Topaz
Topaz is a 1969 American espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Based on the 1967 Cold War novel Topaz by Leon Uris, the film is about a French intelligence agent who becomes entangled in the Cold War politics of before the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and then the breakup of an international Soviet spy ring in France. The story is loosely based on the 1962 Sapphire Affair, which involved the head of France's SDECE in the United States, the spy Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli, a friend of Uris, who played an important role in "helping the U.S. discover the presence of Russian offensive missiles in Cuba."
Plot
In Copenhagen in 1962, a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer, Boris Kusenov (Per-Axel Arosenius), defects to the West. During debriefing, CIA agent Mike Nordstrom (John Forsythe) learns that Soviet missiles with nuclear warheads will be placed in Cuba.
Awards
Cast
- Abel Fernandez
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Ann Doran
- Ben Wright
- Carlos Rivas
- Che Guevara
- Claude Jade
- Dany Robin
- Edmon Ryan
- Fidel Castro
- Frederick Stafford
- Gregory Gaye
- John Forsythe
- John van Dreelen
- John Vernon
- Karin Dor
- Lew Brown
- Michel Piccoli
- Michel Subor
- Philippe Noiret
- Roberto Contreras
- Roscoe Lee Browne
- Sándor Szabó
- Sonja Kolthoff
- Tina Hedström
More details
author | Leon Uris Samuel A. Taylor |
---|---|
award | National Board of Review: Top Ten Films |
contentLocation | Denmark |
director | Alfred Hitchcock |
editor | William H. Ziegler |
genre | thriller |
keywords | black community british version capture cia cia agent cuban revolution debrief donald randolph french intelligence service french resistance harlem havana airport help hotel theresa intelligence officer kgb kidnap list of intelligence agencies of france married nato new york city nuclear war old friends per-axel arosenius soviet soviet spy soviet union spy ring west |
musicBy | Maurice Jarre |
producer | Alfred Hitchcock |
productionCompany | Universal Pictures |
publisher | Universal Pictures |
theme | spy |