- Location: On the Amtrak to NYC
- Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz, his second official Cold War film, relates how the defection of a Russian ex-KGB agent named Kusenov (Per-Axel Arosenius) affects a seemingly diverse group, including American CIA agents, Cuban revolutionaries, and even French diplomats. Some of these characters, like CIA agent Nordstrom (John Forsythe), are striving to discover what the Russians are up to in Cuba. Some characters, like the crass revolutionary Rico Parra (John Vernon) and the esteemed Juanita de Cordoba (Karin Dor), are more worried about establishing Cuba's role on the world stage. Still others, like the French ambassador Andre Devereaux (Frederick Stafford) or the Dominican flower shop owner Dubois (Roscoe Lee Browne) are caught in the tug-of-war between the two sides. Of course, the hidden agenda of a spy ring code-named Topaz only serves to further muddle the situation.
- The film begins with an exciting sequence depicting the Kusenov family's mostly dialogue-free escape from the Eastern bloc. In contrast with the delicate work of the local porcelain sculptors, the CIA's plan for the Kusenovs is decidedly less precise, culminating in a clumsy endrun into an agency car. While this is an impressive example of Hitchcock's famous approach to visual storytelling, it is surpassed later in the film when Dubois (hired by Devereaux's "Franco-American finance company") bribes a Cuban diplomat named Uribe (Donald Randolph). Their words don't carry across the busy street, but the essential information is conveyed in far more interesting ways. The film's most memorable imagery, however, is delivered when Rico Parra brutally murders de Cordoba. After several shots that recall Hitchcock's expressionist roots, de Cordoba's purple dress melts beautifully onto the tiled floor as her body collapses. While these scenes are good enough that Topaz should not be overlooked, the rest of the film is unfortunately diminished by Stafford's disinterested approach to acting and, worse still, the film's atrociously anticlimactic ending. When Devereaux concludes the film by noting "the end of Topaz" I had to chuckle, because that's really the only indication we have that there has been a conclusion.
- I spotted Hitchcock miraculously rising from his wheelchair.
- There is some footage of Castro spliced in at one point. According to wikipedia, Che Guevara was in there somewhere, too.
- Apparently, multiple endings were created for this film. I obviously saw one of the lesser ones.
