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Filmed on locations ranging from Denmark to the Universal backlot, Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz is based on a novel by Leon Uris. Frederick Stafford, a veteran of European-filmed James Bond rip-offs of the 1960s, is cast as Andre Devereaux, a French secret agent assigned to snoop around Cuba in the months prior to the 1962 missile crisis. Someone is supplying Castro -- and, by extension, Moscow -- with NATO secrets; it is up to Devereaux to liquidate the "mole." Aiding Devereaux is CIA agent Nordstrom (John Forsythe) and aristocratic anti-Castro Cuban Juanita (Karin Dor), who happens to be the girlfriend of pro-Castroite Rico Parra (John Vernon). The director seems to be in awe of the fact-based storyline, and as a result, the film is more cut-and-dried than most Hitchcock efforts. Three different endings were filmed for Topaz; the Laserdisc version carries all three, as does the print available to the American Movie Classics cable service. According to the MPAA, the film was originally rated M but later changed to PG; however, a number of home-video issues of Topaz officially list it as "Not Rated."
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Topaz (1969)
127 min
Copenhagen, Denmark, 1962. When a high-ranking Soviet official decides to change sides, a French intelligence agent is caught up in a cold, silent and bloody spy war in which his own family will play a decisive role.