Topaz, director Alfred Hitchcock's 51st movie, filmed between 1968 and 1969, was adapted from a book by Leon Uris. It is a Cold War and spy story with nearly 10 persons, none of them acting with a real heroic impulse.
The movie was not very successful or popular. Hitchcock changed the script shortly before the beginning of the filming and the distributor Universal forced a different impatient ending to the one preferred by Hitchcock.
Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers
Three different conclusions were filmed. The first includes a duel between the French agent André Devereaux (Frederic Stafford) and his old friend but traitor Jacques Grandville (Michel Piccoli[?]) in a soccer stadium, the second shows the two men stepping into two different planes, one flying to Paris (with Devereaux) and the other flying to Moscow (with Grandville). The third - official - alternative includes the suicide of Grandville, rudely embedded into the flow of the story.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump