GROMEK'S MURDER in Torn Curtain
I AM PUZZLED BY the high reputation the murder of Gromek in Torn Curtain has earned among critics. The reason seems to be its realistic portrayal of the killiing of a spy. But realism of itself in movies can never be a standard, just a reference. A filmed execution can be realistic but that doesn't make it art until it is orchestrated among other elements in a film. But the word "realism" is compromised in Alfred Hitchcock's film. It's true the killing is more realistic than in other spy films, at least in the physical sense (killing Gromek is messy). But that is where the realism of the scene ends.
For example, there is nothing realistic about the characters. We know nothing of the farm woman, and what we know of Gromek is more a caricature than a person.
Moreover, Gromek isn't (despite what critics say) likeable. In fact, based on Paul Newman's star power, our response to Gromek has already been defined by Newman's character, Michael, who reacts to him with disgust.
For example, when Gromek says he lived in New York, Michael responds curtly, "Good." The director of the East Berlin agency himself seems to treat Gromek with suspicion, dismissing him (again curtly) and advising Michael to report Gromek if he causes trouble.
This is hardly a character who can arouse our sympathy, if Hitchcock had intended. But Hitchcock clearly wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted to film a realistic murder scene but not risk taking sympathy away from Newman (in Hollywood, star and character are one), thus making Gromek an unsympathetic character to insure this.
Moreover, even the killing is unrealistic, distancing the viewer further. That is, if we could believe that a Physics professor would be able to kill a police agent, the scene would have a more realistic impact. But since the premise is absurd to begin with, we detach ourselves from the scene, while Paul Newman's realistic (method) acting of the scene ironically makes the scene even more unrealistic, because Newman forces us to think whether a real-life (presumably sedentary) professor could kill a spy. But Gromek is not a real person and Michael is not a real-life professor; so the scene is unreal no matter how messy the murder is.
What remains is the physical struggle to murder someone with different tools: the hands (strangulation), a knife, a shovel, and gas (the oven). But factors that would elicit involvement from an audience are missing.
We don't identify with the woman because we don't know who she is. We don't identify with Michael since he is a professor incapable of such an act, or the strength to effect it. Nor do we identify with Gromek, for reasons given above.
There is some art in the sequence to be sure: the impact editing as Gromek pounds his hand into Michael's chest twice. Or the quick cuts as the woman pounds the shovel against Gromek's knees.
Otherwise acting and characterization weaken the scene. Surely a genuine agent would get out of Michael's stranglehold in seconds, instead of fooling around quoting English phrases! (A mere elbow maneuver to Michael's chest would have done the trick.)
This is not to say such a spy killing would never work. But it would not work on the realistic level that Hitchcock wants in Torn Curtain.
For example, the United Nations murder sequence in North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) is just as absurd. But all the elements of film enhance the scene: Cary Grant's stylized (unrealistic) acting, the comic staging of the scene (no reasonable person would pull a knife out of a murder victim), the reaction shots of bystanders, the flash editing of those shots, the change of angle, even sound effects all contribute to the orchestration of the sequence so as to make it convincing in terms of the genre called "suspense thriller" or "comedy thriller."
Thus the reputation of the Torn Curtain sequence seems to be inflated if not undeserved.
The irony is only a musical underscore would have helped the scene by making it less realistic and more stylized. But Hitchcock rejected two underscore cues for this scene, one by Bernard Herrrman, whom he fired, and the second by John Addison, whose score remains in the film but whose cue for this scene was rejected and can be heard only on the CD release of the film's soundtrack. Of the two cues, Addison's cue, featuring an electric guitar rhythm motif, seems the more successful, despite the superiority of Herrmann as the more successful film composer.
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