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It opens with a bit of dazzle, the camera is in the backseat of a car trailing a pedestrian on the sidewalk, it swivels as the man runs off and watches him get struck by a cab through the curved widescreen of the rear window. (Bresson modifies it for the first scene of A Man Escaped.) Swiftly from New York to Miami to Cuba, "a job for the immigration boys." The undercover agent (John Hodiak) poses as a stranded Hungarian operator to get to the bottom of a refugee-smuggling ring, the suave boss (George Macready) professes to suffer from a soft heart: "When I hear of people who want to enter the United States, I am moved." The hero's white suit and bogus accent are matched by another disguise, the fatigued Viennese (Hedy Lamarr) with a Buchenwald tattoo under her spangled gown. "The Havana connection," served by Joseph H. Lewis' visual density. An accordion in squeezed close-up introduces a spirited tour of the nightlife, a tracking shot on location pauses to appreciate a nightclub dancer's routine, a fallen lamp illuminates a scuffle in the middle of a darkened apartment. The deft amalgam of Casablanca, Gilda and A Foreign Affair gazes skeptically at the mythical land of opportunity across the shore, where "a little thing like an accent, a foreign name can set you apart." The human cargo crash-lands in the Everglades, the fight for a tiny rubber raft at the edge of the jungle is viewed from high above by a chatty pilot. Love and "a real American name" once the fog lifts. Hitchcock helps himself to much of this for Topaz. With James Craig, Steven Geray, Bruce Cowling, Nedrick Young, and Steven Hill. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |