East is East and West is West. By the time Alfred Hitchcock made this, his fiftieth film, critics were respectful but reserved their praise for his imitators. Although it was dismissed by some as dated and stilted, Hitchcock's name on the marquee could still draw the crowds and the presence of Paul Newman and Julie Andrews boded well for box office receipts.
Unfortunately, for this viewer at any rate, these two artistes are not only miscast but mismatched whilst Newman's 'Method' approach with its perpetual search for 'motivation' caused Hitchcock the same frustration as had Montgomery Clift during the filming of 'I Confess'.
There are compensations however in the supporting cast notably Wolfgang Kieling, Ludwig Donath, David Opotashu, Lila Kedrova and Carolyn Conwell.
The film itself is something of a curate's egg and its good parts are the scene where one scientist picks the brain of another scientist so as to discover the formula which is the film's MacGuffin and of course the killing of Gromek which is masterfully filmed and edited and although it is a pity that Bernard Hermann's original score was discarded one feels that this particular scene is more telling without music. In keeping with the locale and characters, the improvised use of household objects: a kettle full of soup, a carving knife, a shovel and finally a gas oven serve to accentuate the gruesomeness. Its effectiveness is heightened by the fact that the deed is done not by professional assassins but by 'ordinary' people who are forced to kill in order to survive.
It is not at all unusual for the form of even the best directors to dip as they descend into the vale of years and Hitchcock was further weakened when deprived of his favourite stars, his director of cinematography, his composer and his chief editor. This did not augur well and the three films he made during the next ten years were to be of decidedly mixed quality.