Topaz (1969 film)

Shel Talmy and William Piggott Brown first tried to option the film rights to Leon Uris's novel for $500,000 in 1967, but the deal was halted by the Bank of England because of the 1967 devaluation of the pound sterling. Alfred Hitchcock first hired Uris to adapt his own novel for the screen five months later. Afterwards Philippe de Vosjoli filed a lawsuit against Uris, Universal Pictures, and MCA Inc claiming that they had stolen the plot for the novel and film from his unpublished manuscript Le reseau Topaz. De Vosjoli and Uris settled out of court with a deal that would give Uris full rights to the profits from the film but gave de Vosjoli half of the profits from the novel.[4]

Reportedly, Hitchcock and Uris differed on aspects of character development, with Hitchcock claiming that Uris had not humanised the villains of the story. Uris also did not appreciate Hitchcock's insistence on adding black humour. After a portion of the draft had been written, Uris left the film. Hitchcock attempted to hire Arthur Laurents to complete the work on the screenplay, but he refused, leaving an unfinished draft while the shooting schedule was rapidly approaching. Ultimately, Samuel A. Taylor, cowriter of Vertigo, was hired, but the film began without a completed screenplay. Some scenes were written only hours before they were filmed.[5]

Hitchcock changed the script shortly before the beginning of filming, and the distributor, Universal, forced an ending that was different from the one that was preferred by Hitchcock.[6] For Topaz, Hitchcock engaged the 19-year-old French actress Claude Jade from Truffaut's Stolen Kisses. She and Dany Robin, who was cast as her mother, would provide the glamour in the story. "Jade is a rather quiet young lady," Hitchcock later said, "but I wouldn't guarantee [that] about her behaviour in a taxi."

Like his previous films Rope and The Trouble with Harry, Hitchcock intended the film to be an experiment for whether colours, predominantly red, yellow and white, could be used to reveal and to influence the plot. He later admitted that it did not work out.[5]

Production began on September 25, 1968, and concluded at the beginning of March 1969.[4] Portions of Topaz were filmed on location in Copenhagen; Wiesbaden, West Germany; Virginia, Paris, New York City, and Washington, DC.[7] The remainder of the film was shot at Universal Studios Hollywood and in and around Los Angeles.

Prior to Hitchcock's decision to hire Maurice Jarre to compose the score, other composers who were interested in offering their services included Michel Legrand, Richard Rodney Bennett, and Ravi Shankar.[8]

Hitchcock's signature cameo appearance occurs around 28 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 and proceeds to walk off screen with him.

The original cut of the film ended with a duel between André and Jacques in a French football stadium. It was shot by associate producer Herbert Coleman when Hitchcock had to return to the United States for a family emergency. Audiences panned the ending during test screenings. They also said the film was far too long.

Under pressure from the studio, Hitchcock shot a second ending that he actually liked better, with Jacques escaping on an Aeroflot flight to the Soviet Union as André and Nicole board their adjacent Pan Am flight back to the United States. However, the ending apparently confused audiences. Also, screenwriter Samuel Taylor objected to the villain escaping unpunished, and there were fears that the ending would offend the French government.[9]

As a compromise, Hitchcock used existing footage to create a third ending in which Granville is exposed and expelled from a NATO meeting. Over a shot of the exterior of his apartment, the sound of a gunshot tells that he commits suicide behind his drawn curtains since no footage of his suicide existed.[10]

The film was released with this third ending and was also edited down by nearly 20 minutes to a final length of 127 minutes. The "airport ending" briefly appeared on British prints of the film by mistake, but those prints were soon altered to match the version that was released elsewhere.[11]

The 1987 laserdisc contained the 127-minute theatrical cut, along with the first release of the two alternate endings, as bonus features. The 1999 DVD contained the first release of the extended 143-minute cut of the film, using Hitchcock's preferred second 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 the alternate endings.

The longer 143-minute version of the film has since been released numerous times on DVD and Blu-ray in the US and in some other markets. However some markets, like Germany, Japan and Scandinavia, continue to have the shorter theatrical cut on DVD and Blu-ray.[12]

Topaz earned $3.8 million in box office rentals from the United States and Canada in 1970.[13]

Vincent Canby of The New York Times placed the film on his year-end list of the ten best films of 1969 and declared it a "huge success, a quirky, episodic espionage tale made rich and suspenseful, not through conventional Hitchcockian narrative drive, but through odd, perverse Hitchcockian detail, economy of cinematic gesture, and an over-all point of view that can never for a moment be mistaken as belonging to anyone but Hitchcock."[14] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times also liked the film and wrote that although there was a "loss of momentum" at the climax because of the time taken to resolve the complex plot, the first three quarters of the film were "bravura displays of the fabled Hitchcock technique, replete with dazzling camera movements and acute imagery." Thomas singled out the Harlem sequence as among "the best that Hitchcock has ever done."[15]

Variety wrote that it "tends to move more solidly and less infectiously than many of the maestro of menace's best remembered pix. Yet Hitchcock has brought in a full quota of twists and tingling moments. It is just that the picture seems to move predictably and lacks the fun and surprise blood curdling moments that can lift his thrillers with breathtaking excitement."[16] The Monthly Film Bulletin in Britain wrote that the film had "intermittent pleasures (the silent conversation behind hotel doors seen from across the street, the long pull back across the conference room and the reverse track forward ending with a zoom on to Piccoli's face), yet we are constantly deprived of the action set pieces which would have given the narrative its much needed boost. It is known that Hitchcock had trouble with the climax (and juggled three different endings); but the one finally chosen for the commercial print here looks as if it could have been devised by anyone."[17] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "The film as a whole dies from a lack of humor and animation.... The awful truth is that Hitchcock would probably be better off if he retired. The most one can say for his direction of 'Topaz' is that it's polished: The compositions are symmetrical and the photography is glossy. But if this is all it is, the film might as well be the work of a disinterested computer."[18] Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called it "the same damned spy picture he's been making since the thirties, and it's getting longer, slower, and duller."[19] John Simon described Topaz as both wretched and senile.[20]

Some American critics complained that there was no Hollywood star in the movie such as Ingrid Bergman or Cary Grant although the cast included the renowned international film stars Claude Jade, Michel Piccoli, and Philippe Noiret, the last of whom had previous successes that had been primarily in France. Some attribute Hitchcock's casting choices to his negative experience of working with Paul Newman on Torn Curtain, but Hitchcock is said to have approached Sean Connery, who had worked with him in Marnie, for André 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, like Tippi Hedren; however, Stafford remained unknown in Hollywood though he had a lengthy career in European films.

In 1969, Hitchcock won the Best Director Award for Topaz from the National Board of Review.

Topaz had its American network television premiere on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies on January 29, 1972. Topaz currently holds a 69% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10.[21]