Short Films

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Hitchcock in Colour

TOPAZ

• Director: Alfred Hitchcock
• USA / 1969 / DCP / Colour / 142’ / English; Turkish s.t.

• Screenplay: Samuel A. Taylor
• Original Work: Leon Uris
• Director of Photography: Jack Hildyard
• Editing: William H. Ziegler
• Music: Maurice Jarre
• Cast: Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, John Vernon, Karin Dor, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, Claude Jade
• Producer: Alfred Hitchcock
• Production Co.: Universal Pictures
• World Sales: Park Circus

1970 National Board of Review (USA) Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (P. Noiret)

Another Cold War film following Torn Curtain. An adaptation of Leon Uris’s espionage novel based on real events, Frederick Stafford plays a French agent who is caught up in between the incidents leading up to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Topaz is the first Hitchcock film that does not feature any A-list stars after he had lost his iconic faces one by one in the early 1960s. On the other hand, some French characters are played by actors such as Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, and Michel Subor. Moreover, Hitchcock’s use of colour, to the extent that certain characters are colour-coded and the narrative proceeds along colours as key factors is significant.

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.