''Enigma'' is a 1982 Anglo-American thriller film directed by

Jeannot Szwarc Jeannot Szwarc (born November 21, 1939) is a French director of film and television, known for such films as '' Jaws 2'', ''Somewhere in Time'', ''Supergirl'' and '' Santa Claus: The Movie''. He has also produced and written for TV. Life and c ...

"Overview: 'Enigma'."
''

Turner Classic Movies Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of At ...

'', 2019. Retrieved: August 17, 2019. and starring

Martin Sheen Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez (born August 3, 1940), known professionally as Martin Sheen, is an American actor. He first became known for his roles in the films ''The Subject Was Roses'' (1968) and ''Badlands'' (1973), and later achieved wid ...

Sam Neill Sir Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill (born 14 September 1947) is a New Zealand actor. Neill's near-50 year career has included leading roles in both dramas and blockbusters. Considered an "international leading man", he has been regarded as one o ...

Brigitte Fossey Brigitte Florence Fossey (; born 15 June 1946) is a French actress. Early years The daughter of a schoolteacher, Fossey was five years old when she was cast by director René Clément to star in his film, '' Forbidden Games''.Kevin McNally Kevin Robert McNally (born 27 April 1956) is an English actor and writer. He is known for portraying Joshamee Gibbs in the ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' film series. Early life Born in Bristol, McNally spent his early years in Birmingham, atte ...

. Based on Michael Barak's novel ''Enigma Sacrifice'', the film centers on a CIA agent who tries to infiltrate Soviet intelligence in order to stop a murderous plot.

Plot

East German dissident Alex Holbeck (

), living in Paris, hosts a radio program aimed at Iron Curtain countries. Bodley ( Michael Lonsdale), a

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

agent, recruits Alex to take on a dangerous assignment. Alex is sent to East Berlin on a mission to steal an Enigma code

scrambler In telecommunications, a scrambler is a device that transposes or inverts signals or otherwise encodes a message at the sender's side to make the message unintelligible at a receiver not equipped with an appropriately set descrambling device. Wher ...

. This is part of an attempt to stop the Russian assassination of five

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

dissidents planned for Christmas Day. What Alex does not know is that the CIA already has a code scrambler. By stealing the scrambler in Berlin, they are trying to convince the Russians that they do not have a copy. On arrival in Berlin, Alex finds that the East German police and

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

knows that he is there. Alex must use numerous disguises and escape from a number of capture attempts. He seeks shelter with his former lover, Karen Reinhardt (

Brigitte Fossey Brigitte Florence Fossey (; born 15 June 1946) is a French actress. Early years The daughter of a schoolteacher, Fossey was five years old when she was cast by director René Clément to star in his film, '' Forbidden Games''.Sam Neill Sir Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill (born 14 September 1947) is a New Zealand actor. Neill's near-50 year career has included leading roles in both dramas and blockbusters. Considered an "international leading man", he has been regarded as one o ...

), the KGB man in charge of the hunt for Alex, to obtain information. In the end, Dimitri catches Alex and Karen and finds the scrambler hidden in an exhibition artifact. As he is in love with Karen, he lets them go, but keeps the scrambler, which was in fact not needed. On Christmas Day, the assassination attempt is successfully thwarted.

Cast

as Alex Holbeck *

Brigitte Fossey Brigitte Florence Fossey (; born 15 June 1946) is a French actress. Early years The daughter of a schoolteacher, Fossey was five years old when she was cast by director René Clément to star in his film, '' Forbidden Games''.Sam Neill Sir Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill (born 14 September 1947) is a New Zealand actor. Neill's near-50 year career has included leading roles in both dramas and blockbusters. Considered an "international leading man", he has been regarded as one o ...

as Dimitri Vasilikov *

Derek Jacobi Sir Derek George Jacobi (; born 22 October 1938) is an English actor. He has appeared in various stage productions of William Shakespeare such as ''Hamlet'', ''Much Ado About Nothing'', '' Macbeth'', ''Twelfth Night'', '' The Tempest'', ''Kin ...

as Kurt Limmer * Michael Lonsdale as Bodley *

Frank Finlay Francis Finlay, (6 August 1926 – 30 January 2016) was an English stage, film and television actor, Oscar-nominated for a supporting role as Iago in Laurence Olivier's 1965 film adaptation of ''Othello''. In 1983, Finlay was directed by Ital ...

as Canarsky *

Warren Clarke Warren Clarke (born Alan James Clarke; 26 April 1947 – 12 November 2014) was an English actor. He appeared in many films after a significant role as Dim in Stanley Kubrick's ''A Clockwork Orange''. His television appearances included '' Dalz ...

as Konstantin * Michael Williams as Hirsch * David Baxt as Melton *

Kevin McNally Kevin Robert McNally (born 27 April 1956) is an English actor and writer. He is known for portraying Joshamee Gibbs in the ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' film series. Early life Born in Bristol, McNally spent his early years in Birmingham, atte ...

as Bruno, CIA *

Michel Auclair Michel Auclair (born Vladimir Vujović, sr-cyr, Владимир Вујовић; 14 September 1922 – 7 January 1988) was an actor of Serbian and French ancestry, known best for his roles in French cinema. Auclair was born to a Serbian father ...

as Doctor *

Féodor Atkine Féodor Atkine is a French actor of Russian-Polish origin, born on 27 February 1948 in Paris. A screen performer, he has participated in numerous plays, films and television series in France and abroad. Life and career Féodor Atkine was born ...

as The Diplomat *

Vincent Grass Vincent Grass (born 9 January 1949) is a Belgian actor. He has appeared in a number of both European and American film and television productions, the first being the Belgian television production ''Siska Van Roosemaal'' in 1973. Grass played Fian ...

as Soviet W * Patrick Bauchau as Soviet Soldier *

Liliane Rovère Liliane Rovère (born 30 January 1933) is a French actress. Personal life In 1955, she went to the United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country pr ...

Production

Goldcrest Films Goldcrest Films is an award-winning independent British distribution, production, post production, and finance company. Operating from London and New York, Goldcrest is a privately owned integrated filmed entertainment company. Goldcrest Films ov ...

put up $58,000 in development costs and invested £985,000 in the budget of $8.1 million. The company received £355,000, losing £630,000.Eberts and Illott 1990, pp. 98, 655. ''Enigma'' was shot partly, in 1982, at

Paris–Le Bourget Airport Paris–Le Bourget Airport (french: link=no, Aéroport de Paris-Le Bourget) is an airport located within portions of the communes of Le Bourget, Bonneuil-en-France, Dugny and Gonesse, north-northeast of Paris, France. Once Paris's principal ...

. A scene was shot in the terminal, in the hall of eight columns, disused at the time, others on the terrace or in front of the entrance. The aircraft in ''Enigma'' are: *

Dassault Super Mystère The Dassault Super Mystère is a French supersonic fighter-bomber and was the first Western European supersonic aircraft to enter mass production. Design and development The Super Mystère represents the final step in evolution which began wit ...

B.2 *

Dassault Mystère IV The Dassault MD.454 Mystère IV is a 1950s French fighter-bomber aircraft, the first transonic aircraft to enter service with the French Air Force. It was used in large-scale combat in the Israeli Air Force during the 1967 Six Day War. Design a ...

A, F-TENN * Dassault MD.450 Ouragan, F-TEUU * Sud Aviation SE-210 Caravelle, F -BJTR *

Lockheed L-749 Constellation The Lockheed L-749 Constellation is the first Lockheed Constellation to regularly cross the Atlantic Ocean non-stop. Although similar in appearance to the L-649 before it, the L-749 had a larger fuel capacity, strengthened landing gear, and even ...

, F-ZVMV Santoir, Christian
"Review: 'Enigma'."
''Aeromovies'', January 6, 2018. Retrieved: August 17. 2019.

Reception

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...

in her review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', decried the "wise-guy" attitude in ''Enigma'', writing, "There are plenty of mysteries about ''Enigma'' but they aren't necessarily the ones the film makers intended. As directed by Jeannot Szwarc, best known for ''

Jaws 2 ''Jaws 2'' is a 1978 American thriller film directed by Jeannot Szwarc and co-written by Carl Gottlieb. It is the sequel to Steven Spielberg's ''Jaws'' (1975), and the second installment in the ''Jaws'' franchise. The film stars Roy Scheider a ...

'' and '' Somewhere in Time'', this is the spy film at its most absurdly hard-boiled and at its most icily perfunctory. It is punctuated by crisp titles (indicating the date of each scene), played very close to the vest and riddled with false alarms ..." Film historian and critic

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fi ...

in ''Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide 2013'' (2012) noted a "fine cast does its best with so-so material."Maltin 2012, p. 416.

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

* Eberts, Jake and Terry Illott. ''My Indecision is Final''. London: Faber and Faber, 1990. . * Floyd, Nigel. "Review: 'Enigma'." in Pym, John, ed. ''Time Out Film Guide''. London: Time Out Guides Limited, 2004. . * Maltin, Leonard. ''Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide 2013''. New York: New American Library, 2012 (originally published as ''TV Movies'', then ''Leonard Maltin’s Movie & Video Guide''), First edition 1969, published annually since 1988. .

External links

* * {{Jeannot Szwarc 1982 films Films directed by Jeannot Szwarc Cold War spy films 1980s thriller drama films British aviation films Films scored by Douglas Gamley Films scored by Marc Wilkinson Films set in Berlin Films about the Central Intelligence Agency American aviation films 1982 drama films Films with screenplays by John Briley Films set in Paris Films set in East Germany Films about the KGB Films about assassinations 1980s English-language films 1980s American films 1980s British films