Real-life Influences
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- The plot is based on the real-life Sapphire Affair of 1962.
- The film begins with a Russian KGB agent defecting along with his wife and daughter. It was based on that of Anatoliy Golitsyn.
- André Devereaux was based on French agent Philippe Thyraud de Vosjoli of the SDECE.
- "Juanita de Cordoba" is loosely based on Castro's sister Juanita Castro who defected to the U.S.
- The red haired army captain known as "Hernandez" is based on Manuel Piñeiro.
- Fidel Castro makes an uncredited appearance in the film along with Che Guevara. While in Cuba, Deveraux attends a Castro rally in order to keep up the appearance of his official cover, that of a French trade attaché. The film spliced in actual footage of a real Castro rally of the era to add to the realism.
- The French title is L'Étau (English : ~bench vice, ~stranglehold), to avoid any reference to Topaze, a well known 1951 French opus by Marcel Pagnol starring Fernandel and Yvette Etiévant. In the French script, the topaz gemstone is replaced by "l'opale" (opal).
Read more about this topic: Topaz (1969 film)
Famous quotes containing the word influences:
“Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise. Once and again one of those great influences which we call a Cause arises in the midst of a nation. Men of strenuous minds and high ideals come forward.... The attacks they sustain are more cruel than the collision of arms.... Friends desert and despise them.... They stand alone and oftentimes are made bitter by their isolation.... They are doing nothing less than defy public opinion, and shall they convert it by blows. Yes.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)