TORN CURTAIN
Richard Wormser
Based on a screenplay by Brian Moore
1966
A razor-edged spy thriller that puts a senator's daughter in the arms of a traitor...and eccentric countess in control of an extraordinary escape...a left-wing ballerina on stage for the secret police...and a top U.S. physicist in a violent cross-fire of deadly equations...
Paul Newman, Julie Andrews in Alfred Hitchcock's TORN CURTAIN
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A lesser Hitchcock film, TORN CURTAIN nevertheless still works well enough to be an agreeable time killer (your mileage may vary, of course). The film's biggest problem is one of casting. Newman's method acting approach clashes with the escapist nature of the plot, and he and Andrews have zero chemistry. This novelization appears to have been based on a version of the script that was subsequently revised but the changes are not dramatic. The film has a couple of notable set pieces--there is a visually striking sequence in an East German Museum for instance, and a fight scene notable for its realistic violence. In the novelization, the museum is casually mentioned in one sentence. The fight scene is if anything more intense than what is in the film, as it is described as significantly gorier than what was allowable in 1966. All in all, not a bad read.
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