SHINING THROUGH
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Melanie Griffith plays a half-Jewish
woman who during World War II goes to Germany to spy on the
Nazis and to save some of her family hiding in Berlin. This
is an old-fashioned sort of spy film much like Hitchcock
might have made in the 1940s. This film is good fun.
Rating: low +2 (-4 to +4).
During World War II the sort of spy film that was made had generally normal sorts of people with normal sorts of goals. People like James Cagney would be normal, everyday Americans shocked by what they saw in Germany or Japan. The sort of thing we got was FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT or BLOOD ON THE SUN. When the war was over, Hitchcock added some gloss and star power with films like NOTORIOUS. By the early 1960s, however, the personal sort of behind-the-lines spy story, such as THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR or TORN CURTAIN, was rare and the spy film was giving way to the more spectacular sabotage films such as THE GUNS OF NAVARONE. When James Bond came along, there was much more gloss and in addition, the spy had become the infallible super- spy. Even then the stakes could be as small as a decoder. But that was not true for long. Soon Bond had to fight bigger and bigger threats. The villains threatened Fort Knox, Miami, the space program. The stories got more and more tongue-in-cheek. In MOONRAKER the plot was to destroy the whole world. Then our agents started being people like John Rambo, who knows that you don't need brain power--you need fire power. THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER restored some of the need for brain power, but it was brain power together with fire power. Now there is SHINING THROUGH and it is a story that Hitchcock might have done in 1946. We have relatively normal people who make mistakes and get hurt and feel. Producer/director/writer David Seltzer seems to have forgotten everything we have learned about the spy film since 1950. Gee, I hope he makes a bundle.
We are told the entire story from a regrettable framing sequence (more on that later). Linda Voss (played by Melanie Griffith) is being interviewed by the BBC about her experiences in World War II. In flashback we see the young Linda as a romantic who loves movies, particularly about Germany. Her father is a German Jew who fled because of the oppression. But Voss still dreams of visiting Germany to bring the rest of her family out. With her quick mind and a general high efficiency she becomes a legal secretary and is assigned to lawyer Ed Leland (played by Michael Douglas). There seems to be more to Leland than meets the eye, however. He seems to disappear on mysterious missions for the government. Voss is intrigued by both the man and his job. In the first hour there is a romance between the two, but the film takes off in the second hour when Voss gets her opportunity to go to Germany to rescue her family and at the same time do some spying for the government.
The technical aspects of SHINING THROUGH are for the most part well- executed. The recreation of the streets of Berlin during the war feels particularly realistic. David Seltzer was both executive producer and director; as director, he could see what was needed to make a street look authentic and then as holder of the purse strings he could allot himself the budget to create the effect he wanted. The script is witty and suspenseful though occasionally it stretches credulity a bit. There are some far- fetched coincidences (Hitchcock films often have the same problem). But the biggest flaw is a framing sequence which robs the story of much of its suspense. As the story is related by Voss years after the war, there is no doubt that Voss will survive all the events. The old age makeup, incidentally, is not nearly as good as it is in FOR THE BOYS. Perhaps that is the only area where that film is better than this. The framing sequence does give Seltzer a very clever excuse to have the German sequences shot in English. Michael Kamen provides a score including an interesting piano theme under the opening credits.
Besides Douglas and Griffith, SHINING THROUGH features Sir John Gielgud, generally considered to be one of the greatest living actors. This film does not sufficiently show off his talents, though it is hard to imagine any film that would. Liam Neeson, best known for the title role in DARKMAN, plays a Nazi officer and Joely Richardson plays an attractive high- born German woman who befriends Voss. (Richardson is the daughter of director Tony Richardson and actress Vanessa Redgrave.) Overall a very enjoyable--I would rate it a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Very mild spoiler: Seltzer might have done well to study his history a little better. Peenemunde is not a town in central Germany as it appears on the map in the film. It is an island at the north-east tip of Germany at the mouth of the Peene River. I could be wrong about this, but I do not believe that there were factories at Peenemunde. The V-1 and A-4 (a.k.a. the V-2) were launched from Peenemunde but the A-4 (at least) was built at Nordhausen, which may well be the place Seltzer called "Peenemunde." Nordhausen was at least inland some distance and might have been in that position on the map Voss saw. One more comment about the framing sequence: it almost certainly was an after-thought to make the film more commercial and to give it a much happier but less realistic ending.
Mark R. Leeper
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