In the user reviews, there are references to three different endings. Can anyone describe them briefly? I have seen two of them, both on VHS; one of them seemed to have a great deal of additional footage relative to the other. Which ending (if any) is considered the "real" ending?
Amy
Right - there are 3 different endings:
The original ending takes place in a French football stadium, where Stafford and Piccoli engage in a revolver duel. However, before any of them can shoot, Piccoli is shot dead by a sniper, probably by a Russian (the Russians decide that it would be a liability to let Piccoli live). Stafford then meets his wife and all ends well. I found this ending strange, and completely out of sinc with the rest of the movie. However, this was Hitchcock´s original ending and was included in the script. This ending was taken out as sneak preview audiences totally hated it.
In the second ending you´ll see Piccoli and Stafford getting on planes at the airport. Stafford going to the US, and Piccoli going to Russia. Piccoli has a lot of Russian friends, who have offered him sanctuary. They look at each other and Stafford laughs at Piccoli, as he is amazed how such a traitor can get away with it. Personally, this is my favorite enidng and has the same feel as the rest of the film.
The third ending, which you´ll see in the final version, is simple. There is just a shot of Piccoli´s house and then there is a gunshot. Piccoli has shot himself. This scene was actually never shot, but created by using old footage from a different scene and letting a gunshot hear. An unsatisfying ending, and not up to Hitch´s standard.
Personally (but who am I?) I liked the third ending, in other words the one that finally was chosen, best. The one with the duel indeed was completely unrealistic and ridiculous. The plane-ending I think is a pseudo-humouristic, maybe very Hitchcocklike, but the one in the film is the most realistic and therefore most satisfying. In my opinion.
But Hitchcock wanted the first one, and as a film is a work of art, the only correct ending is the one the director i.e. creator of the film wants. So hail to the duel!
A very belated thanks for the information.
I had seen two endings, all except the one with the duel in the football stadium. It seems to me that the version I saw with the ending at the airport contained a number of scenes I don't recall from the other version (where Jacques Granville shoots himself), including Devereaux driving from the airport and attending a party at Jacques Granville's house. But maybe this is just faulty memory.
Now I have to go out and find a copy with the football stadium ending...
Those additional scenes (airport drive, party) are of about ten minutes of footage that was deleted from the 1969 release print of "Topaz."
I think that they are on one VHS of "Topaz" and I know that they are on the DVD release.
The DVD also has all three endings as a bonus feature, including the stadium duel.
I know Hitchcock liked the stadium duel. He shot it with his usual care. But it just doesn't work. (SPOILERS): We're asked to believe that the hero, having exposed the villain, would accept a duel to the death just because the villain is mad at him . Worse, we're told that the villain is a crack shot, so the hero will definitely get killed. Again, WHY would the hero do this. It's as if he were telling his wife, "I foiled the plot and exposed the villain, so now I'm going to let him shoot me to death." Again, it just doesn't work. (What happens is: a Russian sniper shoots the villain before the villain can shoot the hero.)
The "airport" ending is too aggravating: the villain gets away, after all those people died.
The "suicide" ending is sloppy and patched together, but the most satisfying ending to a most unsatisfying Hitchcock movie.
The "airport" ending is too aggravating: the villain gets away, after all those people died.
The "suicide" ending is sloppy and patched together, but the most satisfying ending to a most unsatisfying Hitchcock movie.
Does the "suicide ending" also include a montage that briefly shows the deaths of other spies? I vaguely recall a version where not only the French spy kills himself but also they replay images of the dying Cuban couple in prison as well as others -- the finale was a sort of carnage montage as if to say, "this is the price paid and the unknown sacrifice that existed behind the headlines."
At any rate this hazy recollection seemed a more fitting summation than what I've just finished watching -- the abrupt and anti-climatic version at the airport.
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Yes, the suicide is "patched together," but the montage of the dead and tortured is a somewhat better "tag" after that suicide.
I thought I saw that "montage of the dead" after at least one of the other endings, too -- either the stadium duel or the airport.
And after the montage ends, two men in Paris read the headline "Cuban Missile Crisis" over (or something like that) and throw the paper on a bench while walking under the Arch of Triumph. One of the men looks a little like Hitchcock from behind.
Hitch said that the airport ending is "actually the correct ending." (Hitchcock's Notebooks by Dan Aulier).
He said this in the context of post-production, when he knew he had to decide which ending to be played in which country (different places got different endings - don't ask me to explain why, I don't fully understand this myself).
He later defended the airport ending as the most realistic, saying the bad double agent always gets away in real life.
I don't agree. The suicide ending, following by the "montage of the victims of the Cold War" is more logical artistically. In other words, the revelation of the spy has got to lead to some important consequence - otherwise, who cares and what was the point of the movie?
I agree -- the suicide, however badly patched together -- plus the montage of victims, is the most satisfying ending.
Still, so many Hitchcock movies had such absolutely perfect endings (Notorious, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, Frenzy) that the weakness of all three "Topaz" endings just shows that it was destined to be a lesser Hitchcock.
That montage has always intrigued me, for its implicit message is that Andre -- the "hero" of the story -- is pretty much responsible for getting all these people killed. As Hitchcock told an interviewer, "he uses people. That's his job."
That's the spy business....
TCM has the airport ending.
Perhaps the realism isn't Hollywood enough for some people.
Best unknown feature at IMDB.com
http://www.imdb.com/features/video/browse/
My DVD also has the airport ending . . . the duel is the most novel conclusion to the film . . .
shareI liked the suicide ending although I heard Leon Uris' novel did not have such a "happy ending" if you can call it that. I also think the suicide ending would make the most sense: he would rather commit suicide than face disgrace at home in France or seek asylum in the Soviet Union, IMHO.
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