Torn Curtain (1966)
Torn Curtain (1966), directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
When an American scientist defects to East Germany, his sorely perplexed fiancée follows and becomes tangled in cold war intrigue. Having gotten in, can they get out again?
This moves a bit better than I recall, but will never be ranked as top-shelf Hitchcock. Might it be a "B" rather than a "C"? I'm doubtful.
The problems:
Paul Newman is just not a Hitchcock star. He's fine with what he does, but lacks the wryness that brings life to the picture. Julie Andrews is actually better suited in her part.
It might have worked, in that Hitchcock seems to be trying something new here: a more dramatic, less ironic, realistic political thriller. It's not his genre, and he reverts to the darkly comic escape segment starting with the bus ride.
Not a lot of chemistry between the leads.
I remember the rear projection during the bus trip to be terrible; it doesn't seem that bad now. No worse than other instances. Hitchcock just didn't care about a higher degree of realism, although he did complain to Truffaut about the quality of those shots.
That little hill where the lovers reconcile: painfully bad.
The framing looks a bit off to me, but maybe he wanted a new look. He was without his long time cinematographer and the new guy worked mostly in TV and did some of the Hitchcock TV programs.
The strange, pathetic case of the Polish countess doesn't really fit. Does it? She reminds me of the farmer's wife in The 39 Steps (1935), in that she needs rescuing and it's not going to happen.
Bernard Herrmann is sorely missed for the score. He and Hitchcock had a blow-up and never worked together again.
Good bits: the famous difficult murder in the farmhouse. The "cunning plan gone wrong" is always tension-inducing. The suspense in the theater as the police arrive is well done.
Hitchcock was not happy with the stars or the script. It was a troubled production.
Available on Blu-ray.
