 The best-selling spy novel bursts onto the screen in this riveting story of adventure and international intrigue. John Forsythe stars as an American CIA agent who hires a French operative (Frederick Stafford) to travel to Cuba and investigate rumors of Russian missiles and Topaz, a NATO spy. The inquiry soon spins into a life-threatening escapade of espionage, betrayal and murder. Storyline: A high ranking Russian official defects to the United States, where he is interviewed by US agent Michael Nordstrom. The defector reveals that a French spy ring codenamed "Topaz" has been passing NATO secrets to the Russians. Michael calls in his French friend and counterpart Andre Devereaux to expose the spies. Written by Col Needham Cameo: Topaz - 1946 - 0:32:27 - Being pushed in a wheelchair in the airport. Hitchcock gets up from the chair, shakes hands with a man, and walks off to the right.. Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, November 11, 2012 A man confronts his accuser atop the Statue of Liberty, where one false move will spell death. A wolf in sheep's clothing allows the beast lurking within to bear its teeth. A housemaster slowly, oh so slowly, pieces together the heinous crime perpetrated by two former students. A woman searches for clues in a suspected murderer's apartment just as the man returns home. Four people work to keep the demise of a fellow smalltown resident a secret from a local deputy. An assassin's gun slides out from behind a curtain as an ordinary man races to thwart his plot. An airplane buzzes then roars past as a man dives for cover. The hiss of a shower masks the approach of a madman with a knife in his hand. Countless birds gather on a jungle gym as a woman smokes a cigarette nearby. A husband barges into his new wife's bedroom and has his way with her as she retreats into a near-catatonic state. A physicist discovers killing a man isn't as easy as it might seem, wrestling with his victim right up until the violent end. A purple dress billows out beneath a dying woman like spilled blood. A serial killer retrieves his pin from a woman's grasp, one dead finger at a time. A fake psychic tries to squirm out of a thief's vice-like grip as he pushes a syringe closer and closer. Be it drama, horror or comedy, psychological stunner, monster movie or international spy thriller, is it any mystery that filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock was known as the Master of Suspense? Is it any wonder his movies still hold hypnotic sway over filmfans all these years later? Hitchcock lost control of Topaz early in its development; control he never regained. It's almost as if the fates aligned against the entire production, which turned out to be a run of bad luck that didn't escape the filmmaker. Hitchcock was miserable, the film never quite came together, and it was poorly received, bombing at the box office and failing to break even. What went wrong? It began with screenwriter Leon Uris, who delivered a script Hitchcock deemed unfilmable. The director hurriedly hired Vertigo scribe Samuel A. Taylor in response, but didn't set aside enough time for Taylor to write a full screenplay. Instead, the screenwriter was sometimes still pounding out pages just before a scene would shoot. It didn't end there. Without a billable cast to draw audiences, Topaz had to rely on its own unwieldy legs. But it was as bloated in 1969 as it is today. It isn't a complete failure, mind you. Hitchcock's visual flourishes are striking -- even though the plot drags, the intrigue fizzles and the suspense has trouble building and sustaining itself -- and the performances are functional, despite a lack of memorable characters and a penchant for thinly stretched drama. I'm admittedly tougher on Topaz than most, but only because Hitchcock is at the helm. The Master of Suspense doesn't produce anything masterful here, and I doubt its standing as one of the director's lesser films will ever be challenged. Topaz is, without hesitation, my least favorite film in the Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection. The director stopped short of disowning the picture, but it's clear he wasn't pleased with the results. It isn't a bad film per se; it's just subpar Hitchcock, and it doesn't deserve a place next to the likes of Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and other high caliber movies. Universal's solid AV presentation is much better, thankfully, and its supplemental package emerges as the only real disappointment. If I had to whittle the Masterpiece Collection down to fourteen films, though, Topaz would be the first to go. Cast Notes: Frederick Stafford (Andre Devereaux), Dany Robin (Nicole Devereaux), John Vernon (Rico Parra), Karin Dor (Juanita de Cordoba), Michel Piccoli (Jacques Granville), Philippe Noiret (Henri Jarre), Claude Jade (Michèle Picard), Michel Subor (Francois Picard), Per-Axel Arosenius (Boris Kusenov), Roscoe Lee Browne (Philippe Dubois), Edmon Ryan (McKittreck), Sonja Kolthoff (Mrs. Kusenov), Tina Hedström (Tamara Kusenov [as Tina Hedstrom]), John Van Dreelen (Claude Martin), Donald Randolph (Luis Uribe [as Don Randolph]). IMDb Rating (02/11/17): 6.3/10 from 13,127 users
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