Screen rights to Leon Uris’s best-selling, 1967 novel, Topaz, were initially optioned by Britons Shel Talmy and Sir William Piggot Brown, for $500,000 “against five percent of the gross,” as stated in a 7 Dec 1967 DV article. However, the deal was quashed by the Bank of England due to a devaluation of the British pound which occurred slightly after Talmy and Brown supplied Uris’s agent with a $50,000 down payment. The Bank of England reasoned that it did not want $500,000 of British money being spent outside the country over the next few years, and also cited the lack of film production experience between Brown and Talmy, a music producer and discotheque owner. Five months later, Alfred Hitchcock’s plan to direct the film for Universal Pictures was announced in the 8 May 1968 DV. An item in the 7 Sep 1969 LAT claimed that Topaz was seventy-year-old Hitchcock’s fifty-first film.
       As of summer 1968, Uris’s book had not yet been published in France, due to its controversial re-telling of a spy scandal that allegedly occurred under President Charles de Gaulle. The announcement of the film deal triggered a lawsuit, filed by former French intelligence officer Phillippe de Vosjoli against Uris, Universal Pictures and its parent company, MCA, Inc. De Vosjoli claimed to have written an original French manuscript titled Le reseau topaz, which Uris translated into English before re-writing it as Topaz. De Vosjoli claimed he and Uris had agreed to split profits from the book “on a 50-50 basis,” but that Uris had excluded him from the film project and related profits.
       Principal photography began on 25 Sep 1968, as announced in a 4 Oct 1968 DV production chart. Filming began in Europe, where locations included Paris, France; Copenhagen, Denmark; and Wiesbaden, Germany, the 6 Dec 1968 DV reported. An item in the 11 Dec 1968 DV noted that clearance to shoot in France had only been granted after Hitchcock had confirmed that Charles de Gaulle would not be depicted onscreen. After nearly a month of filming overseas, the 17 Oct 1968 DV announced that cast and crew would begin a week of shooting in Washington, D.C., that day. While on the East Coast, filming was also done at the Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, and in areas of Virginia and New York. Production was completed in Los Angeles, CA, where locations included the Claretville Monastery in Malibu, CA. According to a 6 Dec 1968 DV article, the script was finished only in time for the Los Angeles portion of filming. Up to that point, Hitchcock had used a detailed treatment, co-written by himself and screenwriter Samuel Taylor.
       Filming ended in late Feb or Mar 1969, as indicated in a 31 Mar 1969 DV brief. Sometime in Sep 1969, a day of re-shoots was scheduled to take place at Paris’s Orly Airport, as announced in the 11 Sep 1969 DV.
       The film had its world premiere on 6 Nov 1969 at the Odeon Leicester Square in London, England. At Hitchcock’s behest, the film was shown there without an intermission, despite the Odeon’s house policy of including one. The 11 Nov 1969 DV review noted that a 125-minute press release version, which had been shown at the Odeon on 4 Nov 1969, had been criticized as having an “inconclusive ending.” In response, one-and-a-half minutes of footage was tacked on to “give the bowout a more caustic and typical Hitchcock twist,” resulting in a running time of 126 ½ minutes. An article in the 12 Nov 1969 Var claimed that the English premiere had been rushed due to a crowded release calendar for Dec 1969, and described the version shown there as a rough cut, which might be expanded to 142 minutes for later releases. However, when Topaz opened on 19 Dec 1969 at Los Angeles’s Pix Theatre and New York City’s Cinerama Theatre, the LAT and NYT reviews cited a 126-minute running time.
       Following mixed-to-positive reviews, Topaz was named as one of the ten best films of the year by the National Board of Review, which also awarded Hitchcock Best Director and Philippe Noiret as Best Supporting Actor.
       The following actors and actresses were named as cast members in DV items published between Sep 1968 and Feb 1969: John Stephenson; Dean Harens; Robert Patten; John Lasell; Richard Anders; Ann Doran; Ben Wright; Ernestine Wade; John Holland; Susan French; Gregory Gay; Mike Steele; Ted Roter; Roger Treville; Dom Folinaro (or Don Solinaro); Pepe Callahan; Emma Edwards; Alberto Monte; Rita Conde; and Aram Katcher, whose performance as “Munoz” was cut from the film. A 28 Apr 1969 DV item noted that Roberto Contreras had been re-cast as Munoz, but that the studio had not publicized the change “to avoid embarrassment” for Katcher, who had discovered the news unceremoniously in advance of promotional appearances.