kjs2525 This is not your typical Hitchcock film, nor is it an easy film to follow and understand, but Topaz is a fantastic film! Took me many years of living and a few viewings over the decades to get it. Topaz is complicated, with a half a dozen McGuffins, tons of fascinating and intriguing international subplots, two parallel love stories, and an amazing cast of actors. After watching Hitch films for 50 years, and following the politics and spy craft of America, Cuba, Russia and France, all of which is needed to appreciate this film, for those who do their homework this film will be loved and seen as high quality Hitchcock with tremendous suspense and one awesome Hitchcockian murder scene. Visiting Cuba (yes - go!) and understanding the context of the geo politics in 1962, with respect to Russia, France and America will help greatly. My only fault with the film is the musical score which is subpar; a shame the great composer Bernard Herrmann was not able to work on this film. I will only say this: if you love Hitchcock and modern day geo politics you will love Topaz!

Hitchcoc Hitchcock ventures into politics in this spy drama and it doesn't really work to perfection. Part of the problem is that at this stage in his life, we had such incredible expectations for his movies. Here he thrusts us into the middle of the Cuban missile crisis, creating danger for the principles involved. The whole point is to find evidence of the wrong-doing of the communists and bring it to the world. A Castro like dictator is at the center and when things go wrong it costs people their lives. I think that the shortcoming here is dealing with newsworthy issues and contemporary history. I don't know that Hitchcock ever got that specific in any of his other movies. Obviously, he has done spy dramas before but they don't get into caricatures of political leaders.

sol- Set in the weeks leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, this Hitchcock thriller details the attempts of the CIA and France's intelligence agency to work out what Cuba is planning to do with their reported missiles. With a basis in real life events, 'Topaz' sounds interesting enough, however, the film was apparently a very troubled production full of scene rewrites, and this uneasiness is very visible. Calling the plot 'muddled' would be an understatement as the screenplay awkwardly tries to weave in espionage intrigue (what does the codeword 'topaz' mean?) with all the tension regarding Cuba. The most disappointing aspect of the film is, however, the characters and performances. There is not a single likable character who is engaging or interesting to follow around. Hitchcock reportedly disliked how two dimensional the antagonists in the source novel by Leon Uris were, and to his credit, John Vernon comes off relatively well as a Fidel Castro type, oozing danger yet never a caricature of evil, however, the fact Vernon is far more fascinating than protagonists Frederick Stafford and John Forsythe never feels right. The film is not, however, quite as worthless as some of its dissenters claim. There are several tense moments throughout, with a clear highlight being an exciting sequence in which the French try to get hold of a red briefcase full of secret documents; the opening defection is also nail-bitingly intense - but these solid bits are few and far between as the film relies far too heavily on dialogue for a movie where the characters are secondary to their actions.

MrOllie This is a Hitchcock film that "Got Away" as it is one of his films that few people seem to be aware of. It starts off OK with a Russian Official, along with his wife and daughter, attempting to defect to the Americans in Copenhagen. The Russian Defector tells the Americans that there is a French Spy ring codenamed "TOPAZ" who are passing NATO secrets to the Russians. He also states that the Russians are shipping materials into Cuba although he doesn't know what these materials are. John Forsythe who plays a CIA man then tells his friend in the French Secret Service who is played by Frederick Stafford. Stafford agrees to go to Cuba to find out what is going on. After his return he then attempts to track down the French spy ring. All this is taking place in 1962. As previously stated, the film starts off OK then chugs along, briefly coming back to life with a long scene in a New York Hotel which is full of Cubans. Finally, however, the film kinda stalls and by the end has sort of fizzled out. An interesting Hitchcock film, but not a memorable one.