Review of Topaz (1945) by Cris B — 15 Aug 2008

Americans get more than they bargain for when they help a Russian official and his family defect to the U.S.A.. When information about a connection between Cuba and Russia emerges, an American agent sends in his French counterpart to do some dirty work and see what he can uncover about the mysterious "Topaz.".

More socio-political-mystery than the psychological thriller type of film in which Hitchcock excels, (mostly), Topaz is a Cold War-era film that has some problems with pacing and clarification. Like most of "the Master's" films (alright, practically all), this one still held my attention, but less so than the likes of Notorious, Psycho, Vertigo, The 39 Steps, and countless others. Like Frenzy and Torn Curtain, I found Topaz lacking in the creativity department. There's something about the later films that just don't interest me as much as his earlier fare. Although Hitchcock has never relied on dialogue as much as camera work and plot twists, I could have used some witty banter between a couple of characters (or more)! Where was the Cary Grant/Eva Marie Saint-esque or James Stewart/Grace Kelly-esque mixture of cheek and intelligence between the leads?! Nonexistent! I didn't feel drawn to many of the characters or actors (despite many of the men and women being exceptionally attractive foreigners). My favorite moments seem to be those that channel something out of Graham Greene's novels: cameras smuggled in a carved-out grinder roll/ham sandwich; the neglected bread being carted away by some clue-trailing seagulls (Hitch does love his birds!); the reemergence of said camera in a chicken. I kept thinking of Greene's wonderful The Ministry of Fear with the microfilm smuggled, unassumedly, in a cake. Hitchcock should have aimed for more of these clever moments, tidied up the script a little, and would have had a much better film. I love Vertigo (it's one of my favorite Hitchcock films), and I'm surprised that the same writer of that script--Samuel A. Taylor--also worked on this one. Perhaps consistency was not his strong point. Or perhaps it didn't help that Taylor was called in last minute...in any case, this film has been called Hitchcock's "biggest failure" and "unhappiest directing job." It fared poorly financially as well. Somehow, this news does not surprise me.