Hey, Girl. Hauer You Doin'?: The Osterman Weekend (1983)

I can hardly believe this month is nearly over and this should be the last of Hey, Girl. Hauer You Doin'? I’ve had a great time with Rutger, and we've seen him ride across fantasy landscape with a bad case of ornithophilia, be menaced by a brat packer turned cyber bully, and hunt a rapper in Oregon while accompanied by Ghandi. If there's one thing that can certainly be said about Mr. Hauer, his career has been as varied as the scope of cinema. This week's selection is no exception. Not only is it the last film of a great.... or once great director; The Osterman Weekend is a prescient film that missed its audience during its original release but speaks to today's society awash with surveillance. It was also Rutger's big stab for mainstream leading man credibility. Coming out directly after his well received performance in Bladerunner, the adaptation of spy writer Robert Ludlum's novel seemed a perfect choice for the star. However, just like the world his character enters, the mechanizations behind the scenes proved to be his undoing.

Hitch on the Hump: Secret Agent (1936)

An English spymaster with a single letter name is briefing his agent, whose death has been faked, on his dangerous mission. He tells him there will be beautiful women, exotic locations, and unusual contacts, but his mission is one that will benefit crown and country. Along the agent’s path he will encounter beautiful women and treacherous double dealers, but he’s got a mission to kill and he intends to see it through no matter how distasteful it may be. If you think I was describing any number of adventures by Ian Fleming’s British secret agent James Bond, then you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. While 007’s adventures often contained all of these points, today, of course, I am talking about Hitchcock and more specifically his 1936 film Secret Agent.

This was Hitchcock’s third spy oriented film in a row, after The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps, and this time he turned to W. Somerset Maugham’s novel Ashenden: Or the British Secret Agent for inspiration. Maugham, best known for his novel Of Human Bondage, served in World War I as an intelligence officer and modeled the stories contained in Ashenden on his own experiences. For his film Hitchcock settled on two stories from the novel, “The Traitor” and “The Hairless Mexican”, and along with a stage adaptation by Campbell Dixon, a script was culled together by frequent Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett (Blackmail, The 39 Steps, Foreign Correspondent, etc.). As usual, and much to the consternation of Bennett, after the script was finished Hitchcock invited writers Ian Hay and Jesse Lasky Jr. (the future scribe behind The Ten Commandments) to punch up the dialog.

As the film begins we are introduced to writer Edgar Brodie (John Gielgud) who has just returned from the front lines of World War I to find that his death has been widely reported in the British press. The head of the secret service, ‘R’, informs Brodie that his name is now Ashenden and he has been recruited to fulfill a mission for the crown to kill a suspected spy. Actually, he doesn’t even have to do the killing himself, but rather guide Mexican assassin ’The General’ (Peter Lorre) to the subject and let him do his work. The pair arrives in Switzerland to meet Elsa (Madeleine Carroll) who is posing as Ashenden’s wife, and together they determine who the spy must be. Unfortunately, they knock off the wrong man, and Ashenden soon finds himself in a desperate race to save Elsa from the real culprit. This leads him on a wild chase through first a Swiss chocolatier’s factory and then on a trail packed full of opposition forces.

While Secret Agent signaled a continuation of Hitchcock’s fascination with espionage, it also might be his most unsuccessful attempt at a spy thriller. Where Robert Donat was a dashing figure in The 39 Steps and John Leslie perfectly fit the part of the everyman caught up in international affairs in The Man Who Knew Too Much, John Gielgud’s reluctant spy remains cold, distant, and unknowable to the audience. While his hard nature predicts the cold, aloof character of James Bond, it is not tempered with 007’s off the cuff humor or sexuality. In fact one of the most awkward scenes in Secret Agent comes when Gielgud and Carroll have to face “the morning after”. While Hitchcock stacked his film with interesting set pieces, especially in the climax of the film, the production was marred by a lack of chemistry and connection between his lead actors.

Gielgud was no fan of the film world anyway. As Patrick McGilligan pointed out in his Hitchcock biography, “The medium gave him [sic. Gielgud] shivers; he hated the endless waiting around for lighting setups, and the discontinuous filming of facial expressions and bits of dialog.” Hitchcock finally convinced the stage actor to take a lead at the screen by describing Ashenden as “another Hamlet, only in modern dress”. The reluctant actor agreed, but his reservations carry through onto the screen adding to the reserved, cold nature of his character. Hitchcock had originally planned to reunite 39 Steps co-stars Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll in the lead roles, but when Donat proved to be unavailable, he had to settle for just his leading lady. Carroll, who had little to do in 39 Steps, is here given a much bigger part, but due to her lack of chemistry with the leading man, there is little she could do with the part.

While I might seem like I had little fun with the performances on display in Secret Agent, nothing could be further from the truth. While Gilgud and Carroll perform their romantic pantomime on the screen, the bulk of the film was stolen by Peter Lorre. The German actor had settled in Hollywood after his performance in The Man Who Knew Too Much, wowing audiences with his performances in films such as Mad Love and Crime and Punishment. However, he readily returned to work with Hitchcock who had envisioned the diminutive actor in the role from the very beginning of scripting (even calling naming ‘The General’ Peter in an early script). Though the actor, under a mane of curled hair and a makeup to darken his skin, performs his whole part with an accent that could only be described as Boys from Brazil-esque, he easily is the best part of the film. From his ceaseless flirtations to his casual but strange asides, his performance is magnetic.  This is true even though his addiction to morphine had grown quite strong at the time. So much so that Gaumont, the production company, had to set up injections or the actor was prone to sneak off and make allowances for himself.

Secret Agent is a rare misstep in Hitchcock’s 1930’s output (one he would rectify the same year with Sabotage), and the director later even admitted to regrets about the material feeling he had never conquered it fully. Visually, the film is a solid effect although without any of the technical innovations so often present in Hitchcock’s work. (There is impressive use of miniatures and in camera editing tricks, but nothing the director had not tackled before.) Secret Agent is an enjoyable film that never rises above average to stack up against classics like The 39 Steps. It is however a very interesting window into an early film representation of the British spy,which less than thirty years later, when Dr. No was released,  would become the litmus test against which spy films would be measured. While John Gielgud proves himself to be no Sean Connery, Hitchcock once again shows that he had an eye for what would work if not how to make it work at the time.

That wraps it up for this week, but come on back next Wednesday for the first of two special posts this month when Hitch on the Hump becomes Guests on the Hump. My first guest is the awesome Christine Makepeace of Paracinema magazine, and I can’t wait to see what she has in store for all of us!

Bugg Rating

Secret Agent is in the public domain so I am happy to be able to link it here in its entirety. 

Ladies Night Presents: Never Too Young To Die (1986): Double-O Stamos!

Once a Month, T.L. Bugg takes a day off and hands the keys of the Lair over to his lovely wife, Miss Directed, and best friend, Fran Goria. The Ladies of the Lair take this chance to shine a spotlight on some of the best and worst films out there, and you never know what might happen when it's Ladies Night!

Never too Young to Die (1986) Director: Gil Bettman. Writers: Steven Paul, Stuart Paul. Starring: John Stamos, Vanity, Gene Simmons, and George Lazenby.

Drew Stargrove (Lazenby) is a top notch, secret agent (does this sound familiar to any one else?). He is in possession of a top secret 5 1/4” floppy diskette full of all the government information needed to poison the city's water supply. Velvet Von Ragner (Simmons) is a psychotic, hermaphroditic crime lord (it could happen) who wants the diskette to, well, poison the city's water supply. Ragner kills Stargrove in an attempt to obtain said diskette. Now it is time for Stargrove’s high school gymnast son, Lance (Stamos), to team up with dad’s old partner, Danja Deering (Vanity, yes really), to bring Ragner to justice and save the day.

TIDBITS

- Bettman’s biggest claim to fame was the documentary The Long Road To Cabo (2003). He went on tour with Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth, and with no Van Halen in sight.

- Writer Steven Paul was nominated for a Razzie award in 2005 for his work on Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2005).

- Stuart Paul’s alias is Q. Mark.

- In 1980, Lynda Carter covered the Kiss song “I Was Made for Loving You, Baby” for a TV special. During the number, Carter was dressed as a female Kiss member. In Never Too Young To Die, Gene Simmons wore the same outfit for the musical number “It Takes a Man Like Me To Be a Woman Like Me”, YEAH!

Ok, I know what everybody is thinking, “Fran, I didn’t know that you covered nonfiction in your reviews! I saw this story on the news just last week.” Well, don’t be fooled by the realness of the plot, it is just an eighties movie. I do, however, love it when a movie is ripped from the headlines, so to speak. I often turn on the news and see an item on roving bands of Mad Max (and Beyond Thunderdome) extras, following their hermaphrodite, hell bent on world domination, gang leader, who is hunting high and low for an elusive 5 1/4” floppy disk, in order to poison the water supply of some city or other. Luckily, there is always a high school gymnast around to save the day with his Mullet of Glory. Wait…what? That hasn’t happened? But, it all seemed so real. I have stocked up on bottled water and hairspray already! Oh well, maybe some other catastrophe will happen on a sea full of bad hair.

This is one of the best terrible movies I had never heard of. As a matter of fact, if it were not for a Facebook friend posting a clip (thanks Barloff!), I still would never have heard of it. Most of the major players don’t talk about it. It’s that dirty little secret everyone wishes would go away. It is quite difficult to find any noteworthy information on the movie. When I watched the clip, I knew it was gold. I immediately called T.L. and told him to make it happen; and he did. One used VHS with no cover later; I was once again a happy girl.

First of all, I would like to talk about my personal favorite part of the movie, Gene Simmons. His character, Velvet Von Ragner, the hermaphrodite lounge singer/ gang leader with delusions of grandeur, was AWESOME! I can’t say that his acting skills were great, but anybody who read the synopsis can probably tell this role really needed to go over the top. Boy did it ever. Simmons really gave his all for this part (tucked and everything). And, his musical number was just the tops, baby! Watching him run in heels, makes me feel better about all heel mishaps I have ever had. Gene Simmons was just great, he was completely entertaining and funny and a joy to watch.

John Stamos, well, it really depends on the angle as to whether he did a good job or not. Let me explain. I felt he was totally believable as a mullet having, gymnastics suit wearing high school student. However, as a debonair, world saving, action hero…not so much. Don’t get me wrong, I dig the Stamos. Every time I watch a Chris Seaver film, I look for the famous Stamos pic, but I would not call him a great actor. Never Too Young to Die was pre-Full House, so he had yet to make soccer moms the world over weak in the knees. The wardrobe from this movie did not get him there any faster. White, high waisted, pleated slacks and a blue mesh half shirt do not look good on anybody. While we are at it, tight acid washed jeans, with matching jacket and giant white sneakers does not say action hero at all, teen of the eighties maybe, but not action hero. This definitely was not a sexy look, but his character landed a spy. When you’re thinking about Stamos’ Stargrove, you also have to consider the out of place love story that is borderline statutory (Lance was a high school student), but hey, I guess he was such a cool guy that the age and the clothes didn’t matter.

Vanity, she was a model, she was Prince’s protégé, and she was in an all female musical group called Vanity 6. Now her life is filled with, and devoted to, Christ’s love. Yep, that’s right, she went from Prince to Jesus, but somewhere along the way, she stopped to make Never Too Young To Die. She played a spy named Danja, which rhymes with ganja, which I suspect was the involved in the conception of this movie. Vanity, with her poorly delivered dialogue, did not convince me that she was a spy. In case any one is interested, Vanity’s wardrobe was not any better then Stamos’. As a matter of fact, all of the clothes were bad, except for Velvet’s, those were fabulous.

The best actor in the movie was George Lazenby. Even he went overboard with his character, but it was easy to see the talent (even though he was my least favorite Bond). Unfortunately, he was only in the first part of the movie. Another underused actor was the one and only Mr. Robert Englund. That’s right, Freddy himself was Ragner’s top scientist. Just don’t blink, because he only appears twice and speaks one line.

I hope I have not swayed anybody from watching Never Too Young To Die. It is a must see for anybody who likes entertainment. It is also a great background piece for casual gatherings. I liked this movie so much that I cannot wait to see it again. All of the bad things I mentioned earlier are exactly why I like it so much. I highly recommend this movie, um…unless one requires substance in films. I do not, and I thought it was hella good.

Stamos Rating

You have to be a special kind of person to know what September 18, 1983 meant for the world of entertainment. Any member of the KISS army can tell you, that date marked the start of a dark time in the band's history. As their albums started to go gold again, the fan base started to wonder what happened to the band many had built their life around. By this time the album Music from “The Elder” happened, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss were so disenchanted all they bothered to do was show up for the pictures and cash the checks. Then on September 18th the fans had gathered around their T.V. and found out Gene Simmons was no demon at all. He did not look like he wanted to Rock and Roll All Nite (or Party Every Day). Without his makeup on, he just looked like some dude that would have a hard time getting a girl's phone number.

It only took three more years to get Gene back in makeup. Unfortunately for KISS fans, when he did, it was less creature of the night, and more walker of the street when he stared as Velvet Van Ragner in Never Too Young To Die. For his character, the film makers went way past sweet transvestite, all the way to creepy evil hermaphrodite. Now Gene Simmons isn’t the kind of guy that is easily lead, and I have to assume he read this script. I have to believe he thought, "yep, this is a good career move". Well, he had been wrong before. Watching Never Too Young To Die is a rollercoaster. From the very beginning, I got the feeling this was a movie with something to say. The problem is I think they might have been saying it in a language I don’t know.

The story of Lance Stargrove, played by the John Stamos, starts in his high school gym. The back drop sets the film up perfectly to make fun of homophobic stereotypes. I started to get the feeling this could be my kind of film when the Stamos takes the jocks down a peg or two. Then bikes and transvestites get added into the mix, but I think I’m still with you guys, sally forth. Things get a little shaky when Vanity made her first appearance on screen. It took me a second to realize it wasn't Padma Lakshmi from Top Chef, and then, sure, I back on board. By the time Stamos starts to talk about society and its woes, I have given up trying. Some where along the way, I go from being a grown woman, to a child of the 80’s. If I had to sum up this film for a friend it might be, “Uncle Jesse from Full House and Prince's girl friend try to save the world from Gene Simmons and the extras from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.”

It’s like they took a whole decade, put it in a blender and pushed puree. On no level can this movie be called good, but it is entertaining. I found it so hard not to laugh uncontrollably, I had to be careful when I drank my coke. If you are going to watch this movie, get as many people as you can together to do so. I don’t know if it would be as good otherwise.

Stamos Rating

There is a trailer you can find on YouTube, but it's only 30 seconds and doesn't really give much of a feel for the film. Instead here are a couple of clips from the film to give you folks a taste.

Kriminal (1966): Mr. Lenzi's Kool Kaper

When people talk Italian genre films, some names rise to the top like Argento, Fulci, Martino, and Bava. Then there are the names that come up much less frequently like Soavi, Mattai, and Umberto Lenzi. We’re here to talk about the latter of those three fellows today. Lenzi is probably best known for his films The Man from Deep River, Eaten Alive!, and Cannibal Ferox, but there is far more to Mr. Lenzi than just a trio of cannibal films. Like so many of his contemporaries, he dabbled in all kinds of genres in his thirty-eight year directing career. From westerns to giallo to Euro-crime and sword and sandals, Lenzi was a director who never met a cinematic trend that he didn’t like. In the late sixties, with the advent of the James Bond films, nothing was hotter than spy films, and Lenzi wasn’t about to let that trend get past him either. That's how we got his 1966 crime/spy/action film Kriminal.

Based on a popular Italian comic book (or fumetti for sticklers for accuracy) by Max and Magnus Bunker, Kriminal (Glenn Saxson) is a master thief who is always looking for the next big score. As the film begins, he’s about to be executed, but he escapes the hanging and soon is hot on the trail of a shipment of diamonds that has already been reported stolen. Hot on his trail is Scotland Yard’s Inspector Milton (Andrea Bosic) who suspects Kriminal of being the culprit in the first place. As the master thief begins to track down the goods he must use a variety of disguises (including a full body skeleton suit) to outwit double crosses, seduce a bevy of vivacious ladies, and get his hands on the jewels.

Predating Mario Bava’s film Danger: Diabolik by two years, Kriminal paved the way for the oddball heroes of fumetti to make their way to the screen. With it’s stylized settings, jet setting locales, and fast paced action, Lenzi’s film doesn’t seem to stray far from what little I have seen of the source comic. There are apparently some differences. Notable the skeleton costume has been changed for the film, but not being very familiar with the material, it didn’t bother me one bit. In fact, my only problem with the skeleton costume was that there wasn’t nearly enough of it. Kriminal is very cartoonish around the edges, but it never steps over the line into pure camp. For this reason, the film works on a superhero level as well as mining the Euro-crime/spy vein.

When Kriminal is not sneaking around looking like a more macabre version of Slim Goodbody (if you don’t know who that is then you’re not over 30), then he is a rakishly handsome blonde haired fellow played by Glenn Saxson. Saxson, who hails from the Netherlands, perfectly fit’s the role of the seductive playboy. He also handles his stunts well, plays the comedic moments with aplomb, and does it all without one hair out of place. Kriminal was his most widely hailed role, though he did appear as Django in Alberto De Martino’s Django Shoot First, and Saxson would return to the role two years later in 1968’s Il marchio di Kriminal. Lenzi however did not return, and the film was instead directed by Fernando Cerchio and Nando Cicero.

Kriminal also features a pair of lovely ladies. Now the fact that they’re played by the same person is splitting hairs. Helga Liné plays both Inge and Trudy, identical looking ladies employed to smuggle diamonds. They end up being the linchpin of the narrative, and Liné does a good job differentiating the pair with her performance. There’s a bevy of other lovely ladies that move through Kriminal’s life, and while they are all lovely, they seem more disposable than a secondary Bond girl. The only other lady that left an impression was Esmerelda Ruspoli as Lady Gold. She was quite a character, and her seduction of Kriminal proves that cougars have been around a lot longer than people give them credit for.

The weakest part of the film was Andrea Bosic’s performance as Inspector Milton. He is supposed to be Kriminal’s arch rival, but I never felt that Milton could do anything but stumble around in the thief’s wake. I really wanted a strong presence from Kriminal’s nemesis, someone who was completely square but just as ready to go into action. Milton was anything but. Thankfully, Milton is not really the villain of the piece. That honor goes to Ivano Staccioli as Alex Lafont. He provides a ratlike equal to the debonair Kriminal, and I found him a very interesting actor to watch. I’ll definitely be looking to see more of his work, and if anyone knows where I can get his 1972 film Revelations of a Sex Maniac to the Head of the Criminal Investigation Division, let me know, I have to see any film that rivals Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have The Key for titular wordiness.

Before I sign off I have to mention the man who made the lush stylish look of the film possible, Angelo Lotti. Having to keep up with subtitles and drinking in all the depth of style and color on display often ended up being at odds with each other, but it just means I’m going to have to watch it again to see it all. This will also give me a chance to hear the groovy, groovy score laid down by Romano Mussolini. How this guy only ended up with four credits to his name is beyond me. This film swings and swings hard. Maybe he didn’t have it in him to produce another score this swinging and maybe it was frowned on to hire the son of Benito Mussolini, but whatever the reason, his score is the icing on the cake of Kriminal.

It’s been quite a while since I had a chance to see Bava’s Danger: Diabolik, so I won’t attempt to compare the two. Even so, I seem to recall Bava’s film being a stylish affair with a fairly simple narrative. Lenzi’s Kriminal is extremely stylized, but plot is pretty dang complex. That’s my main problem with the film. Now it could be that the sub-titles didn’t do the story justice, but I found myself more than a bit confused during the film. Other than that, there are really not any major flaws with the film. The only other bad thing about this one is it’s not easily available in the United States, but as usual, I have a tip for that. Go on over and grab it from the Bugg’s good friends Cinema de Bizarre, and check out the adventures of one smooth Kriminal. Hey, at least I waited until the end to put in the crap joke!

Bugg Rating

I couldn't find a trailer or clip from this one except this one of the opening credits. It doesn't show you much of what the film looks like, but the music and style will surely give you a little bit of the vibe.

Hitch on the Hump: Torn Curtain (1966)

Alfred Hitchcock was a director who knew what he wanted. He wanted scripts to be just to his liking. He wanted actors to show up and do their jobs. He wanted a score to say just what it should. Unfortunately, 1966’s Torn Curtain accomplished very little of this for the very particular director. Some of Hitch’s frustrations with the film come through on the screen, but he still managed to craft an espionage story that neither reflected his earlier forays into the genre or those of his peers. Torn Curtain is a spy story that reflects neither the glamour nor the intrigue, but rather casts its gaze on the human toll that covert activities can have on the people involved.

As the film opens, Professor Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman) and his fiancée Sarah Sherman (Julie Andrews) are on route to a physics conference in Copenhagen. Michael did not want his wife-to-be to accompany him, but she insisted and was puzzled why her beau would not want her along. Once they arrive in Copenhagen, she remains baffled by his furtive nature as she sees him obtain plane tickets and secret away with a mysterious book that he has ordered. When he tells her that he has to make a trip to Stockholm, Sweden, she follows him and discovers that his destination lies behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. To her surprise, Armstrong, a nuclear physicist who had recently been spurned by the U.S. government, has plans to defect to the socialist nation and give them his work on a missile defense system. It soon becomes clear there is more to Armstrong’s plan, and the couple is soon deeply lodged in a plan to steal away an important formula from the Germans.

The idea for the film first came to Hitchcock when he learned of two British diplomats, Burgess and McLean, who defected to the Soviets in 1951 after years of feeding the Russians sensitive information. What fascinated Hitchcock was not the defection itself, but rather “What did Mrs. McLean think of the whole thing?” The script was originally written by Brian Moore, an Irish novelist who specialized in thrillers, and he had quite the opinion on communists. In WWII, Moore saw action in Italy, France, and a two year stint in Poland where he discovered that “Communism there was a totalitarian society.” His script was rejected by Hitchcock who brought in screenwriters Hall and Waterhouse to doctor the script. They did extensive rewrites on the script and Hitchcock felt it changed enough to give the two screen credit, but Moore disagreed and the Screenwriter’s guild backed him up giving Moore sole screen credit much to Hitchcock’s dismay.

It would not be the last time Hitchcock was to be dismayed by a part of his film. He originally intended the leads in the film to be played by Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, who he had previously worked with in North by Northwest. Grant bowed out of the part stating that he was on the brink of retirement and too old for the role. The studio forced Andrews on Hitch, and the casting rushed the production into starting before he script was completely polished due to Andrews’s limited availability.

Paul Newman was quite the established actor by 1966 with the films The Hustler (1961) and Hud (1963) already in his résumé, but his most iconic roles in 1967’s Cool Hand Luke and the classic 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid still lay ahead of him. Newman was fully in the throes of being a “Method” actor in the mid-60’s and it proved to be quite the irritant to Hitchcock who was used to the older school of actors like James Stewart and Cary Grant who were more natural actors. Newman often wanted to consult the director on his character’s motivations which Hitchcock simply replied, “your salary is your motivation.” In the Truffaut interviews Hitchcock stated, “he [Newman] found it hard to give me one of those neutral looks I needed to cut from his point of view”. Newman himself found the filming of Torn Curtain to be a challenge, and later stated that “I think Hitch and I could have really hit it off, but the script kept getting in the way.” Although Newman’s performance is typically solid, there are moments in the film where it seems apparent that the direction and the actor were going different places with the scenes.

On the other hand, I feel that Julie Andrews was terribly miscast as the suspicious fiancée who later becomes a partner in Armstrong’s plot. Before Torn Curtain, Andrews had come to a great degree of success in a couple of family oriented pictures, The Sound of Music (1965) and the classic 1964 Mary Poppins. While I am no big fan of the adventures of the Von Trapp family, Mary Poppins is a childhood favorite of mine. Andrews never returned to the thriller genre, and it was probably for the best. Audiences at the time had quite the problem with Andrews in the “racy” scenes included in Torn Curtain, but while I find Andrews to be no stunning beauty, it is hard to believe that these rather tame scenes contributed to the film’s poor reception. Andrews was a poor substitute for the type of women who usually dominated Hitchcock’s films. Rather than look concerned or scared, Andrews spends most of the film with a look that reads more confused than anything.

The first third of the film is shot primarily from her point of view, and Hitchcock even admitted that it was the weakest part of the film stating by the time that the fiancée learns of Armstrong’s destination behind the Iron Curtain “the audience is already ahead of us.” However he wanted to open the film with some sense of mystery to avoid the film devolving into a James Bond style “man who has been given a mission” film. Instead moving that plot point into the middle part of the film. Hitchcock felt the film worked naturally in thirds with the plot taking a “natural geographical course.” Before filming began, Hitchcock took the same journey himself going from Copenhagen, to East Berlin, to Leipzig, back to East Berlin, and finally to Sweden.

If the film has one other performance worth mentioning, it comes from Wolfgang Keiling as Armstrong’s “escort” Gromek. The veteran German actor gave Gromek the perfect kind of beneath the surface menace needed for the part, but as good as his acting is, his death is the standout scene in the movie. Hitch wanted the scene to demonstrate “it was very difficult, very painful, and it takes a long time to kill a man.” For the time, it does unfold in brutal manner with Newman and his accomplice having to dispatch Gromak by using anything in his surroundings including a kettle full of soup, a shovel, and when all else has failed, a gas oven. Gromak’s final moments with his hands and fingers waving in the air before he subsides make the scene impact with a realism rarely seen in mainstream film of the mid-60’s, and it gives Torn Curtain a cinematic moment of brutality in what is otherwise a subdued film. The scene also gets a great strength from the lack of any musical accompaniment. With only the grunts of the struggle between the two men to punctuate the scene, it gives the moment a dramatic tension that an overwrought piece of music could have proved detrimental.

Torn Curtain would also mark the last collaboration between Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann. The film was completely scored, and both Universal Pictures and Hitchcock felt that they wanted something more upbeat with pop and jazz influences. It seems that Universal even had some hopes that Herrmann would write a song for star Julie Andrews. While Herrmann deferred from writing a song, he did acquiesce and revise his score, but even then it was not the liking of the studio or the director. Herrmann and Hitchcock would never work together again after the director brought in John Addison to rescore the film.

Addison was very popular at the time having scored the hit film Tom Jones (1963), and he would go on to work for many years with his most recognizable composition probably being the theme to the series Murder She Wrote. To me Addison’s score was fine, but I find it hard to believe that Hermann, who has written so many memorable scores, would have done a lesser job. After hearing some of the rejected tracks I do think I would have changed the film considerably. Considering the best moment in the film is devoid of music, perhaps even Hitch knew that he still didn’t have the proper music for his film. (Down below you can check out the death of Gromak scene with Herrmann's score intact. )

Instead of working with frequent collaborator Robert Burks, Hitchcock chose cinematographer John F. Warren for Torn Curtain. Warren and Hitch had worked together on two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1955, and the vast majority of Warren’s credits are from television although they do include 1958’s The Colossus of New York and the 1957 film Daughter of Dr. Jekyll. Considering he had little film experience, I rather liked the framing of many of his shots. Both the scenes of Armstrong slipping his “escort” in a museum and the filming of a ballet could be put up there with any of the well shot footage in Hitchcock’s oeuvre.

Hitchcock considered the film a major change in his style and described it by saying, “The lighting projected against big white surfaces. We shot the whole film through a grey gauze. The actors kept on asking, “Where are the lights?” We almost achieved the ideal, you know, shooting with natural lights.” The film does have a very naturalistic tone which suits the tale of real people caught up in an extraordinary situation. However, the film suffers from some very clunky shots of rear projection, and some of the locales looked a bit too much like sets to create the proper realistic illusion. I know some of it is the product of its time, but the two hour film could have been cut down quite a bit and some of those lesser portions are what needed to be trimmed.

As usual, Hitchcock delivers a film that encapsulates some original ideas and has a flavor that is unlike most espionage films. The film overstays its welcome with too long a running time, and the troubled production shines through in spots. Torn Curtain has moments of inspired filmmaking contained in it, but stacked up against his catalog, Hitchcock did not deliver another classic. Instead, Torn Curtain is no more than an average film. If you’re interested in seeing the majority of Alfred’s films, as I am, then it’s worth taking a look at. Otherwise, Hitchcock has done spy stories elsewhere in his career which are better, and more entertaining, films.

Bugg Rating

Here's a little bonus with a selection from Herrmann's rejected score. I chose to show the clip of the death of Gromak because it changes the tone of of the scene so much. The silence is what really sold that part of the film, but Herrmann's score is not without it's charms.