daoldiges I'm in the midst of a Hitchcock retrospective at MoMA and always enjoy seeing lesser appreciated/renowned Hitchcock films on the big screen. As such I was very curious to see Torn Curtain for many reasons: the unusual casting of Newman and Andrews for a Hitch film, Andrews his first non-blond leading lady and Newman having come from the 'method' acting background. Hitch didn't really want to use either but the producers were set on big name stars in this film and you couldn't get much bigger than Andrews in 1966. Also because longtime collaborator Bernard Herman does not provide the score for this film. On those two points, there is not a lot of chemistry between the two leads. They both do a fine job but no spark. The score is oddly upbeat for a spy/thriller and does nothing to enhance the action and suspense of the film. This last point is a real shame because Hitchcock's film scores are usually so strong. Despite these shortcomings though I have to admit that I really enjoyed Torn Curtain. I think the film looks very good and there are some beautifully composed scenes. The supporting characters are all well conceived, interesting, and memorable. And yes, there are a couple intense and memorable scenes that only Hitchcock would attempt. If Torn Curtain ever comes to the big screen near you, check it out.

SnoopyStyle Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman) is a physicist and Sarah Sherman (Julie Andrews) is his assistant/fiancée. The government had rejected his work on an anti-missile defense. They're in Norway for a conference. He tells her that he's going to Stockholm but she finds out that he's actually going to East Berlin. She follows him there. To her shock, he declares that he is defecting to the east once they arrived.Alfred Hitchcock had already achieved greatness when this movie opened. The problem with this movie is that it fails to reach the same heights. This is a rather bland unoriginal espionage movie. It feels like a script from the maybe pile. The dialogue has no sting. There is no shock value. I never bought Armstrong's defection. The long kill of the East German Stasi agent is pretty good but it still lacks realism. It's a run-of-the-mill thriller from somebody who should have done better.

Red-Barracuda In the 1960's the tensions of the Cold War ensured that the spy genre was at the height of its popularity both in films and on TV. After the financial failure of Marnie (1964), Alfred Hitchcock chose to play it safer and moved away from the complex psychological aspects of that film and into the more populist, less ambiguous spy thriller territory with his next two films Torn Curtain and Topaz (1969). Unfortunately, the decision did not pay off, as both of those were equally as unsuccessful at the box office as the darker, less straightforward Marnie. For me, Marnie is easily the best of Hitchcock's three 60's box office bombs but of the two spy thrillers, Torn Curtain is superior to Topaz. It's less flabby and more concise, yet both films share a similar characteristic where they begin very well but lose their way somewhat in their final third. With Torn Curtain, the initial set-up is somewhat intriguing and paced very well; it also includes a classic Hitchcock scene where a man and a woman kill a communist security agent in a farmhouse in a particularly protracted an messy fashion, going against cinematic norms and illustrating the sheer difficulty of killing someone. But psychological edginess is eventually disregarded and the plot essentially mutates into a chase movie which is a bit of a let-down considering the potential that has been put in place in the set-up.Its story has an American nuclear physicist defect to East Germany but finds his situation complicated when his fiancé follows him. This one is also typified by featuring two actual mega-stars of its day in Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. It has to be said though that neither of them seem to be at their best here and their performances almost feel a bit forced. Seemingly Hitchcock did not work well with method actor Newman and this clash of styles could be at least partially responsible for the uneasy feeling on-screen. Torn Curtain is hardly a disaster though as it does contain some great moments and benefits from a very polished look. And in fairness, even though it is somewhat routine, it's no less so that a few of Hitchcock's earlier more lauded thrillers. I do feel though that this director is at his best when he is working with material with more psychological edginess, as opposed to the more straightforward suspense embodied in Torn Curtain. It's a solid but unspectacular affair.

rangeriderr Take two outstanding stars; add a handful of top notch character actors; a celebrated director, and you should have a first rate film. Instead, you have wooden performances by Newman and Andrews. Add to it backgrounds that are so unrealistic looking that they are obviously Hollywood stages with artificial lighting and uncreative photography.Worst of all is the plot. The so-called excitement or tension predominantly arises from an unbelievably stupid slip-up by Newman. He draws the mathematical symbol for Pi in the sand of a farmhouse to indicate to a non-English speaking German woman the purpose of his visit. She then introduces him to his contact, but he doesn't erase the symbol with his foot, which any idiot would do, no less a supposedly brilliant scientist.As a result, the East German surveillance bad guy sees the symbol, so he has to be bumped off, and all the subsequent chases derive from this single piece of Newman's stupidity. I would have thought that a film late in Hitchcock's career would have had more substance, and from all standpoints, been creatively better. I skimmed through parts of it, since the dialogue was pretty uninspired and there wasn't much to miss.