''Shining Through'' is a 1992 American

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

which was released to United States cinemas on January 31, 1992, written and directed by

David Seltzer David Seltzer (born February 12, 1940) is an American screenwriter, producer and director, perhaps best known for writing the screenplays for ''The Omen'' (1976) and ''Bird on a Wire (film), Bird on a Wire'' (1990). As writer-director, Seltzer' ...

and starring

Michael Douglas Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the ...

and

Melanie Griffith Melanie Richards Griffith (born August 9, 1957) is an American actress. Born in Manhattan to actress Tippi Hedren, she was raised mainly in Los Angeles, where she graduated from the Hollywood Professional School at age 16. In 1975, 17-year-old ...

, with

Liam Neeson William John Neeson (born 7 June 1952) is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has received List of awards and nominations received by Liam Neeson, several accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, BAFT ...

, Joely Richardson and

John Gielgud Sir Arthur John Gielgud ( ; 14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the Britis ...

in supporting roles. It is based on the 1988 novel by Susan Isaacs. The original music score was composed by

Michael Kamen Michael Arnold Kamen (April 15, 1948 – November 18, 2003) was an American composer (especially of film scores), orchestral arranger, orchestral conductor, songwriter, record producer and musician. Early life Michael Arnold Kamen was born in ...

Plot

In the present (1992), elderly Linda Voss is interviewed by a BBC documentary team about her experiences before and during World War II. She explains that, growing up in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

as a young woman of mixed Irish/

German Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321 CE, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish commu ...

parentage, she always dreamed of visiting Berlin and finding her family members there. In 1940, Linda applies for a job as a secretary with a major law firm, but is rejected because she did not graduate from a prestigious women's college. As she leaves, however, Linda impresses the supervisor by demonstrating that she speaks fluent German, and is hired as a translator for Ed Leland, a humorless attorney. She soon becomes suspicious of his strange behavior and mysterious whereabouts, and begins to suspect he is actually a spy. They eventually become lovers. After the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Empire of Japan on the United States Pacific Fleet at Naval Station Pearl Harbor, its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Territory of ...

, when America joins the war with the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...

, Ed emerges as a colonel in the OSS. Linda accompanies him to

Washington D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, but he is suddenly posted away, leaving her alone and devastated. Assigned to work in the War Department, she hears nothing of Ed until one evening in a night club, when he reappears with an attractive female officer. Reluctant to resume their affair, he does re-employ her. When one of their undercover agents in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

is murdered, Ed and his colleagues need to replace him on very short notice. Despite knowing little about intelligence work, except from movies, Linda volunteers and Ed is persuaded by her fluent German and passion to contribute to the war effort. Her mission is to bring back data on the

V-1 flying bomb The V-1 flying bomb ( "Vengeance Weapon 1") was an early cruise missile. Its official Reich Aviation Ministry () name was Fieseler Fi 103 and its suggestive name was (hellhound). It was also known to the Allies as the buzz bomb or doodlebug a ...

. Ed and Linda travel to Switzerland, where he hands her over to elderly master spy Konrad Friedrichs, who takes her into Germany by train. He hides her in his house in Berlin and introduces her to his niece, Margrete von Eberstein, a socialite also working as an Allied agent. Linda assumes the identity of Lina Albrecht, a cook planted in the household of Horst Drescher, a social-climbing

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

officer. He is throwing an important party, but she arrives too late to prepare the food properly, causing the dinner to be a disaster. Drescher angrily fires her. Walking dejectedly on a dark street, alone and after curfew, Linda bumps into a guest from the dinner, officer Franze-Otto Dietrich, who is charmed by her and mistakenly believes she already had a

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

security check. Dietrich is a widower and takes Linda/"Lina" on as a nanny to his two children. Between her duties as a servant, she searches Dietrich's house for confidential papers on the V1, which he is also working on. She intends to photograph them, but can find nothing. Meanwhile, Ed, sick with worry about Linda since her disappearance from Drescher's party, suddenly chances to see her in a newsreel of Hitler in a parade in Berlin. Ed's agents identify Dietrich as the man standing next to Linda in the film, and Ed heads to Germany to rescue her. Because he does not speak German, he assumes the identity of a wounded high-ranking German officer, who had his throat injured and cannot speak. He tracks down Linda and tells her she must leave with him immediately, but Linda reveals that she has located her Jewish cousins, excitedly telling Ed and Margrete how nearby they are. She demands Ed give her another day to visit them and give them hope. The next day, with the children in her care, Linda tracks down her relatives' hiding place in the city, but finds it empty and ransacked, as they have just been captured. When an Allied air raid suddenly hits, Linda has to run for cover with the children and protect them. Back at the house, the frightened boy inadvertently reveals the existence of a hidden room in Dietrich's basement. Linda sneaks down there that night and finds and surreptitiously photographs Dietrich's top secret V-1 rocket blueprints. Dietrich nearly catches her, before he reveals he has fallen in love with Linda and invites her to the opera. While there, Linda's cover is blown when Margrete's mother recognizes her, believing Linda to be a friend of her daughter's from college. Dietrich is heartbroken and, once back at his house, Linda sees him loading his gun. Fearing for her life, Linda flees across the house and finds sanctuary with Margrete. Linda catches Margrete using a pay phone on the street to report in to her Gestapo superiors. Margrete shoots Linda and reveals she is a

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...

, who betrayed the agent Linda replaced, causing his death, and also revealed the location of Linda's Jewish cousins to the Gestapo. The two struggle and Linda, although wounded, overpowers Margrete and kills her. Linda hides in the laundry chute, escaping the German forces who raid Margrete's apartment. Badly wounded, Linda is found by Ed and Friedrichs, who take her to the railway station. Ed and Linda travel to the Swiss-German border. Linda is unconscious from blood loss, barely alive, and Ed's travel papers have expired. Ed's mute act fails to sway the border guards, forcing him to shoot his way out. Carrying Linda, he struggles toward the border. The German

sniper A sniper is a military or paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with telescopic si ...

guarding it shoots and wounds him twice, but he gets himself and Linda across before collapsing. Back in the present, Linda reveals that while she and Ed recovered from their injuries in a Swiss hospital, the

microfilm A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

of the secret German documents was retrieved from a hiding place inside her glove, and the Allies successfully bombed the V1 installation. Ed then walks out to join the interview, and they reveal they have been happily married ever since.

Cast

as Ed Leland *

as Linda Voss *

as General Franze-Otto Dietrich * Joely Richardson as Margrete von Eberstein *

as Konrad Friedrichs Sunflower * Francis Guinan as Andrew Berringer * Anthony Walters as Dietrich's son * Victoria Shalet as Dietrich's daughter * Sheila Allen as Olga Leiner, Margrete's mother * Stanley Beard as Linda's father *

Sylvia Syms Sylvia May Laura Syms (6 January 1934 – 27 January 2023) was an English stage and screen actress. Her best-known film roles include '' My Teenage Daughter'' (1956), '' Woman in a Dressing Gown'' (1957), for which she was nominated for a BAFTA ...

as Linda's mother * as Horst Drescher * Hansi Jochmann as Hedda Drescher * Mathieu Carrière as Capt. Von Haefler * William Hope as Major Kernohan * Constanze Engelbrecht as Stafson Von Neest * Ludwig Haas as

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

* Wolf Kahler as German Border Commandant

Production

The film was first announced in the fall of 1988, just after the publication of the novel. It was to be written and directed by Seltzer, produced at

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...

and would likely star

Debra Winger Debra Lynn Winger (born May 16, 1955) is an American actress. She starred in the films '' An Officer and a Gentleman'' (1982), '' Terms of Endearment'' (1983), and '' Shadowlands'' (1993), each of which earned her a nomination for the Academy Awa ...

. By late 1989, just after the fall of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

, Seltzer and producer Rosenman were reported to be scouting potential locations in

East Berlin East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

, and

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, and Meg Ryan and

Michelle Pfeiffer Michelle Marie Pfeiffer ( ; born April 29, 1958) is an American actress. She was one of the most bankable stars in Cinema of the United States, Hollywood during the 1980s and 1990s, and her List of Michelle Pfeiffer performances, performances ...

were reported to be top contenders for the lead role. The production moved soon after to Twentieth Century Fox, and in February 1990, it was announced that Melanie Griffith had been cast. After permission was secured to shoot the film on location in East Germany, the majority of it was shot in

and

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

starting in October 1990, just as Germany was being reunified. Studio work was done at the DEFA Studios, the state film studios of East Germany. Because all of Berlin's great train stations were destroyed in World War II, the production traveled over to Leipzig at the end of October to shoot scenes in the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof terminus, built in 1915 and the largest in Europe. This was prior to the building's modernization by the

Deutsche Bahn (, ; abbreviated as DB or DB AG ) is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). DB was fou ...

. The finale, set at a border crossing and involving a period train, was shot in Maria Elend,

Carinthia Carinthia ( ; ; ) is the southernmost and least densely populated States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The Lake Wolayer is a mountain lake on the Carinthian side of the Carnic Main ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, in November 1990. The

and Washington scenes at the beginning of the film were shot in and around

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and at nearby

Pinewood Studios Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London. The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to t ...

. Locations included the

Old Royal Naval College The Old Royal Naval College are buildings that serve as the architectural centrepiece of Maritime Greenwich, a World Heritage Site in Greenwich, London, described by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) ...

in Greenwich,

Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. It ...

, and St Pancras Station, which doubled for Zurich Station for a brief sequence set in Switzerland.

Reception

The film was neither a commercial nor a critical success. The Razzie Awards declared ''Shining Through'' the Worst Picture of 1992, with Melanie Griffith being voted Worst Actress (also for her performance in ''

A Stranger Among Us ''A Stranger Among Us'' is a 1992 American crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Melanie Griffith. It tells the story of an undercover police officer's experiences in a Hasidic community. It was entered into the 1992 Cannes Film ...

'') and David Seltzer for Worst Director. It also received nominations for Michael Douglas as Worst Actor (also for ''

Basic Instinct ''Basic Instinct'' is a 1992 erotic thriller film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas. Starring Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, George Dzundza, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Wayne Knight, the film follows the detective Nick ...

'') and for Seltzer in the category of Worst Screenplay. The film holds a 41% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

based on 17 reviews with an average rating of 4.80/10.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

wrote in the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...

'', "I know it's only a movie, and so perhaps I should be willing to suspend my disbelief, but ''Shining Through'' is such an insult to the intelligence that I wasn't able to do that. Here is a film in which scene after scene is so implausible that the movie kept pushing me outside and making me ask how the key scenes could possibly be taken seriously."

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, who served as a film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1977 to 1999, serving as chief critic for the last six years, and then a literary critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000, M ...

wrote in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' that the first three-quarters of Susan Isaacs's book "never made it to the screen," including Linda Voss's love affair and marriage to her New York law firm boss, John Berringer. "David Seltzer's film version of ''Shining Through'' manages to lose also the humor of Susan Isaacs's savvy novel. Even stranger than that is the film's insistence on jettisoning the most enjoyable parts of the story." The film is listed in

Golden Raspberry Award The Golden Raspberry Awards (also known as the Razzies and Razzie Awards) is a parody award show honoring the worst of cinematic failures. Co-founded by University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA film graduates and film industry veterans John ...

founder John Wilson's book '' The Official Razzie Movie Guide'' as one of The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Shining Through 1992 films 1990s German-language films 1992 romantic drama films 20th Century Fox films American romantic drama films American spy drama films American war drama films British romantic drama films British spy drama films British war drama films Films about Nazi Germany Films based on American novels Films based on romance novels Films scored by Michael Kamen Films directed by David Seltzer Films with screenplays by David Seltzer Films set in Berlin Films shot at Pinewood Studios Golden Raspberry Award–winning films 1990s war romance films World War II spy films Works about women in war 1990s English-language films 1990s American films 1990s British films 1992 multilingual films American multilingual films British multilingual films American war romance films English-language romantic drama films English-language war drama films German-language American films German-language war drama films German-language drama films