\{Man Narrating) By the late 50s, Alfred Hitchcock
was probably the most recognisable director in the world.
His name alone was enough to get audiences in the theatre.
In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock's career hit its highest point
with the release of Psycho.
It was followed by The Birds in 1963, and Marnie in 1964.
Although today considered a classic,
Marnie was a boxoffice and critical failure.
Marnie also marked the end of the collaborations
between Hitchcock and two of his colleagues.
Both his director of photography, Robert Burks,
and his editor, George Tomasini,
passed away as Hitchcock was preparing his 50th film.
Sadly, Marnie would also be the last Hitchcock film
featuring a score by Bernard Herrmann.
In the mid 60s, the master of suspense
was competing not only with himself,
but with a whole new generation of filmmakers.
Everyone was now imitating him.
Everyone aspired to be the next Hitchcock.
But to the critics, his films were becoming old-fashioned,
and when Torn Curtain was released in 19686,
they called it “ordinary” and sluggish.”
One reviewer wrote, "When was Hitchcock last at the movies?’
"Has he lost his touch?’
Was the director who had been ahead of his time,
now behind his time?
Curiously, despite the bad notices
the film was successful at the box office.
Looking at it today,
while the film is not in the same league
as North by Northwest , or The Man Who Knew Too Much,
Torn Curtain is full of great ideas and full of life.
In fact, several of the sequences
stand out as pure and genuine Hitchcock moments.
Alfred Hitchcock once said, I want to be remembered
as a man who entertained millions through the technique of film.”
Despite the rumours with Torn Curtain,
Mr Hitchcock, you did not fail.
(Narrator) Hitchcock got the idea for Torn Curtain
when he heard of the true story of two British diplomats,
Guy Burgess and Donald MacLean, who bad defected to Russia.
Hitch, as his friends and collaborators
affectionately called him,
wondered, "What did Mrs Maclean think of the whole thing?”
Excuse me.
The theme of Torn Curtain
deals with the average man feeling what it's like to be a spy
and what a dirty business it is.
You told me nothing.
You know nothing.
(Narrator) Novelist Brian Moore was hired to write the script.
Later on, British writers Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall
did a dialogue polish.
However, an arbitration with the Writers Guild
determined that their contribution did not justify screen credit.
The script was a problem,
and Hitchcock was not satisfied with it.
For one thing, it seemed to lack humour,
an essential ingredient to all of the master's thrillers.
At one point, the script was sent for comments
to the famous Italian writing team of Age and Scarpelli,
who were developing a project with Hitchcock at the time.
"Construction is excellent,” they wrote to Hitchcock,
"and should not be changed at all.”
‘But the dialogue needs to be revised. It is flat and has no sparkle.”
In the meantime, Julie Andrews and Paul Newman
had been cast in the leading roles.
Julie Andrews only had a small window
during which she could make the film,
and Hitchcock had to rush into production
before he was completely satisfied with the script.
Shooting began in the fall of 1965.
What in hell's name are you doing here?
- Hello, Michael. - Listen to me.
Now, you stay away from me. Don't talk to me.
When this plane lands, you take the next one out!
Anywhere. Go home!
Do you understand?
(Narrator) At the time of Torn Curtain,
Paul Newman was already an established actor
and an international star.
Julie Andrews had received an Oscar for Mary Poppins
and was fresh out of the hit musical The Sound of Music.
But Hitchcock had mixed feelings about his female star
and said he had been talked into hiring her
because she was so hot at the time.
The frustrated director said,
"Then everybody sat around waiting for her to sing.”
- | have nothing to say. - Sarah.
You tell them. You tell them!
You joined them. You're the one who sold out.
You tell them, Professor Armstrong.
Like Hitchcock himself,
Newman was unsure about the script.
Newman was of a new generation
and had been trained at the Actors Studio.
It wasn't in his nature not to speak up.
Newman let Hitchcock know of his problems with the script
in a letter detailing 14 specific points,
some of them having to do with the tone of the film,
some with specific scenes,
some with credibility,
and others with the characterisation of his role.
In his note, the actor also objects to the title.
To him, it lacks the mystery which titles like
North by Northwest and Notorious had.
Looking back at his experience on Torn Curtain,
Paul Newman declared,
1 think I could have hit it off with Hitchcock
if the script had been better.”
‘It was not a lack of communication, or a lack of respect.”
"The only thing that constantly stood in our way was the script.”
As they were embarking on the film,
Hitchcock sent Newman the following note:
‘Dear Paul, Around the beginning of the 19th century,
the judge at the Old Bailey always carried a nosegay
which he occasionally sniffed to alleviate the odours of evil
from the Newgate Jail next door.”
"When you come on to the Hitchcock set,
have a good, deep sniff. Love, Hitch.”
Years later, Hitchcock said that Newman
was an actor who liked doing things his own particular way,
and he was fine with that.
On the other hand, he resented performers
who tried to get in the way of his camera
and compromised the editing of a scene.
Hitchcock respected actors as long as they respected him.
(Narrator) Hitchcock knew the beginning of a story
could be rather tedious.
The opening credit sequence was an opportunity
to set the tone of the story and to hook his audience.
Early in his American movie career,
Hitchcock liked to make a statement with interesting openings.
In Saboteur, for instance,
the credit sequence immediately tells us something about the story.
The couples dancing to a waltz in the opening in Shadow of a Doubt
is a recurring image and theme in the plot.
But the most impressive openings, perhaps,
remain those designed by creative genius Saul Bass.
From the opening credits of Torn Curtain,
Hitchcock tries to grab our attention
with interesting and almost mysterious images from the film.
The director had originally intended to have the opening credits
against a blackboard covered with scientific equations,
echoing one of the key scenes in the film.
But instead, he settled for something more sophisticated.
The credits, designed by Mel Stadler,
show on one side of the screen a rocket spitting fire and smoke
and on the other side, images from the film,
subliminal faces suggesting the different aspects of the story.
Hitchcock teases us with a succession of puzzling images
meant to whet our appetite.
Right from the beginning of the film, Hitchcock creates mystery
in a series of quick shots.
There is no dialogue,
and yet we know that we are on a ship with scientists,
that it is very cold,
and that two members of the group are suspiciously missing.
The music in the next scene immediately tells us
that we are witness to a romantic interlude.
It seems the two stars of the film, Paul Newman and Julie Andrews,
have found a rather obvious way to remedy the cold.
The actors are introduced in a very tight close-up,
putting the camera, and therefore the audience,
in a voyeuristic position.
Production photographs of that particular scene
reveal that Hitchcock might have initially wanted
to be a bit more explicit
by showing pieces of clothing strategically spread across the room.
But in the editing,
Hitch decided not to give us the bare facts,
just the essentials.
After their introduction aboard the ship,
we follow our heroes to Copenhagen.
Hitchcock chose to do his famous cameo appearance
in the lobby of the hotel,
which composer John Addison punctuates
with a few notes from the famous theme
of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series.
The film was shot on sound stages at Universal Studios in Hollywood,
with some of the exteriors on location.
In preparation for the film,
Hitchcock apparently went on the same journey
as the two main characters in the story.
He flew to Copenhagen.
Then, via Romanian airline, went to East Berlin,
Leipzig,
East Berlin again,
and finally Sweden.
During preproduction, Hitchcock also recorded sounds
in East Germany to get a flavour of the atmosphere.
Hitchcock had originally intended to set the film in Poland,
but was convinced otherwise by a leading Polish producer
who was in America at the time.
Hitchcock met with him as part of his research,
and the man immediately suggested East Germany
rather than Poland for the film.
Oh, could you tell me where the Elmo Bookstore is, please?
- Taxi? - Uh, no. | want this address.
Oh. Hotel d'Angleterre.
No, the address underneath.
It is quite near. We will go together.
(Narrator) Hitchcock knew how to keep the audience alert.
His visuals, even in simple scenes, were unconventional
and often underlined important information.
By focusing on a book that Sarah delivers to Michael,
Hitchcock wants us and Sarah to realise
that something strange is going on.
Up to that point,
The story is told almost exclusively from Sarah's point of view,
making the character of Michael all the more suspicious,
the action all the more suspenseful.
By the way, Professor,
| promised to take Miss Sherman to lunch at Tivoli.
- You don't mind, do you? - Oh, but | do mind.
You are robbing me of the company of a beautiful girl.
Oh, well, go ahead. Enjoy yourself.
Just a moment. | want to leave this book with the concierge.
Be right back.
Well, Michael, will you tell me before we eat or after?
Uh, aren't you going to try your martini?
What are you so upset about?
And what were those tickets you picked up?
(Narrator) As customary in many of Hitchcock's films,
Torn Curtain deals with the improbability of marriage.
In this case, the Newman character
has concealed from his girlfriend his true motives.
In fact, he's trying to protect her,
but neither she nor the audience are aware of it just yet.
Well, | was going to -
Darling, you must have known about this for a long time.
Is that why you didn't want me to come?
| did want you - | thought we had an agreement -
Oh, to hell with the agreement.
You did everything you could to stop me from coming.
The thing with Hengstrom just -
You never intended to give a speech tonight, did you?
To hell with the speech! Let somebody else give it.
(Narrator) Hitchcock shot the couple's confrontation,
as well as several other scenes, the old-fashioned way,
in front of a process screen.
Did you ask him why he made the last-minute switch?
Hitchcock also used a lot of matte paintings in the film
by his longtime collaborator Albert Whitlock.
At a time when film makers were trying to go out on locations,
Hitchcock proved to be set in his ways,
choosing what appeared to be old-fashioned tricks.
But in fact, Hitchcock was reminding us
that his imagery belonged to the artificial world of movies,
even while exploring at the same time current events
like the Cold War in Torn Curtain.
Nothing in Hitchcock's films is gratuitous,
even humorous touches
that seemingly are meant to keep the audience alert.
The gags with the ballerina, for instance, eventually pay off
and are an integral part of the story.
(Speaking In German\}
- (Speaking In Swedish) - (Speaking In German\}
(Speaking In German\}
Narrator) Hitchcock always composed his shots carefully.
In the scene in the airport security office,
Newman is sitting alone on this side of the room,
Sarah is on that side.
They're never contained in the same shot with anyone else.
Is he alone?
She alone?
The others alone?
It's Hitchcock's way of emphasising visually
the alienation that exists between the three parties at that point.
This is Mr Gromek. He will be your personal guide.
- Hello. - Anything you need?
| lived many years in United States.
If he gives you any trouble come to me.
(Narrator) German actor Wolfgang Kieling
was a perfect choice for Gromek.
Hitchcock cleverly punctuates the importance of his role
with a memorable, recurring little detail.
His lighter never works.
Hitchcock stated, "Gromek was created,
as all the characters were, as a human being.”
| lived in 88th Street in New York.
- Oh, good. - (Clears Throat)
Hitchcock continued:
‘Most films seem to make the Communists
rather granite-faced individuals and humourless.”
By making the enemy practically likeable,
the director was purposely going against conventions and clichés.
Sir, is it true you're defecting?
- Is that the antimissile - - Your plan is to hand over
your secret work to a Communist country?
(Narrator) At the press conference,
Hitchcock puts the audience in Sarah's position.
She never quite sees Michael in the clear.
"Having both of them in the shot would have been objective,”
Hitchcock explained, "Rather like a play.”
Film,” he said, "is subjective.”
(Sarah) How could you do it? How could you tell those lies?
Well, | just... thought it would be better if you didn't know about this.
Narrator) Interestingly enough, Hitchcock decides
to film the confrontation between Michael and Sarah like a stage play.
The camera is not moving,
and both actors are present at opposite ends of the room.
Rather than experiencing it,
the audience is now witnessing the action.
As a result, we are uncomfortable.
We feel like voyeurs,
and that is exactly what Hitchcock intended
when he put us in that position.
Good stories are structured in three acts,
and Torn Curtain is no exception.
In the second act, we completely change point of view.
We have left Sarah's for Michael's.
Hitchcock hated to waste money,
and he resisted building an entire set for the hotel lobby.
He decided instead to film the scene from a high angle
with cleaning women scrubbing the floor.
He added a couple of columns and the elevator doors.
It's quite simple,
and yet the tension comes from the camera angle.
It's a great introduction to the second act of the movie.
The scene at the museum is vintage Hitchcock.
In this sequence, Hitchcock builds incredible suspense,
using almost exclusively the sound of footsteps.
(Footsteps)
Hitchcock always challenged himself
and always tried to find interesting ways
of showing something as obvious as one man following another
in an all new and different way.
- Come here, Professor. - What for?
"What for?"
Come here. That.
- What do you mean? - "What do you mean?” That.
(Narrator) If Torn Curtain had to be remembered for one sequence,
it would have to be the murder of Gromek.
Hitchcock builds the prelude to the murder with quick cuts,
- Hmm? - | don't know.
"| don't know." Answer.
and then initiates it
with the crashing sound of the pot exploding against the wall.
Like the shower murder in Psycho,
this sequence is perfectly designed
and made of precise pieces of film.
Cut it out. Don't be stupid. | was trained by experts.
Torn Curtain was done at a time
when spy thrillers simplified the act of murder,
and it was Hitchcock's intention
to show how difficult it is to kill someone.
| can take you - how do you say? -
one arm tied behind my back!
"People are killed so easily,” Hitchcock complained.
"Nobody ever goes back to take a second look
to see whether they're actually dead or not.”
The whole idea was not only to show
how difficult it is to kill a man,” Hitchcock continued,
"but to point out to the character what espionage entails.”
"You're involved in killing.”
‘Murder can be fun,” Hitchcock used to say,
and as a result,
there is a fair amount of black humour and irony in this sequence.
Part of the irony is that Paul Newman is an amateur spy;
that he doesn't know how to kill.
OK, you had your fun. Now we stop these games!
The murder of Gromek comes under the heading,
If you go into a setting, use it.”
In the farmhouse,
all the tools of death or torture were domestic instruments:
a carving knife,
a shovel,
and the gas oven.
Incidentally, several critics alluded to the fact
that Gromek, a German, being gassed,
recalled the concentration camps.
Hitchcock claimed that he was always leery of the thought
of using the oven as a kind of symbolic gesture,
that it wasn't really a conscious decision.
Hitchcock liked to manipulate sound.
The murder scene is practically silent.
Cut it out. Don't be stupid. | was trained by experts.
Narrator) But originally, composer Bernard Herrmann
had written a score for that sequence.
Tell the cookie she should put that down.
She's gonna cut your fingers off.
- (Screaming) - (Narrator) It was Herrmann
who had suggested music for the shower murder in Psycho.
Initially, Hitchcock had wanted no score,
Just water, screams, and the knife slicing at Janet Leigh.
For Torn Curtain, Hitchcock had asked Herrmann
to write a commercial score.
Dissatisfied with the results, Hitchcock fired Herrmann
and replaced him with John Addison,
who had received an Academy Award for Tom Jones.
Coincidentally, like Herrmann,
John Addison also wrote a cue for the murder sequence,
but Hitchcock decided not to use it.
When comparing the two scores,
there is not doubt that Herrmann's music,
as it had been consistently in the past,
would have been a nice complement to Hitchcock's visuals.
One can only imagine how different the film would bave been
with Herrmann's music.
After the murder, in the original script,
an interesting sequence took place.
Michael and Sarah stop at one of the country's best restaurants,
a workers’ canteen.
The manager of the factory explains
how he admires Michael for defecting from his country.
The workers expect a speech; Michael resists,
and Sarah says a few words,
thanking the men for their kind welcome.
Suddenly, Michael's face is drained.
Standing in front of him is Gromek's older brother.
The same actor played the part,
wearing a moustache, a wig and glasses.
Hitchcock added some twisted irony.
The brother, holding a knife similar to the one used on Gromek earlier,
cuts a piece of sausage and asks Michael to give it to his sibling.
The scene ultimately ended on the cutting room floor
when Hitchcock decided to shorten the film,
but there was also another concern.
At one point, the brother shows family pictures,
and we find out that Gromek has three children.
Ultimately, the character of Gromek began to look too sympathetic,
and, logically, Newman was turning into the villain.
All that's left of the sequence are a few stills and pages from the script.
(Manfred) Ah, Miss Sherman.
Please.
(Narrator) Torn Curtain, like most Hitchcock films,
is a romantic picture.
Part of the suspense has to do with the tension that exists
between Sarah and Michael
How far is she willing to go for him?
How far is he willing to go without telling her the truth?
(Michael) Give me five minutes with her.
- After all, she is my girl. - (Sarah) Put that in the past tense.
Following his motto, that "drama is life with the dull bits left out,”
Hitchcock filmed the argument between the couple from afar,
sparing us from hearing that Michael is not a traitor,
something that we already know.
Instead of a boring sequence filled with dialogue,
Hitchcock delivers an important emotional moment
for both the characters and the audience,
leading us into act three, which will be told
through both Michael and Sarah's point of view.
Oh, Michael.
Gentlemen, | must know about this Gamma Five work before | leave!
The "MucGuffin” is another Hitchcock trademark.
It's what the characters in the story are after,
but the audience doesn't really know what it is.
This Gamma Five work of yours sounds interesting.
You're a brilliant young man.
(Narrator) In Torn Curtain,
the '‘MucGuffin” has to do with a secret formula.
All that's important for the audience to know
is that our hero must get it from Professor Lindt
played by Ludwig Donath.
No, no, no, no!
Look. Learn!
While developing the sequence,
Hitchcock hesitated between two options.
At first, he felt that Michael should start the equation
and that the professor should jump in and finish it.
Instead, Hitchcock decided to have Lindt tell it all,
and have Michael memorise it.
My God!
In an effort to complicate things for the audience
and to divert us from concentrating on the "MucGuffin,”
Hitchcock tells us something that the hero doesn't know.
Gromek's body has been found.
"Professor Armstrong and Miss Sherman,
you are wanted at once in the vice rector's office.”
(Narrator) We know that something is going to happen,
and now we're afraid for Newman.
The bomb is ticking.
Hitchcock was called "The Master of Suspense’,
not because he could surprise us with an explosion,
but because he left us hanging, waiting for it to happen.
(Man) Herr Jacobi.
This way, please.
(Narrator) The sequence on the bus
gives Hitchcock another opportunity for danger,
It's a roadblock. Do you have your identity cards?
ispense,
tension,
and, of course, humour.
Hitchcock said, "When employing suspense,
you have to give the audience a chance to laugh.”
if you don't the human body cannot stand the strain,
and the whole affair will become ludicrous.”
(Speaking In German\}
Excuse me, please. You wish information?
A votre service, mademoiselle.
(Narrator) Hitchcock was known for his quirky secondary characters.
True to the tradition,
Hitchcock cast Russian-French character actress Lila Kedrova,
who had reached international fame for her role in Zorba the Greek.
How exciting to meet you, Professor.
It is not every day one meets a spy.
The character of the countess has two faces.
On one hand, she's pleading and kind.
| wish very much to go to the United States of America.
Unfortunately, it is necessary to have... friends there.
How you say? Sponsor.
On the other hand, she is a blackmailer and almost menacing.
Now, | am making you proposition.
You two, you promise me to be my sponsors for a visa
to the United States of America.
And in return, | will take you where you wish to go.
(Narrator) As Hitchcock himself explained,
"She was really a symbol of all the people behind the Iron Curtain
who wanted to get away.”
(Speaking In German\}
Albert? Ja, ja.
Narrator) Hitchcock approached the beats of the story very carefully.
In Torn Curtain,
he consistently alternates between suspense and relief.
Herr Albert?
The scenes with Lila Kedrova exemplify both.
Hitchcock gives us room to breathe in the coffee shop sequence,
and then builds the suspense up again at the post office.
My sponsor.
(Narrator) It's no coincidence that Hitchcock selected
production designer Hein Heckroth for the film.
Heckroth had designed the unforgettable classic ballet story
The Red Shoes for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1948.
His great work on that particular film
came in handy for this climactic ballet sequence.
Hitchcock literally sets the stage for a climax
reminiscent of the Albert Hall sequence
in his own The Man Who Knew Too Much.
This time, we're not listening to a concert,
we're watching a ballet.
This time, we do not have Doris Day
screaming at the crash of the cymbals.
We have Paul Newman shouting in order to escape the police.
But in both films, Hitchcock used a stage as part of the drama,
not just as a backdrop.
Basically, Michael gets the idea of screaming fire”
from watching the scenery in the ballet.
Hitchcock felt safe repeating tricks
that had worked in his previous films.
In fact he once declared,
"Self-plagiarism is style.”
Fire!
(Screaming, Shouting\}
(Ship's Horn Blowing\}
(Narrator) The original ending of the film
showed Michael burning the formula he had stolen from Lindt.
- My God. - It's genius.
But Hitchcock felt that by trivialising the whole point of the journey,
the audience might get frustrated
with the fact that the danger had been for nothing.
(Shouting In German\}
Instead, Hitchcock settled for something romantic.
We've come full circle.
We leave our characters as we met them, under the covers.
Michael! (Laughing\}
Hitchcock never felt like he had to top himself.
However, his audience and the critics did.
The immediate reaction to Torn Curtain
was that it was no North by Northwest,
but as Hitchcock once stated,
‘Most films should be seen more than once.”
And on second viewing, Torn Curtain emerges
as a perfectly legitimate Hitchcock picture.
Hitchcock felt satisfied if he got 75% of his original vision on the screen.
With Torn Curtain,
he most certainly accomplished his ambition.