Rent Torn Curtain (1966)

A disappointment - Torn Curtain review by DH

This minor Hitchcock was a disappointment. The plot was not remotely credible and the film has dated badly.

Lesser Hitchcock is still better than most! - Torn Curtain review by NP

If you're a Hitchcock acolyte, you may find more to enjoy here than you'd expect. If you're ambivalent or prone to dislike him, this is probably not going to be for you.

Formally, this is a very beautiful piece of work. Hitchcock's precision with the camera – never wasting a shot, always prioritising clarity – makes so many filmmakers look hopelessly slack and sloppy.

Is it his most sensational or compelling narrative? No, not by a long stretch; it might've worked better – and been more quintessentially Hitchcockian – if the film had followed Julie Andrews' questing female protagonist for all of its length, as it does in the early sections, instead of cleaving to Newman's stolid and rather uninteresting professor. It is also sadly lacking in a lot of the black humour that the director famously brought to his films.

Nevertheless, it is more than watchable in my opinion, with a few wonderful and idiosyncratic set-pieces, like the clumsy and brutal murder of the East German agent at the farmhouse, the encounter with the eccentric Polish countess (the most emotional part of the film) and the escape from the theatre.

Cold War. - Torn Curtain review by Steve

Uninvolving cold war thriller with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews as a pair of nuclear scientists/lovers feigning to defect in order to gather some scientific MacGuffin. At their back Alfred Hitchcock assembles a supporting team of West Germans and expat Russians, but is unable squeeze much trademark humour from these unfamiliar character actors.

The classic production crew Hitch assembled in the late '50s had drifted away, and the problems with dated effects are harder to overlook. He went on to make some excellent films, but this feels out of touch. It isn't just a misfire in comparison with peak Hitchcock. There were many better spy thrillers being made in the mid '60s by others.

The scene usually used to promote Torn Curtain is the death of a Stasi assassin in a gas oven. Was that supposed to make us think of the holocaust and the possibility that some of these German heavies are former Nazis? It's one of the few times the worn out narrative- by Willis Hall and Keith Waterhouse- actually stimulates. 

 There is an uncomfortable element of blunt US propaganda, and the plot diversion towards the end with Lila Kedrova is unfathomable. There are maybe three good scenes, but far too many bad ones. The most startling moment is seeing two Hitchcock stars in bed together, and not even married! Hollywood censorship sure was changing fast.