Torn Curtain [PG]

World-famous scientist Michael Armstrong goes to Copenhagen with his assistant and fiancé, Sarah Sherman, to speak at an international congress of physics. Whilst there, Sarah innocently and by mistake picks up a secret message mean for Michael and suddenly it becomes apparent that there’s something strange going on. Concerned and curious, Sarah secretly follows Michael to East Berlin, behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ and discovers that Michael is defecting to East Germany. Or is he? 

I think it was after Marnie that Hitchcock movies lost their original flair and elegance. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing really that bad with this movie and it’s quite classic Hitchcock, I just think that his black and white classics are really the way to go. For me personally, it’s his dramatic thrillers and murder mysteries that are the ones to watch: the political thrillers and espionage movies just can’t coax me into really loving them. Having said that, Torn Curtain still manages to deliver the much-desired and expected signature Hitchcock thrills with plenty of action and suspense pockmarked with smatterings of dark comedy providing that needed respite. This is a fine film. 

World-famous scientist Michael Armstrong goes to Copenhagen with his assistant and fiancé, Sarah Sherman, to speak at an international congress of physics. Whilst there, Sarah innocently and by mistake picks up a secret message mean for Michael and suddenly it becomes apparent that there’s something strange going on. Concerned and curious, Sarah secretly follows Michael to East Berlin, behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ and discovers that Michael is defecting to East Germany. Or is he? 

At this late stage in his career, Hitchcock I think was running low on material for his films and as such reverted back to his pre-Psycho safeguards: spy thrillers. Torn Curtain sits as a Cold War thriller that is still quite complex in terms of narrative. We begin with a story that quickly mutates into another and then suddenly changes a third time. The film comes with a complete set of the Hitchcock collectables: a corpse, multiple plot lines, and abrupt plot twists. 

Aside from the odd close up that proves to be a little too obvious and even laughable when done in colour, Hitchcock allows the story to speak for itself rather than engage the audience with his delicious tricks in camera direction. As the story is quite engaging on its own, it’s fair to not hold this against the man and the interesting casting choices lift director and film that little bit out of the lurch. Our romantic leads are Paul Newman and Julie Andrews; two names that you wouldn’t really think would appear on a Hitchcock bill. Funnily enough, the two work quite well together with Julie being very womanly and in love, bringing this lovely honey-glaze of romanticism to the movie, and Paul actually doing quite well in that he never really gives anything away (unless he’s really panicking). 

Starring Lila Kedrova, Hansjoerg Felmy, Tamara Toumanova, Ludwig Donath, Wolfgang Kieling, Gunter Strack, David Opatoshu, Gisela Fischer, Mort Mills, and Carolyn Conwell, Torn Curtain is an engaging film filled with action, suspense, murder, deception, drama, romance, and comedy. There are quite a few memorable Hitchcock scenes, but it has to be said that the glory days of the Master of Suspense were waning down to a close by the late 60s.