Review of Torn Curtain

Introduction

Torn Curtain stars Paul Newman and Julie Andrews and tells the story of an American scientist, apparently upset at the cancellation of his research project, who defects to East Germany to continue his work. However things become complicated when his girlfriend becomes suspicious and follows him there – and the real reason for him being in East Berlin becomes clear.

Video

The video is presented in 1.33:1 full-frame and like the other discs in this series of Hitchcock movies is of reasonable quality given the age of the movie – which is now approaching 40 years old. The image is stable, but a little grainy at times and there is some evidence of dirt on the print. In addition, some scenes are a little lacking in contrast, leading to some overly dark shadows.

Visually the film suffers from an over reliance on rear projection and use of composite shots – a trait of many Hitchcock movies. In this case, it is particularly gratuitous at times and ages the film badly. Also, the rear projection is often slightly out of focus and less detailed than the foreground action, leading to rather unconvincing scenes at times – check out the restaurant scene for a good example of this. Torn Curtain also makes use of a great deal of matte artwork in the background, some of which is quite dark and looks very obviously false.

Audio

The soundtrack comes in Dolby Digital Mono and adequately reproduces the dialogue and sound effects – as you would imagine from a 60`s movie – there isn`t much in the way of excitement from the soundtrack. The accompanying documentary details a rift between Hitchcock and the composer, with Hitchcock leaving music out of some scenes, using silence to build tension instead. The pivotal fight scene suffers badly from having no music – the clips of the same scene set to music make the scene flow much better – and the same would also be true for other parts of the film.

The dialogue is always clear and understandable.

Features

Extras consist of the trailer and a documentary.

The documentary is good (although not as good as Leonard Maltin`s one on Topaz) and again looks at all aspects of the movie including Paul Newman`s unhappiness with the script and problems with the score (discussed above) which features the original soundtracks for the key fight scene.

Conclusion

Torn Curtain was an exceptionally disappointing movie that really struggled to hold my attention due to a number of factors – Newman`s apparent lack of interest in his character, a movie which looks and feels like it was made in a studio, poor choice of music (and at times a poor decision not to use music) and a totally ludicrous plot. The reasons for all of these problems are fully explained in the documentary.

The video and sound are both as you would expect from a 1960s film, and they are backed up by good extras. The documentary is excellent and a great deal more interesting and entertaining than the film.

Overall, after The 39 Steps and Topaz, this was a big disappointment, especially given the talent of the stars involved.