Torn Curtain
by Alfred Hitchcock
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DVD details
Actor: Julie Andrews, Paul NewmanDirector: Alfred Hitchcock
Brand: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAIN.
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); German (Original Language); Norwegian (Original Language); Swedish (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed)
Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 128 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-02-07
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Torn Curtain
DVD 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. DVD 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
DVD Review: One of Hitch's best
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this from Day 1. Great story line, good acting, and a top notch spy thriller as only Alfred Hitchcock could do. The actors used apart from Newman and Andrews do a first rate job in re-creating that dark, dangerous, and claustrophobic feeling of what it must have been like living behind the iron curtain during the cold war period. Especially the actors who play the members of the secret police and academic staff (especially the professor). Wonderful stuff. I have watched this movie over and over so many times and have never ever tired of it.DVD Review: Alfred Hitchcock suspense.
Summary: 5 Stars
One of my favorite "suspense" movies. I liked the pairing of Paul Newman and Julie Andrews.DVD Review: "Torn Curtain", very Underrated!
Summary: 4 Stars
"Torn Curtain" stars Paul Newman as Professor Michael Armstrong, an American scientist who defects to East Germany when Washington does not support his "Gamma-5" project. He planned to keep his defection secret from his girlfriend/assistant Sarah Sherman (Julie Andrews). When Sarah discovers a message intended for Michael, she decides to follow him behind the Iron Curtain. Later, when he reveals to Sarah his true intentions for coming to East Germany, it is an exciting chase for them to escape with their lives.
The film seems to have all the necessary ingredients to make a classic Hitchcock political thriller, right? Yes and no. The film has some very suspenseful qualities, but it has its flaws,too. The best moments in the film are the nail-biting and eerily silent museum sequence, the gruesome murder scene of the suspicious inspector Gromek, the bus scenes, and the climax in the theater (reminiscent of "The Man Who Knew too Much").
The film's problems start with that it is just a little bit long. It could have cut maybe five or ten minutes and I would not have complained. Secondly, the film's music. Hitchcock fired his longtime collaborator Bernard Herrmann (who wrote the music for "Vertigo", "North by Northwest", and "Psycho" among others) when he and Universal were unsatisfied with his musical score. So, they hired a new composer, John Addison. Frankly, Addison's music is not nearly as good as Herrmann's would've been. It feels out of place and just wrong for some scenes. Last but not least is Julie Andrews. While I think Paul Newman was a fine choice in the role of Armstrong, Julie Andrews just doesn't fit the part of a Hitchcock leading lady as well as Grace Kelly or Kim Novak. I think she is too stiff and librarianish. Apparently, neither of them were Hitchcock's first choice, for they were both chosen for him by Universal because of their popularity at the time.
The DVD is very nice. I had no problems with picture or sound. The disc has good bonus features including a thirty minute making-of documentary called "Torn Curtain Rising", an interesting look at what certain scenes would be like with Herrmann's music, the theatrical trailer for the film, and production notes and photographs.
Overall, this film is very good Hitchcock, not excellent Hitchcock. 4 stars.
Description of Torn Curtain
TORN CURTAIN was Alfred Hitchcock's 50th film and signals a return to the espionage-romance theme the director showcased in such films as SECRET AGENT and THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. Hitchcock created a distinct look for the film subduing lighting and gauzing the lens to give a more natural less studio-produced feel. Notably it was the strength of studio influence that contributed another change in the look of the film relative to most Hitchcock pictures casting leads that departed from traditional Hitchcock types. Paul Newman and Julie Andrews both at the heights of their popularity when the film was released anchor this cold war spy thriller. An American scientist (Newman) attends a convention in Copenhagen with his fianc e-assistant (Andrews). While there she picks up a message meant for him and is drawn into a complex web of espionage behind the Iron Curtain that he had intended to face alone. Her presence throws all his plans into disarray and the two lovers discover too late that it's easier to get in than to get out again. In one of the film's most memorable scenes Hitchcock shows his audience just how difficult murder can be when opposed by the will for survival.System Requirements:Features: Torn Curtain Rising Scenes Scored by Bernard Herrmann Production Photographs Theatrical Trailer Production Notes Running Time: 128 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DRAMA Rating:?PG UPC:?025192831522 Manufacturer No:?28315Paul Newman and Julie Andrews star in what must unfortunately be called one of Alfred Hitchcock's lesser efforts. Still, sub-par Hitchcock is better than a lot of what's out there, and this one is well worth a look. Newman plays cold war physicist Michael Armstrong, while Andrews plays his lovely assistant-and-fianc?e, Sarah Sherman. Armstrong has been working on a missile defense system that will "make nuclear defense obsolete," and naturally both sides are very interested. All Sarah cares about is the fact that Michael has been acting awfully fishy lately. The suspense of Torn Curtain is by nature not as thrilling as that in the average Hitchcock film--much of it involves sitting still and wondering if the bad guys are getting closer. Still, Hitchcock manages to amuse himself: there is some beautifully clever camera work and an excruciating sequence that illustrates the frequent Hitchcock point that death is not a tidy business. --Ali Davis
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