Review of Topaz (1969) by Brian R — 05 Dec 2012

In 1962, the highly ranked Russian intelligence officer Boris Kusenov defects to the United States of America with his wife and his daughter under the protection of CIA agent Michael Nordstrom. In Washington, Boris discloses the Russian movement in Cuba, and Nordstrom asks the French agent and his friend Andre Devereaux to get further documents from the Cuban leader Rico Parra using his anti-American corrupt secretary Luis Uribe. Then Devereaux travels to Cuba to get additional evidence of the Cuban Missiles with his mistress Juanita de Cordoba. When Devereaux returns, he receives orders from the French government to return to France to explain his participation in Cuba. However Nordstrom schedules a meeting of Devereaux with Boris and the ex-KGB official tells him about Topaz, the codename for a group of French officials in high circles who work for the Soviet Union. Further, he tells that the French NATO representative Henri Jarre is the second in the chain of command of the spy ring Topaz, leaking classified information to the soviets, and the head of spies in known only by the codename of Columbine. Devereaux realizes that he can not reveal the truth before finding who the traitor is.

"Topaz" is not one of Hitchcock's best but it's not a bad film. The problem has to do with the ending and the film's pace, audiences (including myself) will have a difficult time understanding the secret agent lingo. The movie is very well casted and the performances is well acted. I especially enjoyed watching the scenes between the late actor Frederick Stafford and the beautiful Karin Dor. Hitchcock had problems with the studio and the test audiences, and reshoots but was able to complete it nonetheless. "Topaz" imo is still enjoyable to watch and just to slowly savour.