The duel ending for 'Topaz' (1969) was the original ending of this movie. According to the book "Alfred Hitchcock: A Life In Darkness and Light" (pp. 692), "after finishing principal photography in March, Hitchcock took a short break, then returned in Paris in mid-April to shoot the grand climax of this movie. This was to be the greatest of the movie's choreographed crescendos, a scene not in the book, but in Hitchcock's mind from the beginning. It was an old-fashioned pistol duel between Devereaux (Stafford) and Granville (Piccoli), the "topaz" mole and lover of Madame Devereaux, set at dawn in a deserted soccer stadium." But halfway through the week-long shot, Hitchcock had to leave when he heard that his wife Alma had been hospitalized. Before he left for Hollywood, Hitchcock gave Herbert Coleman precise instructions on how to shoot the rest of the scenes in the duel ending. But the editing of the duel sequence ended up becoming a particular sore point.
