Torn Curtain (1966) To our everlasting surprise, this middling, problematic Hitchcock film, his 50th, turned out as a box office hit for Universal studios.
Nowhere in sight was the grand, romantic melodramatic fervor that the director poured into 1964's "Marnie"...(and never would again, even in his better received final films "Frenzy" and "Family Plot".
And to the heartbreak of cinema lovers worldwide, nowhere in sight was a striking score by Hitchcock's greatest collaborator Bernard Herrmann. The director infamously fired him when Herrmann wouldn't deliver what Universal demanded, a more marketable, modern score.
Rest assured, we're not here to mount a defense of 'Torn Curtain'. Structurally, its verbose and tired. And though it boasts two movie superstars at the very heights of their careers, they bring nothing to the party but their own attendance. They mope through the film as if barely awake. You can almost hear them muttering to themselves, "are we done here yet?"
Universal mandated that Hitchcock use the box office powerhouse team of Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, which he deeply resented. He didn't bother trying to extract committed performances out of them and his two giant stars never get out of low gear. Newman retreated into a Method acting semi-coma and Andrews was left stranded to simply recite lines and pick up her check.
The script by novelist Brian Moore was a far-fetched overwritten mess and no amount of emergency re-writes and tinkering could save it. Newman plays a defense missile scientist who with the help of some 'Washington friends in high places' concocts a mission impossible for himself to pull off.
His ludicrous plan has him pretend to defect to communist East Germany to offer his services to complete an anti-missile rocket system, thereby ending nuclear war. What he really hopes to do is trick the communists' brilliant scientist (Ludwig Donath) into spilling the last part of the formula Newman couldn't crack so he can escape with it back to the West. This feat would depend entirely on happenstance, coincidence and pure blind luck. Yeah, right.
None of this sits well with his assistant-lover Andrews who doesn't know what he's up to. But she's so besotted with Newman, she defects right along with him, much to his surprise and chagrin. You're forced to swallow all this on faith, since there's nothing in Newman's and Andrews performances that conveys any of the churning emotions you'd expect from these plot developments.
On we go to East Berlin where Newman plays cat-and-mouse with Gromek (Wolfgang Kieling) the thuggish security guard assigned to him. That brings us to the film's one and only prime signature set-piece, the singular sequence that the entire film is remembered for. Cornered in a farmhouse Newman and a woman spy contact are forced to stab, beat and finally gas the struggling, gasping Gromek to a memorably grisly death.
The scene, detailing how hard it is to murder someone who'd rather stay alive, is brilliantly conceived and staged with a full measure of Hitchcock's dark humor. You can sense the director finally coming to life at last, along with a few other moments in the film.
And here's where we do start to recall the few bright spots on display. In a true Hitchcockian chase, Newman and Andrews go on the run in a bus disguised by resistance rebels to resemble the regular transport, complete with their own role-playing passengers.......except too many roadblocks and delays have allowed the real bus to slowly but surely catch up with them. Sadly, the suspenseful power of the scene is undercut by the poor, obvious rear projections outside the bus, indicative of Hitchcock's preferred reliance on soundstage artifice and never stepping outdoors into the real world.
That studied artifice, which worked so well in the overheated fever dream that was 'Marnie', sticks out awkwardly in 'Torn Curtain', which purports to deal with the brutal realities of the Cold War. But having said that, we still enjoy gazing on the meticulous matte paintings of Albert Whitlock that decorate and enhance Newman's silent foot chase through empty museums.
And we'll admit we cackled at the film's most crazy cornball effect.....the "aha!" freeze frames applied to Tamara Toumenova, playing an imperious Communist Bloc prima ballerina who recognizes Newman and Andrews hiding in a crowded theater where she's performing.
Incredibly, Hitchcock considered a twist with Newman tossing away the formula he's risked life and limb to obtain, rendering the entire adventure a nihilistic waste of time. But he got to use a variation of it in this next and most dismal thriller, 'Topaz'.
With that film, he'd finally hit rock bottom a true life spy story overpopulated with uninteresting characters, most of them played by equally uninteresting actors. After trying out unworkable alternate endings, he settled for someone reading a newspaper detailing the events depicted in the film.....and tossing it in nearby trash can. (An apt metaphor for what critics and audience thought of the film itself.....read our own take on it from 12/7/20)
As for 'Torn Curtain, what's left to say? Some bright spots, some good stuff (character actress Lila Kedrova in a showstopping little role, mainly because she's only performer in the entire film with a pulse.) And the replacement score by John Addison? Adequate at best......especially when compared with the immediate ominous themes of Herrmann's partially completed score, now available on CD and excerpts on the 'Torn Curtain' DVD special features.
Goes without saying that it's still a 'must watch' (at least once) for Hitchcock fans.....but who knows, others stumbling upon it might find all the above mentioned moments diverting enough.
2 stars (**).
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