2016: Fidel Castro Has Died -- Hitchcock and Topaz
Its November 2016 as I post this...and Fidel Castro has died. Age 90.
I hesitate at opening the political blog on this one, particularly as my full knowledge of Castro -- his beginnings, his revolution, his regime -- are limited.
But I guess I can lead with this: when I think of Fidel Castro...I think of Hitchcock.
Topaz, of course. That much-derided 1969 movie of Hitchcock's "late period of decline"(a period reversed, less than three years later, by Topaz!)
There are certainly more than a few "old age flaws" in Topaz, and many reviews were unkind. Though let's stop to note that Vincent Canby's New York Times review was entitled "Topaz-- Alfred Hitchcock at His Best" and Canby named Topaz one of the Ten Best Films of 1969. Moreover, the National Board of Review named Hitchocck Best Director of 1969 for Topaz(the belief is that the award was really for his body of work.)
Many more reviews hated Topaz. Jay Cocks of Time Magaine used Hitchcock's own quote to Truffaut against him, a quote about Mary Rose:
"Alfred Hitchcock: If the dead were to come back, what would you do with them?"
You'd call it Topaz, wrote Cocks after quoting Hitch.
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Topaz is "a tale of five cities"(Copenhagen, DC, New York, Havana, Paris) but it is overridingly about Cuba -- well, the infamous Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. We see actual footage shot in Cuba, of Fidel Castro giving a speech(with the leads of Topaz inserted into the footage), but Castro's "stand-in" for the film's duration is burly John Vernon as Rico Parra, a menacing Castro lieutenant. Rico Parra and his fellow Castroites give "Topaz" the requisite "Castro flavor" -- beards, green fatigues, military caps. We see the Castroites "on the natural" in their native land of Cuba, but we also see them "invading" the Hotel Teresa in Harlem. It is as if Fidel Castro hangs over Topaz as its dark patron saint.
But Hitchcock made a tactical error releasing "Topaz" at Christmas of 1969: a lot of the "radical campus youth" of America and the world IDOLIZED Fidel Castro. And certainly they idolized his martyred pal Che Guevara (there was a biopic about Che starring Omar Sharif around this time.)
For Hitchcock to posit Castro and his regime as the bad guys in 1969 was just poor timing.
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Meanwhile: Topaz in 1969 was actually a "period piece" for Hitchcock. It was set in 1962, a mere seven years earlier - but seven years that might as well have been SEVENTY years given the changes in American culture. The men of Topaz wear short haircuts and narrow ties; the men of 1969 were often shaggy haired as adults, long-haired as youths and -- ties were already a lot wider.
Indeed "Topaz" as a 1969 movie looks, for all intents and purposes, like a 1962 movie.
Or a 1960 movie.
Which brings Psycho into the mix.
By the time of Topaz, Castro was pretty much 10 years into his regime. American President terms end after 8 years, tops, and so Castro felt "old." But he was going to stick around.
Back in 1960, Castro was VERY new, a shock to America's system, what with the installation of a Communist government on an island about 90 miles off the shore of Florida. "Unease was in the air" -- which would reach its peak with the Cuban Missile Crisis -- and the "unease" of Psycho probably fit the times.
I'm old enough to have vauge childhood memories of the early sixties and I can say that our household magazines like Time and Newsweek, and our kids magazine "Mad," all had plenty of photos of Castro to go along with the shots of JFK. It was all part of that "50's/60's cusp" from whence North by Northwest and Psycho emerged.
Indeed, the United Nations building figured prominently in North by Northwest, and was not Castro at the Hotel Teresa(as depicted in Topaz) to address the UN?
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Moving along to one final point.
If "the Castro story" starts in the time of North by Northwest and Psycho -- and continues on for a "review" in the year of Topaz -- that was only the beginning.
I count the regime of Fidel Castro to have run alongside these American Presidents:
Eisenhower
JFK
LBJ
Nixon
Ford
Carter
Reagan
Bush 1
Clinton
Bush 2
Obama
That's a lot of Presidents!
And thus I will end these thoughts here. This much is for sure: Fidel Castro has been a good part of MY lifetime, start to finish(well, I have a few years ahead of me.) And Castro intersected my Main Movie Man, Hitchcock, on one key occasion.