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Torn Curtain (1966)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
3/06, 8/23
3/06:
Torn Curtain is a god-awful Hitchcock movie.
A spy thriller starring Paul Newman and........Julie Andrews?!? What a bunch of wooden acting from these
two. "It tears you apart with suspense!"? The movie is so dull that my ever-used butter knife feels sharper
in comparison.
All in all, Torn Curtain is 128 minutes of nothing.
8/23:
Raising my rating from '2' to '5', Torn Curtain is still a bad movie, one of the three during the 60's
to signal the end of Alfred Hitchcock's directorial greatness.
The trouble is the recycled gimmicks from previous pictures: the farm field from
North by Northwest, the killing of Gromek and Paul Newman by falling
down the steps from Psycho, and the what-to-do moment at the theater from
The 39 Steps. Yet they're technically brilliant. Another mistake is the
excessive usage of rear projection effect. It cheapens the movie quality. Hitchcock couldn't shoot anything
outside for real? That's hard to believe. I hate it when Edith Head ruined one moment when Julie Andrews
came out looking fashionable on a bicycle. She pulled the same shit four years earlier in
The Counterfeit Traitor.
There's nothing wrong with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews although I admit they're oddly cast for a Hitchcock
picture, evincing little chemistry. In fact, they were insisted upon by studio executive Lew Wasserman because
of their star power to bring in the money. Some said the script was the problem, missing humor. That's
not it. Rather, it's the final forty minutes which ruined the movie, starting with the bus scene and the
querulous blond-haired woman that ends with the worthless appearance of the Polish woman begging to be
"sponsored."
I considered giving the film a '7', but afterwards, I couldn't believe how damn long it was: two hours and
eight minutes. No wonder why cinema passed Alfred Hitchcock by due to repeating his tired formula
to death. I thought of how much better
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was with Richard Burton
by keeping it raw and real.
On the positive side, I like the location shots and the color matte; they've been easy on my eyes. The plot
is thorough and thus simple to follow. One of the better scenes is the moment when the lead stars were far
apart in the hotel room, having a serious conversation. Elsewhere, Alfred Hitchcock makes his cameo by holding
a baby in the lobby of Hotel d'Angleterre about eight minutes into the film.
All in all, had the last forty minutes been replaced with a ten-minute finisher, Torn Curtain would
work out better.