoba's death scene. The composition of it and with her dress standing in for blood obviously...it looks wonderfully beautiful and tragic. Too bad that Rico Parra's storyline ended here too as he's a much better villain then the French ones in the film. Another good and memorable scene is of Roscoe Lee Browne getting the information for Andre Devereaux from the hotel. A well-made and tense scene. I should also mention the movie's great and memorable score.

On the opposite side, however, the movie is very much a brainchild of the Cold War and thatshines through the whole film. Oh yes, the evil Cuba and the traitors in France working for the USSR...obviously the good guys are only to be found uniformally in the USA... This Cold War aspect makes the film feel very much dated. Also, some of the storylines just don't amount to much either, like Andre's and his wife's infidelities. It's an interesting aspect to bring into a thriller like this, but to drop it at some point of the film certainly is not.

On the whole, the movie does not stand out from Hitch's work. It's worse than many of his films, but he has also made worse ones too. Unlike a film like Marnie, however, there's not even as much ambition behind this one which makes it just a technically decent, but overall pretty standard spy flick.

So boring. Alfie is obviously one of the greats, but films like this are why he can't be a top 10 guy for me. Really needed someone to tell him that he didn't have to make a new film every single year lol.

2.5/10