Year of Release: 1969Country of Origin: USA
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Frederick Stafford, Karin Dor, John Vernon, John Forsythe
Plot outline: A French intelligence agent becomes embroiled in the Cold War politics first with uncovering the events leading up to the 1962 Cuban Missle Crisis, and then back to France to break up an international Russian spy ring (IMDb).
Even though this movie is not one of Hitchcock's best works, I don't understand why his fans underrate it. Despite being considered as the least Hitchcockian, I can easily find his fingerprints all over this cinematic work; e.g. the subtle suspense of the opening sequence when the Russian official with his family defect to America, the three sub-stories that can easily become distant toward one another and yet they all fall nicely into one continuous main story, the camera angle when Juanita is killed - showing the terror in her eyes and filling the screen with her beautiful red dress as she slumps to the ground, and the unexpected, witty ending of two planes side by side on the tarmack - one going to Russia and one going to America. It's an amusing ending after two hours of tension! I could only guess why this movie is so underrated. In my opinion, probably because the chief protagonist is a French agent (!) and Frederick Stafford definitely doesn't have the charisma of Cary Grant.
My judgement: *** out of 4 stars
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