Torn Curtain is a 1966 American spy political thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock , and starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews . Written by Brian Moore , the film is set in the Cold War and concerns an American scientist who appears to defect behind the Iron Curtain to East Germany . While Hitchcock's long-time collaborator Bernard Herrmann composed a score for the film, it was ultimately rejected, marking the end of their working relationship which had spanned eight films. The film's final score was composed by John Addison .
98-494: Torn Curtain was released in the United States on July 14, 1966. Upon its release, the film was not well received by critics, who derided the plot and the pacing. The film was a financial success, grossing $ 13 million worldwide over its $ 3 million budget, but was ultimately considered a box office disappointment, given the popularity of its two lead actors. In 1965, Michael Armstrong, a US physicist and rocket scientist ,
196-550: A film the previous year. Moore moved to Hollywood to work on the script. His five-page synopsis, completed on 26 March 1965, already contained two key scenes of the film: Torn Curtain' s opening aboard a cruise steamer in the Norwegian fjords, and the brutal killing of undercover agent Gromek by the American scientist and a farm woman. Moore's final draft, completed by June 21, pleased neither Hitchcock nor Universal. It lacked
294-463: A Marionette , the theme for Alfred Hitchcock Presents . Steven Spielberg told James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio that as a young man he sneaked onto the soundstage to observe the filming, and remained for 45 minutes before an assistant producer asked him to leave. The production occurred during the 1965 Watts race riots , leaving Kieling disgusted with American society . As
392-420: A different generation of actors from the likes of Cary Grant and James Stewart . He questioned Hitchcock about the script and the characterization throughout filming. Hitchcock later said he found Newman's manner and approach unacceptable and disrespectful. Newman insisted that he meant no disrespect toward Hitchcock, and once said, "I think Hitch and I could have really hit it off, but the script kept getting in
490-489: A good potpourri which becomes a bit stale though a noticeable lack of zip and pacing." "Awful," "preposterous," and "irritating slack," concluded Renata Adler in The New Yorker . The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Up until about the point at which the plot makes itself clear, Torn Curtain is as good as anything Hitchcock has ever done in his other forty-nine (or is it fifty-one?) films ... The let-down comes with
588-634: A normal winter, except sheltered bays and shallow lagoons such as the Curonian Lagoon . The ice reaches its maximum extent in February or March; typical ice thickness in the northernmost areas in the Bothnian Bay , the northern basin of the Gulf of Bothnia, is about 70 cm (28 in) for landfast sea ice. The thickness decreases farther south. Freezing begins in the northern extremities of
686-700: A part of the Baltic Sea, "For the purposes of this Convention the 'Baltic Sea Area' shall be the Baltic Sea and the Entrance to the Baltic Sea, bounded by the parallel of the Skaw in the Skagerrak at 57°44.43'N." Historically, the Kingdom of Denmark collected Sound Dues from ships at the border between the ocean and the land-locked Baltic Sea, in tandem: in the Øresund at Kronborg castle near Helsingør ; in
784-457: A related hypothesis holds that the name originated from this Indo-European root via a Baltic language such as Lithuanian. Another explanation is that, while derived from the aforementioned root, the name of the sea is related to names for various forms of water and related substances in several European languages, that might have been originally associated with colors found in swamps (compare Proto-Slavic *bolto "swamp"). Yet another explanation
882-520: A result, after the film was released he defected to East Germany in real life, calling the United States "the most dangerous enemy of humanity in the world today" and guilty of "crimes against the Negro and the people of Vietnam ." The film had two scores. The first was written by Bernard Herrmann , a recurrent contributor to Hitchcock's work. Hitchcock and Universal asked Herrmann for a pop-and-jazz-influenced soundtrack, and even hoped Herrmann might write
980-721: A song for lead actress Julie Andrews to perform. However, the score Herrmann provided was not what Hitchcock and the studio wanted, and his revisions failed to satisfy them. Hitchcock and Herrmann ended their long-time collaboration and John Addison was approached to write the score. Although the Addison score was issued commercially in 1966 (and has been re-released), the Herrmann score has been re-recorded and reissued several times, eclipsing that by Addison in terms of available versions. Recordings of Herrmann's original studio sessions exist, and have circulated online. Elmer Bernstein made
1078-597: A well-regarded film directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, write the script. Although intrigued, Nabokov declined the project, feeling that he knew very little about a political thriller . As the original focus of the plot was on the female lead, the spy's girlfriend, the script was commissioned early in 1965 to Irish-Canadian writer Brian Moore , who was known for successfully tackling female characters. His well-regarded first novel, Judith Hearne , centers on an alcoholic Belfast spinster. In addition to this, Moore had adapted his own novel The Luck of Ginger Coffey into
SECTION 10
#17327805052541176-458: A whole may be a bit diffuse... but it has some brilliant scenes, it's pleasing to the eye, and it is continuously entertaining." Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post also liked the film, writing that "Hitchcock has given us several sequences that will prove memorable." He singled out Countess Kuzynska's search for a sponsor for her escape to the United States as a sequence that stood as "a short story in itself. It could be shown independently of
1274-605: Is a reduction from the 25 incidents representing 1,110 kg (2,450 lb) of material in 2003. Until now, the U.S. Government refuses to disclose the exact coordinates of the wreck sites. Deteriorating bottles leak mustard gas and other substances, thus slowly poisoning a substantial part of the Baltic Sea. After 1945, the German population was expelled from all areas east of the Oder-Neisse line , making room for new Polish and Russian settlement. Poland gained most of
1372-417: Is about 20,000 km (4,800 cu mi). The periphery amounts to about 8,000 km (5,000 mi) of coastline. The Baltic Sea is one of the largest brackish inland seas by area, and occupies a basin (a Zungenbecken ) formed by glacial erosion during the last few ice ages . The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Baltic Sea as follows: The northern part of
1470-413: Is adapted to reproducing also with no ice in the sea. The sea ice also harbors several species of algae that live in the bottom and inside unfrozen brine pockets in the ice. Due to the often fluctuating winter temperatures between above and below freezing, the saltwater ice of the Baltic Sea can be treacherous and hazardous to walk on, in particular in comparison to the more stable fresh water-ice sheets in
1568-661: Is appalled that, given the circumstances of the Cold War , if she stays with him, she will likely never see her home or family again. Armstrong visits a contact, a "farmer", where it is revealed that his defection is in fact a ruse to gain the confidence of the East German scientific establishment, in order to learn how much their chief scientist Gustav Lindt and by extension, the Soviet Union , knows about anti-missile systems . Armstrong has made preparations to return to
1666-580: Is enclosed by Denmark , Estonia , Finland , Germany , Latvia , Lithuania , Poland , Russia , Sweden , and the North and Central European Plain . The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. It is a shelf sea and marginal sea of the Atlantic with limited water exchange between the two, making it an inland sea . The Baltic Sea drains through the Danish straits into
1764-519: Is situated north of Køge Bugt and connects Dragør in the south of Copenhagen to Malmö ; it is used by the Øresund Bridge , including the Drogden Tunnel . By this definition, the Danish straits is part of the entrance, but the Bay of Mecklenburg and the Bay of Kiel are parts of the Baltic Sea. Another usual border is the line between Falsterbo , Sweden, and Stevns Klint , Denmark, as this
1862-529: Is that the name originally meant "enclosed sea, bay" as opposed to open sea. In the Middle Ages the sea was known by a variety of names. The name Baltic Sea became dominant after 1600. Usage of Baltic and similar terms to denote the region east of the sea started only in the 19th century. The Baltic Sea was known in ancient Latin language sources as Mare Suebicum or even Mare Germanicum . Older native names in languages that used to be spoken on
1960-519: Is the southern border of Øresund. It is also the border between the shallow southern Øresund (with a typical depth of 5–10 meters only) and notably deeper water. Drogden Sill (depth of 7 m (23 ft)) sets a limit to Øresund and Darss Sill (depth of 18 m (59 ft)), and a limit to the Belt Sea. The shallow sills are obstacles to the flow of heavy salt water from the Kattegat into
2058-651: Is traveling to a conference in Copenhagen with his assistant and fiancée, Sarah Sherman. Armstrong receives a radiogram to pick up a book in Copenhagen; it contains a message which says, "Contact π in case of emergency." He tells Sherman he is going to Stockholm , but she discovers he is flying to East Berlin and follows him. When they land, he is welcomed by representatives of the East German government. Sherman realizes that Armstrong has defected , and
SECTION 20
#17327805052542156-556: The All Saints' Flood of 1304 and other floods in the years 1320, 1449, 1625, 1694, 1784 and 1825. Little is known of their extent. From 1872, there exist regular and reliable records of water levels in the Baltic Sea. The highest was the flood of 1872 when the water was an average of 2.43 m (8 ft 0 in) above sea level at Warnemünde and a maximum of 2.83 m (9 ft 3 in) above sea level in Warnemünde. In
2254-515: The Baltic Sea to Sweden on an East German freighter. The ballerina, desperate to reveal the fugitives' hiding place, identifies the hampers, which are shot up by a guard with a machine gun while dangling over the pier, but Armstrong and Sherman have already escaped by jumping overboard and swimming to the Swedish dock. By the time Torn Curtain , his fiftieth film, was conceived, Hitchcock was
2352-780: The Black Sea and southern Russia. This Norse-dominated period is referred to as the Viking Age . Since the Viking Age , the Scandinavians have referred to the Baltic Sea as Austmarr ("Eastern Sea"). "Eastern Sea", appears in the Heimskringla and Eystra salt appears in Sörla þáttr . Saxo Grammaticus recorded in Gesta Danorum an older name, Gandvik , -vik being Old Norse for "bay", which implies that
2450-455: The Danish straits . According to the 18th-century natural historian William Derham , during the severe winters of 1703 and 1708, the ice cover reached as far as the Danish straits. Frequently, parts of the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland are frozen, in addition to coastal fringes in more southerly locations such as the Gulf of Riga. This description meant that the whole of the Baltic Sea
2548-726: The Great Belt at Nyborg ; and in the Little Belt at its narrowest part then Fredericia , after that stronghold was built. The narrowest part of Little Belt is the "Middelfart Sund" near Middelfart . Geographers widely agree that the preferred physical border between the Baltic and North Seas is the Langelandsbælt (the southern part of the Great Belt strait near Langeland ) and the Drogden -Sill strait. The Drogden Sill
2646-579: The Kattegat by way of the Øresund , Great Belt and Little Belt . It includes the Gulf of Bothnia (divided into the Bothnian Bay and the Bothnian Sea ), the Gulf of Finland , the Gulf of Riga and the Bay of Gdańsk . The " Baltic Proper " is bordered on its northern edge, at latitude 60°N, by Åland and the Gulf of Bothnia, on its northeastern edge by the Gulf of Finland, on its eastern edge by
2744-665: The Netherlands , Denmark , and Scotland . The Polabian Slavs were gradually assimilated by the Germans. Denmark gradually gained control over most of the Baltic coast, until she lost much of her possessions after being defeated in the 1227 Battle of Bornhöved . In the 13th to 16th centuries, the strongest economic force in Northern Europe was the Hanseatic League , a federation of merchant cities around
2842-531: The Netherlands : their fleets needed the Baltic timber, tar, flax, and hemp. During the Crimean War , a joint British and French fleet attacked the Russian fortresses in the Baltic; the case is also known as the Åland War . They bombarded Sveaborg , which guards Helsinki ; and Kronstadt , which guards Saint Petersburg; and they destroyed Bomarsund in Åland . After the unification of Germany in 1871,
2940-590: The Sambia Peninsula in Kaliningrad Oblast . The Bay of Pomerania lies north of the islands of Usedom/Uznam and Wolin , east of Rügen . Between Falster and the German coast lie the Bay of Mecklenburg and Bay of Lübeck . The westernmost part of the Baltic Sea is the Bay of Kiel . The three Danish straits , the Great Belt , the Little Belt and The Sound ( Öresund / Øresund ), connect
3038-657: The Stockholm area, southwestern Finland, and Estonia. The Western and Eastern Gotland basins form the major parts of the Central Baltic Sea or Baltic proper. The Bornholm Basin is the area east of Bornholm, and the shallower Arkona Basin extends from Bornholm to the Danish isles of Falster and Zealand . In the south, the Bay of Gdańsk lies east of the Hel Peninsula on the Polish coast and west of
Torn Curtain - Misplaced Pages Continue
3136-459: The West via an escape network, known as π . However, he was followed to the farm by his appointed chaperone, Hermann Gromek, an East German security officer. Gromek realizes what π is and that Armstrong is a double agent , and as Gromek is calling the police , a tortuous struggle commences that ends with Gromek being killed by Armstrong and the farmer's wife. Gromek and his motorcycle are buried on
3234-491: The Writers Guild gave sole script credits to Brian Moore . Universal Pictures executives insisted on famous stars being cast for the leads. Paul Newman and Julie Andrews were imposed on Hitchcock by Lew Wasserman , the studio executive, rather than being his real choices. The director felt that the stars were ill-suited to their roles, while their salaries of $ 750,000 took a big part of the film's $ 5 million budget. At
3332-567: The defection of British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean to the Soviet Union in 1951. Hitchcock was particularly intrigued about Maclean's life in the Soviet Union and about Melinda Marling, Maclean's wife, who followed her husband behind the Iron Curtain a year later with the couple's three children. With these facts as a starting point Hitchcock created a plot line involving an American nuclear physicist, Professor Michael Armstrong, defecting to East Germany . Against his will,
3430-516: The "real" bus result in the police becoming aware of the deception, and everyone aboard is forced to flee. While looking for the Friedrichstraße post office, the two encounter the exiled Polish countess Kuczynska, who leads them to the post office in hopes of being sponsored for a US visa . When they are spotted, Kuczynska trips the pursuing guard and allows Armstrong and Sherman to escape to their next destination. Two men approach them on
3528-404: The 12th century. The bordering countries have also traditionally exported lumber, wood tar , flax , hemp and furs by ship across the Baltic. Sweden had from early medieval times exported iron and silver mined there, while Poland had and still has extensive salt mines. Thus, the Baltic Sea has long been crossed by much merchant shipping. The lands on the Baltic's eastern shore were among
3626-454: The American "Gamma Five" anti-missile program, but she refuses to cooperate and runs from the room, even though she has agreed to defect to East Germany. Armstrong catches up with her and secretly confides his actual motives, and asks her to go along with the ruse. Armstrong finally goads Professor Lindt into revealing his anti-missile equations in a fit of pique over what Lindt believes are Armstrong's mathematical mistakes. When Lindt hears over
3724-404: The American amateur spy and he centered his attention in the colorful international actors who played supporting roles in the film. Lila Kedrova was Hitchcock's favorite among the cast; he ate lunch with her several times during filming and invited her home for dinners with his wife. Although the length of the film was shortened in post-production, Hitchcock left intact Countess Kuczynska's scenes in
3822-462: The Baltic Sea and the North Sea . In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Poland , Denmark , and Sweden fought wars for Dominium maris baltici ("Lordship over the Baltic Sea"). Eventually, it was Sweden that virtually encompassed the Baltic Sea . In Sweden, the sea was then referred to as Mare Nostrum Balticum ("Our Baltic Sea"). The goal of Swedish warfare during the 17th century
3920-677: The Baltic Sea is known as the Gulf of Bothnia , of which the northernmost part is the Bay of Bothnia or Bothnian Bay . The more rounded southern basin of the gulf is called Bothnian Sea and immediately to the south of it lies the Sea of Åland . The Gulf of Finland connects the Baltic Sea with Saint Petersburg . The Gulf of Riga lies between the Latvian capital city of Riga and the Estonian island of Saaremaa . The Northern Baltic Sea lies between
4018-645: The Baltic Sea was known as the Mare Suebicum or Mare Sarmaticum . Tacitus in his AD 98 Agricola and Germania described the Mare Suebicum, named for the Suebi tribe, during the spring months, as a brackish sea where the ice broke apart and chunks floated about. The Suebi eventually migrated southwest to temporarily reside in the Rhineland area of modern Germany, where their name survives in
Torn Curtain - Misplaced Pages Continue
4116-488: The Baltic Sea with the Kattegat and Skagerrak strait in the North Sea . The water temperature of the Baltic Sea varies significantly depending on exact location, season and depth. At the Bornholm Basin, which is located directly east of the island of the same name, the surface temperature typically falls to 0–5 °C (32–41 °F) during the peak of the winter and rises to 15–20 °C (59–68 °F) during
4214-567: The Baltic states and Poland. The remaining non-NATO and non-EU shore areas are Russian: the Saint Petersburg area and the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave . Winter storms begin arriving in the region during October. These have caused numerous shipwrecks , and contributed to the extreme difficulties of rescuing passengers of the ferry M/S Estonia en route from Tallinn , Estonia, to Stockholm , Sweden, in September 1994, which claimed
4312-469: The Baltic states. In 1945, the Baltic Sea became a mass grave for retreating soldiers and refugees on torpedoed troop transports . The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff remains the worst maritime disaster in history, killing (very roughly) 9,000 people. In 2005, a Russian group of scientists found over five thousand airplane wrecks, sunken warships, and other material, mainly from World War II, on
4410-575: The Bothnian Bay and the Bothnian Sea were frozen with solid ice near the Baltic coast and dense floating ice far from it. In 2008, almost no ice formed except for a short period in March. During winter, fast ice , which is attached to the shoreline, develops first, rendering ports unusable without the services of icebreakers . Level ice , ice sludge , pancake ice , and rafter ice form in
4508-527: The Greek , as the eccentric and flamboyantly dressed Countess Kuczynska who helps Armstrong and Sherman in their escape in return for their sponsoring her to go to America; Tamara Toumanova as the haughty prima ballerina whose limelight Armstrong steals when he arrives in East Berlin; Ludwig Donath as the crotchety professor Lindt, eager to cut the chat and get down to business; and Wolfgang Kieling as
4606-595: The Gulf of Bothnia normally thaw in late April, with some ice ridges persisting until May in the eastern extremities of the Gulf of Finland. In the northernmost reaches of the Bothnian Bay, ice usually stays until late May; by early June it is practically always gone. However, in the famine year of 1867 remnants of ice were observed as late as 17 July near Uddskär . Even as far south as Øresund , remnants of ice have been observed in May on several occasions; near Taarbaek on 15 May 1942 and near Copenhagen on 11 May 1771. Drift ice
4704-494: The Gulf of Bothnia typically in the middle of November, reaching the open waters of the Bothnian Bay in early January. The Bothnian Sea , the basin south of Kvarken , freezes on average in late February. The Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Riga freeze typically in late January. In 2011, the Gulf of Finland was completely frozen on 15 February. The ice extent depends on whether the winter is mild, moderate, or severe. In severe winters ice can form around southern Sweden and even in
4802-863: The Gulf of Riga, and in the west by the Swedish part of the southern Scandinavian Peninsula. The Baltic Sea is connected by artificial waterways to the White Sea via the White Sea–Baltic Canal and to the German Bight of the North Sea via the Kiel Canal . The Helsinki Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area includes the Baltic Sea and the Kattegat , without calling Kattegat
4900-694: The Ocean by Pytheas. Baltia also might be derived from "belt", and therein mean "near belt of sea, strait". Others have suggested that the name of the island originates from the Proto-Indo-European root *bʰel meaning "white, fair", which may echo the naming of seas after colours relating to the cardinal points (as per Black Sea and Red Sea ). This '*bʰel' root and basic meaning were retained in Lithuanian (as baltas ), Latvian (as balts ) and Slavic (as bely ). On this basis,
4998-576: The Suebic Sea, Latin: Mare Suebicum after the Germanic people of the Suebi , and Ptolemy Sarmatian Ocean after the Sarmatians , but the first to name it the Baltic Sea ( Medieval Latin : Mare Balticum ) was the eleventh-century German chronicler Adam of Bremen . The origin of the latter name is speculative and it was adopted into Slavic and Finnic languages spoken around
SECTION 50
#17327805052545096-426: The Vikings correctly regarded it as an inlet of the sea. Another form of the name, "Grandvik", attested in at least one English translation of Gesta Danorum , is likely to be a misspelling. In addition to fish the sea also provides amber , especially from its southern shores within today's borders of Poland , Russia and Lithuania . First mentions of amber deposits on the South Coast of the Baltic Sea date back to
5194-407: The ballet at the East Berlin theatre, the music was excerpted from Tchaikovsky 's Francesca da Rimini . Torn Curtain was released without any rating on 14 July 1966 (see original 1966 movie poster above). However, the film was given an "R" (for "Restricted") under the MPAA film rating system that took effect November 1, 1968. It was ultimately re-rated PG in 1984. After its premiere in 1966,
5292-429: The basins around Bornholm and Gotland . The Kattegat and the southwestern Baltic Sea are well oxygenated and have a rich biology. The remainder of the Sea is brackish, poor in oxygen, and in species. Thus, statistically, the more of the entrance that is included in its definition, the healthier the Baltic appears; conversely, the more narrowly it is defined, the more endangered its biology appears. Tacitus called it
5390-423: The bottom of the Gotland Basin, at depths greater than 225 m (738 ft), the temperature typically is 4–7 °C (39–45 °F). Generally, offshore locations, lower latitudes and islands maintain maritime climates , but adjacent to the water continental climates are common, especially on the Gulf of Finland . In the northern tributaries the climates transition from moderate continental to subarctic on
5488-524: The bottom of the sea. Since the end of World War II , various nations, including the Soviet Union , the United Kingdom and the United States have disposed of chemical weapons in the Baltic Sea, raising concerns of environmental contamination. Today, fishermen occasionally find some of these materials: the most recent available report from the Helsinki Commission notes that four small scale catches of chemical munitions representing approximately 105 kg (231 lb) of material were reported in 2005. This
5586-401: The collapse of the Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. Finland and Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, respectively, making the Baltic Sea almost entirely surrounded by the alliance's members, leading some commentators to label the sea a ″NATO lake″. Such an arrangement has also existed for the European Union (EU) since May 2004 following the accession of
5684-408: The eastern coast. Russia became and remained a dominating power in the Baltic. Russia's Peter the Great saw the strategic importance of the Baltic and decided to found his new capital, Saint Petersburg , at the mouth of the Neva river at the east end of the Gulf of Finland . There was much trading not just within the Baltic region but also with the North Sea region, especially eastern England and
5782-481: The film began on 18 October 1965, on Stage 18 at the Universal back lot in Los Angeles . The shooting schedule lasted three months, including a two-week hiatus while Paul Newman recuperated from a chin infection. Filming was completed in mid-February 1966. Although unexcited about his leading actress, Hitchcock was always very polite with Julie Andrews. About her experience making the film Andrews commented: "I did not have to act in Torn Curtain . I merely went along for
5880-440: The film was criticized, especially in terms of its production technology, as being old-fashioned. The film was nevertheless a minor hit for Hitchcock, making $ 7 million in the United States alone. The film ranked 8th on Cahiers du Cinéma 's Top 10 Films of the Year List in 1966. The film was not as well received by critics. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called the film "a pathetically undistinguished spy picture, and
5978-478: The final film. The film's climax in a theater was filmed on Sound Stage 28 at Universal Studios. Stage 28 was also used in the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera with Lon Chaney, Sr. , filmed 41 years earlier, as well as the 1943 version. The set was demolished in 2014. Perhaps the best-known scene is the fight to the death between Armstrong and Gromek, a gruesome, prolonged struggle. In conversation with François Truffaut , Hitchcock said that he included
SECTION 60
#17327805052546076-427: The first commercial recording of the score with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on Warner Bros. Records in 1978. Esa-Pekka Salonen recorded a suite from the film as part of a Herrmann album with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1996. Joel McNeely subsequently recorded an expanded version with the National Philharmonic Orchestra for Varese Sarabande Records in 2010. In the climactic scene involving
6174-413: The historic region known as Swabia . Jordanes called it the Germanic Sea in his work, the Getica . In the early Middle Ages , Norse (Scandinavian) merchants built a trade empire all around the Baltic. Later, the Norse fought for control of the Baltic against Wendish tribes dwelling on the southern shore. The Norse also used the rivers of Russia for trade routes, finding their way eventually to
6272-404: The humor and sparkle characteristic of a Hitchcock film. On his part, Moore complained that Hitchcock had "no concept of character" and that he had "a profound ignorance of human motivation". Brian Moore's own dissatisfaction with the project was reflected in his novel Fergus ( 1970 ), which features Bernard Boweri, an unsympathetic character based on Hitchcock. To polish the dialogue and improve
6370-431: The ice further into the north, and much of the waters north of Gotland were again free of ice, which had then packed against the shores of southern Finland. The effects of the afore-mentioned high-pressure area did not reach the southern parts of the Baltic Sea, and thus the entire sea did not freeze over. However, floating ice was additionally observed near Świnoujście harbor in January 2010. In recent years before 2011,
6468-443: The interior lakes. The Baltic Sea flows out through the Danish straits ; however, the flow is complex. A surface layer of brackish water discharges 940 km (230 cu mi) per year into the North Sea . Due to the difference in salinity , by salinity permeation principle, a sub-surface layer of more saline water moving in the opposite direction brings in 475 km (114 cu mi) per year. It mixes very slowly with
6566-446: The land as a belt ( Balticus, eo quod in modum baltei longo tractu per Scithicas regiones tendatur usque in Greciam ). He might also have been influenced by the name of a legendary island mentioned in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder . Pliny mentions an island named Baltia (or Balcia ) with reference to accounts of Pytheas and Xenophon . It is possible that Pliny refers to an island named Basilia ("the royal") in On
6664-414: The land. The taxicab driver who drove Armstrong to the farm, however, sees Gromek's picture in the newspaper and reports him to the police. Visiting the physics faculty of Karl Marx University in Leipzig the next day, Armstrong's interview with the scientists ends abruptly when he is questioned by security officials about the missing Gromek. The faculty try to interrogate Sherman about her knowledge of
6762-433: The last in Europe to be converted to Christianity . This finally happened during the Northern Crusades : Finland in the twelfth century by Swedes, and what are now Estonia and Latvia in the early thirteenth century by Danes and Germans ( Livonian Brothers of the Sword ). The Teutonic Order gained control over parts of the southern and eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, where they set up their monastic state . Lithuania
6860-423: The last very heavy floods the average water levels reached 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) above sea level in 1904, 1.89 m (6 ft 2 in) in 1913, 1.73 m (5 ft 8 in) in January 1954, 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in) on 2–4 November 1995 and 1.65 m (5 ft 5 in) on 21 February 2002. An arm of the North Atlantic Ocean , the Baltic Sea is enclosed by Sweden and Denmark to
6958-416: The lines of the following: "Scene 88. We should eliminate the floor concierge. My information is that they do not have these in East Berlin ; Scene 127 C. I would like to discuss the place where the sausage is carved; On Scene 139, where we had someone describing the Julie Andrews character as beautiful... do you think beautiful is perhaps too much, and cannot we say lovely instead?" Submitted to arbitration,
7056-461: The lives of 852 people. Older, wood-based shipwrecks such as the Vasa tend to remain well-preserved, as the Baltic's cold and brackish water does not suit the shipworm . Storm surge floods are generally taken to occur when the water level is more than one metre above normal. In Warnemünde about 110 floods occurred from 1950 to 2000, an average of just over two per year. Historic flood events were
7154-463: The more open regions. The gleaming expanse of ice is similar to the Arctic , with wind-driven pack ice and ridges up to 15 m (49 ft). Offshore of the landfast ice, the ice remains very dynamic all year, and it is relatively easily moved around by winds and therefore forms pack ice , made up of large piles and ridges pushed against the landfast ice and shores. In spring, the Gulf of Finland and
7252-662: The most famous film director in Hollywood, having already reached the pinnacle of commercial success six years before with Psycho (1960). Audiences eagerly anticipated his next film. To find a gripping plot, Hitchcock turned towards the spy thriller genre, which was greatly in fashion since the early 1960s with the success of the James Bond series starting in 1962 with Dr. No . Hitchcock had already found success in that genre many times, most recently in 1959 with North by Northwest . The idea behind Torn Curtain came from
7350-493: The northernmost coastlines. On the long-term average, the Baltic Sea is ice-covered at the annual maximum for about 45% of its surface area. The ice-covered area during such a typical winter includes the Gulf of Bothnia , the Gulf of Finland , the Gulf of Riga , the archipelago west of Estonia, the Stockholm archipelago , and the Archipelago Sea southwest of Finland. The remainder of the Baltic does not freeze during
7448-492: The obvious reason is that the script is a collection of what Mr. Hitchcock most eschews—clichés." Penelope Houston , writing for Sight & Sound , commented: "What went wrong here, one suspects, was something basic in the story line." The reviewer in Variety said: "Some good plot ideas are marred by routine dialogue, and a too relaxed pace contributed to a dull overlength," adding "Hitchcock freshens up his bag of tricks in
7546-492: The pavement, one of whom is the "farmer". He gives them tickets to the ballet as part of a plan to smuggle them to Sweden that evening inside the ballet troupe's luggage. While attending the ballet and waiting to be picked up, they are spotted and reported to the police by the lead ballerina, who flew to East Berlin on the same airplane as Armstrong. Armstrong and Sherman escape through the crowd by shouting "fire" . They are hidden inside two hampers of costumes and ferried across
7644-470: The peak of the summer, with an annual average of around 9–10 °C (48–50 °F). A similar pattern can be seen in the Gotland Basin , which is located between the island of Gotland and Latvia. In the deep of these basins the temperature variations are smaller. At the bottom of the Bornholm Basin, deeper than 80 m (260 ft), the temperature typically is 1–10 °C (34–50 °F), and at
7742-463: The physicist is followed to East Berlin by his fiancée and assistant, who decides to remain loyal to him regardless of his intentions. The twist of the story is that Professor Armstrong is in fact a member of a secret spy ring and he has defected only with the idea of stealing a formula from an East German scientist. In autumn 1964, Hitchcock offered to let Vladimir Nabokov , the author of Lolita , who had successfully helped adapt his own novel to
7840-521: The rest of the film, a gripping vignette with a beginning, a middle and an end." Torn Curtain holds a 63% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 32 reviews with an average rating of 6.40/10. US">US The requested page title contains unsupported characters : ">". Return to Main Page . Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that
7938-408: The ride. I don't feel that the part demanded much of me, other than to look glamorous, which Mr Hitchcock can always arrange better than anyone. I did have reservations about this film, but I wasn't agonized by it. The kick of it was working for Hitchcock. That's what I did it for, and that's what I got out of it." The working relationship between Hitchcock and Newman was problematic. Newman came from
8036-471: The scene to show the audience how difficult it can be to kill a man, because a number of spy thrillers at the time made killing look effortless. Alfred Hitchcock's cameo is a signature occurrence in most of his films. In Torn Curtain he can be seen (eight minutes into the film) sitting in the lobby of the Hotel d'Angleterre holding a baby. The music playing at this point is an adaptation of Funeral March of
8134-516: The script, Hitchcock hired British authors Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall , known for their screenplays for Whistle Down the Wind (1961), A Kind of Loving (1962), and Billy Liar (1963), the latter based on the novel by Waterhouse. They worked rewriting some dialogue, on a day-by-day basis, as the film was shot. However, their contribution was restricted by the director's resistance to change and concern for detail. His notes to them were along
8232-514: The sea, very likely due to the role of Medieval Latin in cartography . It might be connected to the Germanic word belt , a name used for two of the Danish straits, the Belts , while others claim it to be directly derived from the source of the Germanic word, Latin balteus "belt". Adam of Bremen himself compared the sea with a belt, stating that it is so named because it stretches through
8330-657: The shores of the sea or near it usually indicate the geographical location of the sea (in Germanic languages), or its size in relation to smaller gulfs (in Old Latvian), or tribes associated with it (in Old Russian the sea was known as the Varanghian Sea). In modern languages, it is known by the equivalents of "East Sea", "West Sea", or "Baltic Sea" in different languages: At the time of the Roman Empire ,
8428-603: The sinister Hermann Gromek, the gum-chewing personal guide the East German authorities provide to shadow Armstrong's every move. Hitchcock initially wanted to shoot the film entirely on location in the Eastern Bloc but could not because he refused to give East German officials a copy of his screen play. Moore later said that Hitchcock probably could have secured filming permits in East Germany, Czechoslovakia , and Poland if he had tried harder. Principal photography of
8526-674: The southern shore . The Soviet Union gained another access to the Baltic with the Kaliningrad Oblast , that had been part of German-settled East Prussia . The Baltic states on the eastern shore were annexed by the Soviet Union. The Baltic then separated opposing military blocs: NATO and the Warsaw Pact . Neutral Sweden developed incident weapons to defend its territorial waters after the Swedish submarine incidents . This border status restricted trade and travel. It ended only after
8624-491: The time, Julie Andrews was Hollywood's biggest star after the back-to-back successes of her films Mary Poppins (1964) and The Sound of Music (1965). As she was much in demand, Andrews was available for only a short period of time, and that meant the production of the film was rushed, although Hitchcock was not yet satisfied with the script. Hitchcock surrounded Newman and Andrews with colorful supporting actors: Lila Kedrova , fresh from winning an Academy Award for Zorba
8722-531: The university's loudspeaker system that Armstrong and Sherman are being sought for questioning, he realizes that he has given up his secrets while learning nothing in return. Armstrong and Sherman escape from the school with the help of the university clinic physician Dr. Koska. The couple travel to East Berlin, pursued by the Stasi , in a decoy bus operated by the π network, led by Mr. Jacobi. Roadblocks, highway robbery by Soviet Army deserters, and bunching with
8820-502: The verdant studio hillock that was surely never meant to fool anyone, and after this the film drops like a stone, without impetus, without imagination, without interest." Richard Schickel , writing in Life , concluded: "Hitchcock is tired to the point where what once seemed highly personal style is now repetitions of past triumphs." Writing in Punch , Richard Mallet asserted: "The film as
8918-402: The way." When Newman, a Method actor, consulted Hitchcock about his character's motivations, the director replied: "motivation is your salary." Furthermore, as Hitchcock discovered, the expected onscreen chemistry between Newman and Andrews failed to materialize. Unsatisfied with the actors cast in the leads, Hitchcock shifted the point of view of the plot from the defecting scientist's wife to
9016-454: The west, Finland to the northeast, and the Baltic countries to the southeast. It is about 1,600 km (990 mi) long, an average of 193 km (120 mi) wide, and an average of 55 metres (180 ft) deep. The maximum depth is 459 m (1,506 ft) which is on the Swedish side of the center. The surface area is about 349,644 km (134,998 sq mi) and the volume
9114-716: The whole southern coast became German. World War I was partly fought in the Baltic Sea. After 1920 Poland was granted access to the Baltic Sea at the expense of Germany by the Polish Corridor and enlarged the port of Gdynia in rivalry with the port of the Free City of Danzig . After the Nazis' rise to power, Germany reclaimed the Memelland and after the outbreak of the Eastern Front (World War II) occupied
9212-568: Was the last European state to convert to Christianity . In the period between the 8th and 14th centuries, there was much piracy in the Baltic from the coasts of Pomerania and Prussia , and the Victual Brothers held Gotland . Starting in the 11th century, the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic were settled by migrants mainly from Germany , a movement called the Ostsiedlung ("east settling"). Other settlers were from
9310-414: Was also observed on 11 May 1799. The ice cover is the main habitat for two large mammals, the grey seal ( Halichoerus grypus ) and the Baltic ringed seal ( Pusa hispida botnica ), both of which feed underneath the ice and breed on its surface. Of these two seals, only the Baltic ringed seal suffers when there is not adequate ice in the Baltic Sea, as it feeds its young only while on ice. The grey seal
9408-467: Was covered with ice. Since 1720, the Baltic Sea has frozen over entirely 20 times, most recently in early 1987, which was the most severe winter in Scandinavia since 1720. The ice then covered 400,000 km (150,000 sq mi). During the winter of 2010–11, which was quite severe compared to those of the last decades, the maximum ice cover was 315,000 km (122,000 sq mi), which
9506-470: Was reached on 25 February 2011. The ice then extended from the north down to the northern tip of Gotland , with small ice-free areas on either side, and the east coast of the Baltic Sea was covered by an ice sheet about 25 to 100 km (16 to 62 mi) wide all the way to Gdańsk . This was brought about by a stagnant high-pressure area that lingered over central and northern Scandinavia from around 10 to 24 February. After this, strong southern winds pushed
9604-630: Was to make the Baltic Sea an all-Swedish sea ( Ett Svenskt innanhav ), something that was accomplished except the part between Riga in Latvia and Stettin in Pomerania. However, the Dutch dominated the Baltic trade in the seventeenth century. In the eighteenth century, Russia and Prussia became the leading powers over the sea. Sweden's defeat in the Great Northern War brought Russia to
#253746