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.
The German version of 'Topaz' (1969) ends with Jacques Granville (Michel Piccoli) going into his house, and the sound of a gunshot suggests he has shot himself.
The tagline on the front sleeve for the 1987 U.S. MCA Home Video videodisc/laserdisc release of 'Topaz' (1969) exclaimed: Contains Previously Unreleased Endings.
In an earlier version Andre' Deveraux and Granville, the Russian spy, agree to have an old fashioned duel with pistols in an empty stadium. But before the duel begins, Granville is shot in the back by a Russian sniper to silence him. This finale was deleted and a new one shot, because early audiences didn't like it. These scenes were considered lost for many years, until director Richard Franklin discovered that they had been lying for years in a can in Hitchcock's garage and were given by his daughter to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences after her father's death.
The new ending takes place at Paris airport; Deveraux and his wife are leaving for America and see Granville boarding a plane to the USSR. He salutes them. Deveraux explains to his wife why he let Grainville leave. The last scene shows someone throwing a newspaper on a bench. The camera shows the headline and then pans to the Paris Arc de Triomphe, the same pictured in the opening shots.