Review of Topaz (1945) by Harry W — 22 Oct 2014

One of Alfred Hitchcock's final films, I wanted to see Topaz to witness what point his career had reached towards the end of it all.

As Alfred Hitchcock's previous spy thriller Torn Curtain had not really peaked my fancy, I didn't have the highest expectations for Topaz. The film follows a very similar premise, dealing with soviet agents and defection set around Copenhagen. It is a familiar film, familiar of a film I was not particularly fond of, and so it is set up to be a troubled affair for me. Eventually it steps it up, but it still begs for comparison.

Topaz feels like a slightly more involved personal story than Torn Curtain, but it nevertheless incurs a lot of the flaws that Torn Curtain suffered through. The pace of it all is very slow, and it runs at an extensive length as well so viewers are really going to need involvement in the tale for it to be engaging. The central problem outside of all this was that it didn't break new ground. Alfred Hitchcock's films are usually iconic steps in cinema, and even Torn Curtain was a take on a genre new to him. Topaz is largely a film that treads old ground, and while it serves as an improvement over Torn Curtain, it still doesn't stand out as one of Alfred Hitchcock's best films.

It is a lot more atmospheric than Torn Curtain however because there is less talking and more storytelling. Although the scale of the film is still larger than many of Alfred Hitchcock's films, it remains more interesting and involving with the characters in the tale. This doesn't mean it is perfect because there are still a large amount of scenes with extensive periods of nothing but dialogue to them, but they are of a lesser quantity and make way more for the story to proceed forward. The atmosphere of the film is very good because it makes use of Alfred Hitchcock's signature eye for strong cinematography consistently over the course of the film as well as being enhanced by Academy Award winner Maurice Jarre's terrific musical score. The atmosphere of the film is tense but is subtle in how it does it with a lot of implications of forthcoming plot dynamics as the source of its occurrence. The cinematography also works at capturing a lot of beautiful scenery in the film which establishes the Cuban context of the story as being very legitimate.

But despite all of its best intentions, visual elements and subtext, Topaz still succumbs to many of the same flaws as Torn Curtain. Its story is slightly more engaging and has more thrills, but it still comes off as being rather dull. The screenplay has some strong dialogue to it, but it comes up short in terms of characters because it is another film focused on the bigger picture. The bigger picture is only mildly interesting, and it is a picture which has already been covered by Alfred Hitchcock himself. The film provides a step forward for him in terms of spy thrillers and tales of espionage, but it also serves as a reminder that the genre is not his game. He does what he can and manages to take the film a long way on a very small budget, but the premise is simply not interesting enough to sufficiently sustain itself over the course of the 143 minute running time. Topaz ends up having some good scenes, but they are not tied together well enough for the film to have solid functioning as a whole.

Topaz does prove to benefit from a strong cast though.

Upon its original release in 1969, there was a lot of criticism for the casting of Fredrick Stafford in the leading role. I really didn't see it as much of a problem because I found that he did a good enough job. His performance maintained a nice level of sophistication to it, and considering that the film was an espionage thriller where protagonist Andre Devereux would have to keep his cool the entire time and have a strong level of subtlety to keep his secrets within. I found that his involvement in the character wasn't wooden as many critics claimed and rather that he stood confident in the part with the appropriate amount of subtlety and wit to it. Frederick Stafford is a charming lead in Topaz because he deals with all the material with a sense of wisdom which works as the driving force to his determination in the tale. He makes a decent case in the lead, and while he may not have the charisma of some of Alfred Hitchcock's greater lead actors such as Cary Grant or James Stewart, he makes a name for himself by delivering a solid leading performance in Topaz, engaging with the other actors with a natural level of spirit and secretive sense of determination to him. His leading performance is even greater than Paul Newman's from Torn Curtain in my opinion which is a fair call.

Dany Robin also does her part for the film. She has a lot of beauty to her which makes her a nice sight in the part, but she also puts a lot of spirit into her role. Although her performance fails to deliver the power of Julie Andrews in Torn Curtain, her presence is welcome. She is less subtle in her part than Fredrick Stafford which is positive because it means she does a strong job conveying the stressful status of a character in her situation. She puts an easy level of humanity into her part which makes her role an easily sympathetic one, and her chemistry with Frederick Stafford is strong.

So Topaz is a step up for Alfred Hitchcock in the spy thriller genre due to having a strong visual style, a lot of atmosphere and a skilled cast, but it suffers from the same slow pace, extensive length and sense of repetition that hindered his previous effort on Torn Curtain and fails to serve as one of his superior films.