Film Review
Torn Curtain, Alfred
Hitchcock's 50th film, is the one which is probably the director's
least regarded work, an all too obvious attempt to emulate the new wave
of spy thrillers that were emerging in the mid-1960s. It was
certainly one of Hitchcock's least commercially successful films, even
if it did turn a small profit. After the equally lukewarm
reception of
The Birds (1963) and
Marnie
(1964), the muted reaction to
Torn
Curtain merely reinforced a growing perception that Hitchcock
had had his day. Indeed, this may well have been the end of
Hitchcock's career had a certain Frenchman named François
Truffaut not decided to publish a book in 1967 that promoted Hitchcock
as one of the world's greatest living filmmakers.
Torn Curtain is a film very
much of its time, a Cold War spy thriller inspired by the defection of
two British civil servants, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, to Russia in
1951. It is best known for the horrific sequence in which the
lead character, assisted by a farmer's wife, kills a German police
chief with the paraphernalia of a farmhouse kitchen. Hitchcock
wanted to show how difficult it can be for one ordinary human being to
kill another, in stark contrast to the ease with which characters are
normally dispatched in spy films.
Unlike Hitchcock's other 1960s films, the criticisms levelled
against
Torn Curtain is
largely justified, and it is by far the least polished and least
enjoyable of his films. The film's failings are almost
entirely the result of difficulties that arose during its troubled
production. Whilst it has some strengths (notably the location
photography), it is hampered by weak dialogue, colourless performances
and some disappointing effects (excessive use of blue screen to avoid
location shoots).
Hitchcock resented having Julie Andrews and Paul Newman foisted on him
by his studio, and this experience led him never again to cast big name
actors in any of his subsequent films. Working with Newman was
particularly difficult, partly because the actor had grave misgivings
over the script, but mainly because his approach to his metier
(so-called Method Acting) was something that was completely at variance
with Hitchcock's somewhat stylised approach to filmmaking.
The result of this obvious miscast is that neither lead actor manages
to give a performance that is engaging or convincing, and without a
strong, sympathetic lead character, the film appears soulless.
The film's single biggest failing is its screenplay. The original
script was judged to be so poor that Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall
were called in to totally rewrite the dialogue. However, there
was not enough time to resolve all of the scripting issues since the
shooting dates were tightly constrained by the availability of the lead
actress. So, filming began with a script which had serious
deficiencies, where characters are undeveloped and clichéd and
the plot lacking in coherence and credibility.
There were also problems with the scoring of the film. Bernard
Herrmann, Hitchcock's long time collaborator, was originally hired, but
his score failed to meet the requirements of the studio or Hitchcock,
who were looking for something more upbeat and modern.
Herrmann was replaced with John Addison, who had recently won an Oscar
for his work on
Tom Jones
(1963). In retrospect, this was another mistake - Addison's score
lacks the subtlety of Herrmann's and in a few places tends to destroy
rather then build the tension.
Viewed today,
Torn Curtain is
the one film that Hitchcock made in Hollywood which looks the most
dated. Compared with similar thrillers of this era, it feels
characterless and looks poorly made. In contrast to his
contemporaries, Hitchcock would keep location shooting to an absolute
minimum, preferring to shoot exteriors on unconvincing studio sets
rather than go out on location. No film suffers more because of
this than
Torn Curtain. Try
watching the seemingly interminable sequence in the coach near the end
of the film without cringing or hitting the fast-forward button on your
DVD remote . The film has one or two moments of brilliance, but
overall watching it feels like spending a dreary winter month in East
Berlin at the height of the Cold War, in the company of people you just
can't wait to get away from.
© James Travers 2008
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Next Alfred Hitchcock film:
Topaz (1969)