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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 used-up 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 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 and it's 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. It's no wonder why cinema had passed Alfred Hitchcock by who kept 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. Meanwhile, Alfred Hitchcock makes his cameo, 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.