Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Topaz Blu-ray Movie Review

"I've been shot... just a little."

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown November 11, 2012

A man confronts his accuser atop the Statue of Liberty, where one false move will spell death. A wolf in sheep's clothing allows the beast lurking within to bear its teeth. A housemaster slowly, oh so slowly, pieces together the heinous crime perpetrated by two former students. A woman searches for clues in a suspected murderer's apartment just as the man returns home. Four people work to keep the demise of a fellow smalltown resident a secret from a local deputy. An assassin's gun slides out from behind a curtain as an ordinary man races to thwart his plot. An airplane buzzes then roars past as a man dives for cover. The hiss of a shower masks the approach of a madman with a knife in his hand. Countless birds gather on a jungle gym as a woman smokes a cigarette nearby. A husband barges into his new wife's bedroom and has his way with her as she retreats into a near-catatonic state. A physicist discovers killing a man isn't as easy as it might seem, wrestling with his victim right up until the violent end. A purple dress billows out beneath a dying woman like spilled blood. A serial killer retrieves his pin from a woman's grasp, one dead finger at a time. A fake psychic tries to squirm out of a thief's vice-like grip as he pushes a syringe closer and closer. Be it drama, horror or comedy, psychological stunner, monster movie or international spy thriller, is it any mystery that filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock was known as the Master of Suspense? Is it any wonder his movies still hold hypnotic sway over filmfans all these years later?

An American CIA agent hires a French operative to investigate rumors of Russian missiles in Cuba...

Hitchcock lost control of Topaz early in its development; control he never regained. It's almost as if the fates aligned against the entire production, which turned out to be a run of bad luck that didn't escape the filmmaker. Hitchcock was miserable, the film never quite came together, and it was poorly received, bombing at the box office and failing to break even. What went wrong? It began with screenwriter Leon Uris, who delivered a script Hitchcock deemed unfilmable. The director hurriedly hired Vertigo scribe Samuel A. Taylor in response, but didn't set aside enough time for Taylor to write a full screenplay. Instead, the screenwriter was sometimes still pounding out pages just before a scene would shoot. It didn't end there. Without a billable cast to draw audiences, Topaz had to rely on its own unwieldy legs. But it was as bloated in 1969 as it is today. It isn't a complete failure, mind you. Hitchcock's visual flourishes are striking -- even though the plot drags, the intrigue fizzles and the suspense has trouble building and sustaining itself -- and the performances are functional, despite a lack of memorable characters and a penchant for thinly stretched drama. I'm admittedly tougher on Topaz than most, but only because Hitchcock is at the helm. The Master of Suspense doesn't produce anything masterful here, and I doubt its standing as one of the director's lesser films will ever be challenged.

Topaz Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Topaz and its 1080p/VC-1 encoded video transfer fare pretty well, especially compared to what follows: Frenzy, Family Plot and two of the most disheartening presentations in the Masterpiece Collection. Yes, Topaz is subject to some rather obvious digital manipulation -- noise reduction, edge enhancement et al -- but fine detail prevails on the whole, leading to a decently resolved image with crisp edges, able-bodied textures and revealing shadow delineation. Closeups are particularly satisfying too, mild halos or no, and little else underwhelms (minus the occasional shot or two). Colors are warm and pleasing (barring a few skintones that skew green), contrast is bright and consistent, black levels are perfectly deep, and encoding issues are few and far between. With very little in the way of print blemishes or damage to report, there aren't enough distractions to warrant any further criticism.

Topaz Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Topaz sounds even better thanks to a reliable and surprisingly robust two-channel DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track. Dialogue is clean and clear from beginning to end, without any distracting noise floor, reduction in clarity, dropouts or misprioritized voices. Gunshots, footfalls and physcial struggles deliver as well, lending power to the mix in ways I didn't expect. Maurice Jarre's score doesn't overpower or under-deliver either, seizing every opportunity and filling out the soundscape nicely. And while I wouldn't call it a mono masterwork, it is a decidedly solid experience that suits the film and everything it attempts to accomplish.

Topaz Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Topaz: An Appreciation (SD, 29 minutes): "In some ways I feel it's ungrateful of us to criticize Hitchcock at all." Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin all but apologizes for Topaz and Hitchcock's lesser '60s films, peeling back the complications and complaints surrounding the film's lack of familiar stars (minus John Forsythe), its departures from the director's traditional interests and style, the difficulties of adapting a best-selling novel, and other things Maltin attributes to the film's failure with audiences. It's an informative docu-pology, mind you, it just spends more time defending Topaz than dissecting it.
• Alternate Endings (SD, 6 minutes): Three alternate endings are included -- "The Duel," "The Airport" and "The Suicide" -- none of which are all that notable.
• Storyboards: The Mendozas (SD, 12 minutes): A storyboards-to-stills comparison reel.
• Production Photographs (SD, 6 minutes): Movie posters, vintage ads and production photos.
• Theatrical Trailer (SD, 3 minutes)

Topaz Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Topaz is, without hesitation, my least favorite film in the Alfred Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection. The director stopped short of disowning the picture, but it's clear he wasn't pleased with the results. It isn't a bad film per se; it's just subpar Hitchcock, and it doesn't deserve a place next to the likes of Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and other high caliber movies. Universal's solid AV presentation is much better, thankfully, and its supplemental package emerges as the only real disappointment. If I had to whittle the Masterpiece Collection down to fourteen films, though, Topaz would be the first to go.