If Hitch used some stars and if the ending was less abrupt and more explanatory and fleshed out I truly feel like Topaz would be a top shelf Hitchcock film. I thought it was interesting and thrilling throughout, I was hooked and even then trash ending didn't ruin it for me.
It's not Psycho or North by Northwest, but I see it as easily comperable to something like Dial M For Murder or Notorious.
Which ending did you see? Was it:
1. Where Jacques Granville boards an Aeroflot flight to Moscow as André and Nicole Devereaux look on and observe, "That's the end of Topaz"?
2. Where we look down the street where Granville lives and hear a shot ring out? or
3. Where Granville and Devereaux arrange and fight a duel with pistols?
I've seen all of the endings individually, but the one I saw attached to the film was the first one you mentioned. It was way too abrupt and totally unsatisfying.
But all three of the endings were poor, so it's not like swapping them out would have made a difference.
--------------------
Ram this in your clambake, bitchcakes!
The ending with the suicide is the best ending for the film, unfortunately, it was never filmed. What we have instead is recycled footage from another part of the film and a gunshot on the soundtrack. If Hitchcock had actually shot the scene and built it up a bit it would have been reasonably satisfying.
shareI agree! I don't think the movie even needed star power though-- the actors were all either fantastic or at least solid. It's definitely different from the movies that made Hitchcock famous. I feel part of the negative reaction to it might be because of mismatched expectations.
shareThe ending with the suicide is the best ending for the film, unfortunately, it was never filmed. What we have instead is recycled footage from another part of the film and a gunshot on the soundtrack. If Hitchcock had actually shot the scene and built it up a bit it would have been reasonably satisfying.
---
I saw the film (as a pre-teen) on original release at Christmas time 1969. We got the "suicide" ending. I didn't notice the recylling, but it seemed like a sudden and abrupt ending to the story and I realized, "well this isn't North by Northwest -- no big chase across the Eiffel Tower?" Times had changed and moved on, Hitchcock was too old to handle big action.
Report from 1969: I was very, very VERY excited to see Topaz. I was finally old enough to understand who Hitchcock was, and since his last new release -- Torn Curtain in 1966 -- the networks and local TV had shown Rear Window, North by NOrthwest, Psycho and The Birds (plus Vertigo a year earlier) and I was all psyched as young Hitchcock fan.
We diverted to see Topaz while on a family Christmas vacation trip. We saw it in a big old San Diego palace theater called the Spreckels(after the sugar company.) The theater lobby was festooned with giant photographs of HItchcock and a table with a copies of "HItchcock/Truffaut" for sale. Hitchcock was a bit of a "hot movie God " back then, thanks to that book.
My father had us go in too early -- we had to sit through an entire other second feature called "The Last Adventure" (listed under a different title today -- it had Alain Delon and Lino Ventura in it) that seemed to crawl and crawl before it finally ended and I could finally see Topaz.
CONT
I will NOT say that Topaz disappointed me when I saw it as a youngster in 1969. It was my first "new" Hitchcock movie on the big screen and I was enthralled by the opening defection sequence (its visuals and silences,mainly) and the Hitchcock in Harlem sequence.
But as Topaz went on, I realized it was(again) no North by Northwest, let alone a Psycho.
And then boom, it ended, just like that.
The suicide ending was pretty much the only really "good" one.
The duel sequence - which took the most filming effort on Hitchcock's part -- simply made no sense. The hero has exposed the villain and now must accept a GUN DUEL with the villain? And the villain is a crack shot who will easily shoot faster than the hero? The scene was along the lines of "I exposed the villain but now he wants to have a duel and he'll kill me but you take care of things, please."
That the villain is shot just in time by a Russian sniper is the kind of script ridiculousness that Young Hitchcock never would have accepted. This ending deserved to die.
The "airport ending" in which the villain is just allowed to fly to Russia...and the hero says "well , that's the end of Topaz," has a bad last line and bad taste -- the bad guy just WALKS?
And so...the suicide scene wins by default. The villain does NOT just walk, and the outcome is logical -- no duel.
"Well...that's the end of Topaz." I'm so glad that that final line is NOT on Topaz. Too sappy. One film later, Frenzy would end with the beautiful "Mr. Rusk..you're not wearing your tie."
I just found the three alternative endings on YouTube if anyone wants to compare
https://youtu.be/25HqG8PUhR8
Thank you!
Well, there they are, for all to see.
That duel ending is really godawful...moreso in the "set up scene" at the apartment with the family than in the well filmed, tense and elegant duel scene itself.
Still, the whole idea is atrocious: Andre is basically saying "I discovered the villain...now I will let him kill me" and no manner of dialogue ("He'd only get me some other way") can cover up the insane stupidity of this ending. I can't believe that Hitchocck put all the time and effort into filming both the set-up scene and the "on location" outdoor scene at the ...race track?
Had this scene gone out with Topaz, I daresay it would have been known as "the worst scene Alfred Hitchcock ever filmed" (some say that is the shrink scene in Psycho, but not I. I write about THAT at the Psycho board.)
But the duel scene never went out with any print of the movie. Thank God.
I guess the airport scene got released somewhere. It is nowhere near as stupid as the duel scene, but it is frustrating (the bad guy just GETS AWAY?) and banal ("Well, that's the end of Topaz.")
Even "cobbled together" (from earlier footage of Phillipe Noiret going through a door, not Michel Piccoli), the suicide "scene" is logical(unlike the duel) and satisfying(unlike the airport scene.) And to beef the scene up, they do add dissolves to the tragic tortures and killings that the movie has already shown us...leading up to a more bitter version of the headline "Cuban Missile Crisis Over" and the Arch de Triumphe in the background(as a heavyset man who looks a bit like Hitchcock walks with another man towards it.)
I saw Topaz first run at Christmas, 1969 and I found the suicide ending to be abrupt (the movie is OVER?) and disappointing (no chase across the Eiffel Tower like Mount Rushmore.) But i also found it to be logical.
I had no idea then of the duel scene or the airport scene. Nor did I , for decades.
It was probably better than way.