Dir: Alfred Hitchcock | Cast: Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Lila Kedrova | Spy thriller 1966
Reviewed by Richard Chatten
Hitchcock’s fiftieth film continues to be grievously underrated; although it broke even at the box office and even it’s detractors concede it contains one his most memorably grisly murders (which never fails to make your eyes water no matter how many times you’ve seen it).
Paul Newman plays an American scientist who defects to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to steal a formula before planning an escape back to the West.
Despite a hammy lead performance by Newman – double-taking throughout the film like James Finlayson – who ungraciously later dismissed it as “Not so good”, it nevertheless contains several other vintage scenes (including one in which the Newman actually shouts “Fire!!” in a crowded theatre), and also probably Hitchcock’s greatest McGuffin of all: mathematical formulae on a blackboard which we barely see.
It also features a cameo by Mort Mills, the politely inscrutable patrolman in ‘Psycho’, here hiding behind an enormous moustache.
An American scientist publicly defects to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to steal a formula before planning an escape back to the West.
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