Which ending do you prefer?
Hi Everyone,
Which ending do you prefer? I prefer Hitchcock's first ending - duel scene between Andre and Jacques.
I thought the duel ending was hilarious. Totally un-believable and jarring. It was rightly dropped.
shareSPOILERS for all endings.
We should start, I think, with the fact that the duel ending is the one that Hitchcock started with. Looking at it, you can see that it was given far more care in the shooting than the other two.
I think the duel ending is absolutely, astoundingly awful. Here's why:
After a truly GREAT Hitchcock shot (the sweep up and down the chandeliers back down to him as Granville is told to leave the NATO meeting), Hitchcock cuts to Andre and his family as the camera whips from son-in-law (A duel!!??) to daughter (A duel!!??) to wife (A duel!!?) to Andre saying "Yes, a duel."
I may have gotten the order wrong, but here's the thing. Andre is given only a minute or two to explain to his family that (a) even though Granville has been exposed as a villainous Commie rat and can be arrested or deported, that (b) Granville is demanding a duel with Andre and that (c) Granville is a crack shot who will ALMOST CERTAINLY KILL ANDRE.
In short, Andre is telling his wife and daughter: "Hey, I exposed this villain, so I've got to let him shoot me to death. Nice knowing you."
Wha?
I have given Alfred Hitchcock a lifetime's worth of suspended disbelief -- crop duster murder weapons, birds that kill, Elster's murder plot -- but this was the only time that my jaw dropped. It literally made no sense. Andre's weak explanation: "His operatives will kill me eventually anyway if I don't do this and get him out into the open," is just plain out of it.
There follows the nicely shot duel sequence in a stadium (Hitchocck based the whole thing on a REAL photograph of a REAL recent duel -- but truth doesn't win out in fictin) and the necessary ending: a Soviet assassin kills Granville before he can kill Andre.
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Hitchcock was evidently in a panicked mental state when he approved this duel ending. The novel had no ending that I can remember. Samuel Taylor was stumped. The script was being written as the movie was being shot. The duel went in. Preview audiences (rightly) laughed it off the screen.
The airport finale made more sense to Hitchcock. He told an associate "In real life, the real traitors just go off to Russia." But this ending left a bitter taste. It doesn't really fit "the Hitchcock ending," (too glib, not happy OR tragic) and it has a terrible final line. Andre says, "Well, anyway, that's the end of Topaz." They coulda froze the frame and made it a Quinn Martin Production.
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The best ending is the suicide ending, dramatically. It makes sense, unlike the duel. It is satisfying, unlike the airport getaway.
Too bad it is pieced together with a shot of ANOTHER ACTOR (Phillipe Noiret) going through Granville's door earlier in the picture.
Hitchcock "sabotaged" this shot much as he sabotaged the end of "The Wrong Man" with that happy-distant footage of the "Ballestrero family" in Miami. You can feel the director telling you: "Yeah, this is the ending. No really, I care. I'm not joshin' you. Honestly, this is it."
If Hitchcock had CAREFULLY FILMED Granville's suicide with the usual Hitchcock touches, it would have been a good, if not great, Hitchocck ending.
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The bottom line is that "Topaz" is the only Hitchcock movie that really has no ending. With three endings in circulation on most DVDs; with cable TV using the airport ending; and given that I saw the suicide ending in a theater in 1969 -- the movie simply commits to nothing, and HASN'T committed to anything for almost 40 years now.
Which makes "Topaz" yet another amazingly unique, one-of-a-kind Hitchcock picture.
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One more thought: perhaps the ending is that great, great, great chandlier shot in which Granville gets the NATO heave-ho, and remember, the ending is REALLY: the montage of dead and tortured people as two guys read "Cuban Missile Crisis Over", throw the newspaper down and walk towards the Arch of Triumph. The fat guy looks rather like Hitch from behind!
I just saw Topaz for the first time on TMC and really enjoyed the ending. Yes, it was an odd beat, but I'm a big fan of surprisingly odd endings, as long as a thought is completed, which is sort of what this ending is. Also there's a heavy note of sarcasm, no? It almost reminds me of a Fassbinder ending. There's something very strong in an abrupt end without fanfare. Anyway, Iook forward to seeing the other endings!
And I agree, Topaz is definitely an amazingly unique, one-of-a-kind Hitchcock picture! :)
I liked the duel ending, because Andre feels like he has nothing to lose. He lost the woman he loved. We don't know much about the past relationship between Granville and Nicole. This leaves Andre's actions very mysterious.
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