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Psycho and Topaz

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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I've had some time on my hands and I perused my Hitchcock collection and elected to watch...Topaz. All the way through.

As Psycho began the 60's for Hitchcock in 1960, Topaz ended the 60's for Hitchcock in 1969 -- at the very end of the 60's, I might add: Topaz was an Xmas release.

At least one critic taking an overview of Hitchcock in the 60's noted that to start on Psycho and end on Topaz was a devastatingly steep decline to take, with the earlier film being exciting and groundbreaking and the latter film being slow, dull, and old-fashioned.

It had to be a decline "authored in age," wrote others. Which was somewhat true. I think Hitchcock's health perhaps peaked in the 1958 - 1963 corridor that gave us the films from Vertigo to The Birds. Hitch had some surgeries early in that period, but was pretty hearty most of the time. Came "Marnie"(1964), Hitchcock reportedly complained to colleagues about feeling ill, and from "Marnie" on, the movies came at a slower clip -- two years to Torn Curtain, then over three years to Topaz.

In watching Topaz, I felt that, on a shot by shot compositional basis, Hitchcock was sharp as ever. Whatever it is he knew about placing people in the shot, slightly angling the camera, using lenses and lighting so as to create a 3-D affect -- much of Topaz is soothing and provocative on the eye, all at the same time.

Topaz also proves a personal theory I have advanced about Hitchcock: Hitchcock as a director was a "machine" geared up to AUTOMATICALLY give us images of great composition, edits and pauses of a certain rhythm, camera movements of a certain daring. The machine was pretty much "revved up and ready to go" on EVERY Hitchcock movie. But if he entered into that machine an inadequate script, unimpressive actors, little in the way of supense or excitement -- all that was left was what the machine could give us: compositions, lenses, camera movements.

So it is for much of Topaz. I found it interesting, on this watch, to find that the movie doesn't really follow the "three or more set-pieces" framework of NXNW, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie and Torn Curtain.

What are set-pieces? Well, the drunken drive, the crop duster, Mount Rushmore, the shower scene, the staircase murder, the fruit cellar reveal, the attack on the birthday party, the attack on the school, the attack on Bodega Bay, the attack on the Brenner house, the attack on Melanie; the silent robbery with the shoe in the purse, the runaway hunting horse; the killing of the sailor; the killing of Gromek, the chalkboard duel, the bus chase...

That's NXNW through Torn Curtain, and all that Topaz can really give us is: one nice overhead shot of Juanita de Cordoba dying from a gunshot wound as her purple dress spreads like a bloodstain beneath her. And oh -- maybe the adventure of DuBois at the Hotel Theresa(his final leap to safety is rather underwhelming.)

Aw, I suppose maybe the entire near-silent, heavily European-flavored stalk and walk through a Copenhagen pottery shop is a "set-piece" of sorts, but as with much else in Topaz, it seems to be almost "abstract art film making" -- Topaz, rather than being a gripping story with some action set-pieces, is a somewhat interesting story with literally SCORES of little "moments, touches, and shots." Hitchcock is "on duty" all through the film, but not interested in doing much than playing with his cinematic ideas. Compelling characters and action scenes are ignored -- and one feels Hitchcock felt too old to FILM action anymore.

To the good, Topaz is consistently intelligent. The story is never difficult to understand and indeed Hitchcock makes it rather simple on purpose:

A Russian defects to America.
The Russian clues the Americans in on the coming Cuban Missile Crisis.
To get more info in Cuba, the American dispatch a "French friend", Andre, to investigate Castro's men both in Harlem and in Cuba a few days later.
Andre gets the info.
The Americans thank Andre for the info; his French superiors are furious that he didn't tell them first. He's called back to Paris.
A big problem: The Americans suspect, and the Russian knows: there are Russian-backed spies among the French officials to whom Andre must report. Its a basic problem: how can the US share secrets with the French, when there is a Commie tattle tale in the room
The tattle tale is ejected from a NATO meeting. He either (1) Dies in a duel with Andre; or (2) flies off to Russia, smiling or (3) shoots himself for being found out as a spy. (Hitchcock filmed the first two endings and cobbled together the third.)

Topaz hits all those plot points above and moves from place(Copenhagen) to place(DC and Virginia) to place(NYC and Harlem) to place(Cuba) to place(Paris) to do so...which keeps the travelogue interesting and the movie more expensive to make than it needed to be.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Indeed, Topaz -- with its actual Copenhagen and Paris locales and a lushly recreated Cuba(near where Vertigo climaxes) is a "bigger" movie than Psycho even as it can't compete with the big scale action of "North by Northwest."

I watched the film with a certain regard for the supporting players (over the famously outta nowhere and "stiff" lead, Frederick Stafford, who, I determined, is an Austrian doing a French accent here): Roscoe Lee Browne is dapper and elfin and cool as the French African/American spy sent into Castro's Harlem Lair(as dangerous as the Psycho mansion) to retrieve secrets(he's really another offshoot of Arbogast.) John Vernon's muy-mas-macho, bearded Cuban Rico Parra is perhaps the most macho man ever in any Hitchcock film -- and the most familiar player IN Topaz, now. Soon after Topaz, Vernon would be in Dirty Harry and Charley Varrick and The Outlaw Josey Wales and -- most famously -- as Dean Wormer in Animal House. But Hitchcock got him first.

And as if showing up as a "Godard-Truffaut-Bunuel" dynamic duo, Phillipe Noiret and Michel Piccoli show up for the last act in Paris to give Hitchcock some 1969 "foreign film cred." Noiret is the more interesting actor, with both some Walter Matthau deadpan to his face and a fair dose of Hitchcock's face, too. Piccoli came with more important foreign films behind him, but rather a banal look -- bald, plain-faced, dark eyebrows and maybe a little manly sex appeal.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

By the time Topaz gets to Paris, Hitchcock just has no action up his sleeve. Andre's son-in-law DECSRIBES his hairbreadth escape from killers who threw Noiret out the window, but we never see that scene. What we DO get is another great Hitchcock interrogation in the Norman/Arbogast tradition -- as the son-in-law reporter questions Noiret for an interview and ends up exposing him as a Russian spy. (A sly, quiet side angle on Noiret opening a desk drawer and then closing it is classic Hitchcock: we never saw it, but surely there was a gun in that drawer, surely Noiret debated shooting the son-in-law, but he decides against it.)

Before Topaz collapses with three endings that don't work(only one was released in America; the others are tacked on the DVD), we get what SHOULD have been the final scene: a great sweeping camera move up and over some men in a huge room about to discuss the Cuban Missile Crisis. The camera goes up above them all, they break into groups, whispers are exchanged -- and then the camera glides back down to a tight shot on the Russian French spy being told to get outta the room(very politely of course.)

Its very odd watching Topaz. Shot by shot, Hitchcock is clearly in evidence and this cannot be rejected as a "bad movie." But the plot never turns into anything exciting like Hitchcock's other spy movies or as gripping as Psycho. Its very long without being too long, but too long for so little to happen.

The critical community saw Topaz as Hitchcock's swan song. Marnie, Torn Curtain and Topaz were seen as the end of the line for Hitch. Big stars would not sign on with Hitch because now there was no guaranteed they'd be in a classic OR in a hit.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And we all know what happened. Frenzy was next --- brutal, gripping, R-rated, with a "run for cover" surefire plot that involved both a Psycho and a Wrong Man.

Funny thing though: in some ways, Topaz and Frenzy are peas in a pod: no major stars, a Eurofilm feel, European locales(mostly in Topaz; entirely in Frenzy), a certain "low key" emphasis on shots and camera movements over big action.

The two films even share a sequence:

Nicole Devereaux, coming to the house of Michel Piccoli for a tryst, sees Noiret leaving.

Brenda Blaney's secretary, returning to the office of Brenda after lunch, see Richard Blaney leaving.

--

Topaz also shares a few "memories of Psycho":

The Universal sound effects(closing doors, honking horns) are the same in Topaz as in Psycho.

One player from Psycho -- the bespectacled man who talks to the minister while Sam and Lila talk to the Chamberses at the church -- reappears in the hallway of the Hotel Theresa as a reporter, saying to Rico Parra "excuse me" and getting brushed away. 9 years it took this man to get a line in a Hitchcock movie!

And IN that scene with the bespectacled man, the suspense-build-up-pay off plays rather as with Arbogast's climb of the stairs in Psycho. This time it is Rico Parra's walk to a locked door at the end of the hall; HE is the menace -- his hand on the doorknob is played like the light on the floor as the door opens in Psycho -- and when he kicks that door down, we get the action that we got in Psycho at the top of the stairs(kinda/sorta, no gore, but confrontation, yes.)

In short, 9 years after Psycho, Hitchocck still had some of the same tricks up his sleeve. But 9 years later was perhaps too late.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Three follow-up points:

ONE: The release of Topaz was a big deal at the time. Hitchcock's last film had been Torn Curtain in the summer of 1966, and starting in the fall of 1966 through the winters of 1968, such major Hitchcock movies as Rear Window, North by Northwest, and The Birds got their nationwide network TV debuts (Vertigo had played before the Torn Curtain release.) Psycho would be famously pulled from network and famously broadcast locally. Meanwhile, the major book Hitchcock/Truffaut came out in 1967. In short, a whole new young generation of Hitchcock fans were panting with excitement to see a new Hitchocck film in 1969. And what we got was Topaz.

TWO: Stoked by this excitement, I steered my family to take me/us to see Topaz on release, while on Xmas/New Year's vacation. So in some ways, my memories of seeing Topaz are far more warm and nostalgic and happy/melancholy than anything that happened in the movie itself. I have no memories of Psycho on 1960 release. I have rich, deep, warm memories of the release of Topaz (and a movie theater lobby filled with giant photos of Hitchocck directing and tables with Hitchcock/Truffaut for sale.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

THREE: Sometime after I saw Topaz, I finally caught up with Vincent Canby's 1969 review of the film. It was entitled: "Topaz: Alfred Hitchcock at his Best," and it rather blew my mind. Canby also named Topaz one of the best films of 1969. Canby seems to have excused Topaz its lackluster leads and marvelled at both all the Hitchcock touches on screen and the "Hitchcock cynicism" behind the story itself(espionage as a game that gets many people killed for fairly little reason.) In some ways, Canby's rave for Topaz in 1969 was setting up EVERYBODYs raves for Frenzy in 1972...its just that Canby seems to have figured it all out sooner: Hitchcock still had it in key ways, and we'd not have him for much longer.

Because of all the personal nostalgia I carry from Topaz, it was a warm watch for me...but still not a great movie.