Topaz (1969)

12/17/06

The sprawling cold war espionage drama Topaz is unlike any other Hitchcock film. It is a good movie, but dosen't feel like a Hitchcock film. Infact as Charade is considerd the best Hitchcock film that Hitch never directed, Topaz can be considerd the best (and probably only) non-Hitchcock film, that Hitchcock ever made.

The movie is based on the novel by Leon Uris, which the films advertising strongly implys to be at lest partialy grounded in fact. In 1962 a high profile member of Russian intellegance (Per-Axel Arosenius) and his family defect to the United States. This agent reluctantly gives up information that hints at Soviet missel activity in Cuba. With all Americans suspect on that island nation, a CIA agent (John Forsythe) recrutes a friend of his in French intellegiance (Frederick Stafford), to run a confirmation mission there on behalf of the United States, which of course he dose. All of these events run subtely into the complicating thrid act of the film, in which we finally learn why the pictures called 'Topaz'.

The movie that Topaz reminds me the most of is Spielburgs Munich, in its realistic version of the morally and logesticly complicated world of international spying. The film also boasts some truely stylish sequences of espionage and betrayal. While Hitch's emediate previous feature Torn Curtin, provides some omen for things to come in this film, Topaz is still very much unique in the Hitchcock canon.