Torn Curtain
|
List Price: Our Price: $9.29 You Save: $10.69 (54%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $6.69 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Torn Curtain
Movie Review: One of Hitchcock's films that has aged badly
Summary: 4 Stars
Hitchcock was not brilliantly inspired with this film, even and maybe especially in 1966. It is true it was a very deep period in the Cold War, but because the trap of a war the US were already largely engaged in and involved in, the Vietnam War, was literally starting to shake the whole world with horror and to menace that world on its very basis after the sigh of relief we all let out after the Cuban missile crisis. So Hitchcock had to do a cold war film, so what, and he chose the easiest target he could find, East Germany, though that was rather easy, but even if it was easy it did not take him away from the good old European or Western tradition he would have lost if he had gone further East, and then he would have been lost in translation. And at the same time we feel there is at least one tongue in one cheek, and I would say on both sides of the mouth. What makes it a whole farce in a way? It is the whole vanity of the spying-counter-spying mission of that poor Professor Armstrong. To get out of an East German scientist the key scientific element of a discovery that could save the world from any nuclear war. First it was absurd to imagine the East doing some research to guarantee peace since western propaganda was repeating day after and night after night and week after week that their standard identity was that of a war-mongering empire. But the best of it all is that they send a scientist to get that element out of this East German, and that that amateur spy is getting the secret by tricking the East German into revealing him that secret out of vanity. And of course the East German professor understands he has been tricked by an ignoramus, but slightly too late. And every detail is going that way. Every situation is absurdly upside down. And these impossible elements become some kind of black, very black, blacker than black humor. Blacker than I you die, as the saying could have it. You'll have to watch the film to get a good laugh. In the entirely collectivized agriculture of East Germany you have one farm worker on his tractor doing nothing in the middle of a field, alone, and running around on his tractor waiting for the arrival of our Armstrong to tell him who knows what about who knows what. That is probably the most incredible element in that film, that absolutely solitary person in a regime that was based on the total absence of solitude. And what about the girl in the totally isolated farm alone again and her carelessness of not erasing the symbolic PI from the dirt in the farmyard. And once again what was that solitary farm doing in a collectivized agriculture? And the escape is more than a laugh. It is sad today to be so naively funny. Escape upon escape with so thin threads to hold it all up that we wonder if it is not some kind of joke. But the best is the female ballet dancer who recognizes Armstrong and his girlfriend in the middle of the opera from the stage with all limelight and overhead lights and all other lights on and blaring their dazzling light. Anyone who has any knowledge about that kind of situation will say it is impossible. Stage lights are like an unbreakable cocoon of light for the artists on the stage. Really that kind of humor is like "everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to go now". The final stages of the escape I can't tell because they are too sad in their fun, especially the episode of highwaymen on East German roads. If there was something typical of East Germany, it was their extraordinary honesty. Stealing was not even a crime that had to be banned or forbidden because stealing was just foreign to their minds. That was probably the best achievement of these communist societies: they ignored crime, not because it was not advertised, but just because it did not exist, or was so marginal that it was anachronic to mention it. At the same time Hitchcock captured some of the traits of that East German society so well that it is better than "Goodbye Lenin", even if the mention of "good" coffee is so nostalgically true. I am afraid a modern audience might find it boring because it is, since every single detail has to be remembered out of oblivion.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Movie Review: A Torn "Iron Curtain"...
Summary: 4 Stars
1966's "Torn Curtain" is one of famed Director Alfred Hitchcock's less well-known movies. This Cold War thriller features Paul Newman and Julie Andrews as prominent US physicist Michael Armstrong and his assistant/fiance Sarah Sherman, in a tense story of espionage and betrayal.
As the movie opens, Michael and Sarah are on their way to Copenhagen for a scientific conference. Michael's erratic behavior begins to alarm Sarah, and when he suddenly defects to East Germany, she impulsively follows him through the Iron Curtain. Michael, an expert on missile defenses, is warmly received by East German State Security, and Sarah is invited to stay on with him. However, Michael's agenda is rather more complicated than a simple defection, and Sarah is soon made a more or less willing accomplice.
Hitchcock's habitually superb craftsmanship is very much in evidence in "Torn Curtain." After a slow start, the movie picks up speed with a stalking sequence through a museum, followed by an agonizingly explicit fight-to-the-death in a remote farmhouse. Michael's enterprise is placed at risk, and much of the last half of the movie is an incredibly suspenseful chase, broken by moments of almost jarring humor.
Superb location shooting and a promising plot are marred by sometimes clunky dialogue. Newman and Andrews put in a solid performance but never quite become compelling as a couple. However, Hitchcock's trademark skill carries the day, and "Torn Curtain" is highly recommended to his fans.
Movie Review: The last hitch movie worth watching
Summary: 4 Stars
This is among the last few movies Hitchcock made and while it is not one of his classics it is much better than the highly melodramatic Topaz, Frenzy and Marnie. There are lots of stories around it - Paul Newman and Julie Andrews were not among Hitch's favorites (he insisted on using favorites like Cary Grant and Gregory Peck), but he had to yield to pressure from Universal to use top stars of the time. He wanted a light hearted comedy on the lines of North by Northwest but studio did not think the theme was suited to elements of comedy (which was perhaps true). Newman had a very casual, american style and Hitch was used to more formality and respect as he saw it - that turned him off at once. Julie Andrews was English herself but still she did not find Hitchcock's style appealing either - she thought he treated actors like 'pieces of furniture'. Further there was no real chemistry between Andrews and Newman although it does not seem obvious but both did not vibe well or enjoy each other's styles of acting. But they were professionals and turn out a stellar performance. Some of Hitch's great directorial touches are in the bus scene, the murder in the cottage and the final scene when Newman's identity is revealed. Above all the behind the scene stories are a lesson that sometimes less than ideal situations can produce very watchable outcomes if people involved behave professionally :))Movie Review: "It takes a scientist to pick a scientist's brain."
Summary: 4 Stars
Torn Curtain (1966) may not be Hitchcock's best, but it's definitely not his worst. It was very enjoyable to watch. It has all the Hitch touches and some similarities with some of his other movies - particularly "The Man Who Knew Too Much."
Paul Newman plays Michael Armstong, an American scientist, working on a missile project, who goes behind the Iron Curtain to "pick" the brain of one of there most well-known scientist. Michael needs one last formula to finish his project and he has to get it from this scientist. So, he supposedly defects to Germany, leaving his fiancee Sarah Sherman (Julie Andrews) in Copenhagen. But she starts to get suspicious of him so she follows him to Germany.
Alfred Hitchcock had not wanted to cast Julie Andrews, but he was pressured into it because she was so hot - coming off of her amazing success in "The Sound of Music (Two-Disc 40th Anniversary Special Edition)" - everyone wanted to hire her. This never was Hitch's favorite movie, but the problem wasn't with his directing - the times were changing and people were watching different movies. This is a great movie! Worth the watch!
Movie Review: much better than the critics say
Summary: 4 Stars
This got really bad reviews when it came out, but seeing it in later years, it really held my interest; and I also like to rewatch it from time to time, which surprises me. Apparently Hitchcock didn't want either Paul Newman or Julie Andrews, which was too bad for all I'm sure. And I think one can sense Paul Newman's unhappiness a bit. Yet Newman is still a compelling leading man. And Julie Andrews, for all the rap that she's "goody goody," is quite charismatic; and I find her very sympathetic as Newman's fiance who is shocked when Newman, with no warning, suddenly defects to East Germany. Even the bad reviews note that the killing of Gromek - which goes on and on, they can't seem to kill him - is a classic scene, upsetting and suspenseful. But there are several other parts of the film that are very exciting too, as others on Amazon have mentioned - especially the bus ride, as Newman and Andrews try to escape; and the theatre scene where a scary looking diva ballerina (well cast) recognizes the couple as wanted by the communists. Anyway, it's entertaining and way better than the original criticism of it indicated.