This is the question which Alfred Hitchcock set out to answer in 1969, with the world's craziest schedule and a novel by Leon Uris as his sole weapons. Long story short, Topaz is the tale of a French spy who discovers that the Russians are keeping some suspiciously missile-shaped objects in Cuba, and then uncovers Russian spies within his own government.
Although I am, perhaps, giving the film too much credit to say that it is "the tale" of anything. By the dual virtue of striving to for once follow real spying events rather than the ravings of Ian Fleming, and of having been written on the cuff of the actors' shirts a few minutes past the studio deadline, Topaz isn't so much one film as three ones of approximately 50 minutes each, which each get a set-up and a conclusion before we move on to the next one. Disney's Atlantis II: Milo's Return is the last movie you'd expect to be reminded of when watching a 1960's Hitchcock film, but it was the only thing I could think of.
First, you have the story of Philippe Dubois getting a document from the Cuban embassy in New York; then, you have the story of André Devereaux's adventures in Cuba proper and his doomed love with Juanita; then, you have the story of Devereaux unmasking the mole(s) in the French secret service.
Due, I am given to understand, to Leon Uris taking the events too seriously to let Hitchcock add any of his macabre humor to the proceedings, none of the three stories are among Hitch's best; if we're talking anti-U.S.S.R. flicks from the 60's, give me Torn Curtain anyday. And the character arc of André's wife Nicole is a mess — first she's the enamored wife who wants André to retire from his dangerous work so he can be with her, then she's… having an affair with… the villain? But then by the end of the film she and André are together again with no fanre? Huh? …But they're fine. If nothing else, they succeed at giving a somewhat realistic Hollywood look at Cold War-era spywork, which is a welcome change from your standard James Bond fare.
John Vernon delivers a fine performance as Rico-Parra-Totally-Not-Che-Guevara, a Cuban envoy to New York whose part of the film ends on a surprisingly tragic note — but in truth, what works here doesn't take much skill — look equal parts stoic and intimidating, and you've got it. Karin Dor opposite him as Juanita de Cordoba plays her character quite well, but her character, as it happens, is even more patently a tragic figure, who feels like she belongs in another movie entirely, and that kind of bothered me throughout her part of the film.
Philippe Noiret (as the aforementioned Russian spy Henri Jarré) and the improbably-named Per-Axel Arosenius (as K.G.B. defector Boris Kusenov) are both highlights whenever they appear, but have too little a part in this wooly-mammoth of a picture to save it all on thier own. John Forsythe plays the American agent Michael Nordstrom very by-the-book (entirely fine for what he is, but nothing to remember him by).
A surprisingly enjoyable side-character was Shakespearean actor Roscoe Lee Browne as Philippe Dubois, one of André's agents in New York, who handles the obtention of the secret documents from the Cuban embassy in the first of the three films-in-the-film. You wouldn't think so to look at the man when he's first introduced, a florist in a preposterous yellow jacket, but his brief stint as the movie's protagonist proves he is everything you want from the hero in a spy film, much moreso than Stafford's André. I'd seriously have watched the heck out of a Persuaders-style TV series about The Florist, played by Browne, with a recast André as his very own “M” or “Judge Fulton”.
Claude Jade as André's daughter is sure to disappoint any fans of hers who watched the movie for her sake, not because she does anything wrong, but because she doesn't really do anything. She's in and out of the film almost as quickly as Alfred Hitchcock himself, whose cameo is easy-to-miss but probably the only real joke in the movie (and it's a good one, too).
As for Michel Piccoli as Jacques Granville/Colombine, his exterior fame and how high he is in the credits make me feel like I ought to have something to say about him, but I really don't. He's just sort of there. The movie throws out as the last second, when we already know he's the traitor, that, oh, André's wife is having an affair with him, and, oh, he was old friends with André in the Résistance, and goddammit why didn't you tell us that earlier?!
What's more, I am told by Wikipedia that he was robbed of his last chance to redeem his character, a final duel between him and André in a soccer stadium. (Why a soccer stadium? I don't know! Why do you ask me these things?!) It would have been somewhat out-of-place considering how late his significance was introduced, but it would have given Piccoli a chance to do something.
Mind, I don't disagree with the motives for cutting the aforementioned duel, namely, that the film was way too long. At 125 minutes it is already way longer than it can afford from people's attention-spans, and I can't imagine what sort of disaster the 147-minute-long original cut would have been.
So… mixed-to-negative, is my final impression. One of Hitchcock's few earnest misfires. It's not a bad film, really, if you forget whose name is attached to it, but even without Hitchcock's other masterpieces to take into account, it would be very, very hard to argue that this is a good film.
Post-Scriptum
Someone tell me, what is wrong with Uribe's glasses? I was waiting and waiting for someone to address it, but, no. The chap just… wears his glasses sideways. Whuh?
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