Shining Through is a 1992 film, based on the novel by Susan Isaacs. It was directed and written by David Seltzer. It stars Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith. Although based on the novel of the same name by Susan Isaacs, the film plot is considerably different.
Synopsis
In 1940, before the USA has entered World War 2, Linda Voss (Melanie Griffith), a girl of Irish/German Jewish parentage, living in Queens, New York, starts work as a secretary with a New York law firm. Because of her German language skills, she becomes a bilingual secretary/translator to Ed Leland, (Michael Douglas), a humorless lawyer. Linda increasingly suspects that Ed's work is more than the usual law firm work, and is proved right when, after America enters the war, he emerges as an officer in the OSS with the rank of colonel. She accompanies him to confidential meetings in New York and Washington DC, and they also become lovers. But when Ed is suddenly posted away - probably on a mission to occupied Europe - she is left devastated. Assigned to work in the War Department, she sees or hears nothing of Ed, until he reappears as suddenly as he left. Reluctant to resume their affair, he does re-employ her. Then Ed and his colleagues have to replace a murdered agent in Berlin at very short notice. Despite knowing little about intelligence work - only what she's seen in movies - Linda volunteers and Ed allows himself to be persuaded. Ed and Linda go to Switzerland and she is handed over to spymaster Konrad Friedrichs, codenamed Sunflower (John Gielgud). Despite being appalled at her accent (the accent of a Berlin butcher's wife!), he installs her in a cheap Berlin apartment, introduces her to Margrete von Eberstein (Joely Richardson), a beautiful and socially well-connected woman also working as an allied agent. She is inserted as a newly-arrived cook into the household of social-climbing Nazi Horst Drescher (Ronald Nitschke). The dinner is a disaster and she is sacked on the spot. But she is taken on as nanny to the children of high-ranking Nazi officer Franz-Otto Dietrich (Liam Neeson), who was a guest at the dinner. Unable to report back to Ed, she is taken to his house and effectively drops out of sight. Linda discovers that Dietrich is in the habit of bringing home confidential papers and sets about finding and photographing them. Contrary to orders, she also attempts to locate some Jewish cousins, believed to be in hiding in a cellar in a Berlin suburb. Linda finds the cellar, but too late - her cousins have been arrested. She is then discovered in the act of reading the secret papers and flees the house. In desperation, she seeks sanctuary with Margrete, only to realize that the latter has betrayed the cousins and is about to betray Linda. She shoots Linda, wounding her, but Linda manages to kill Margrete. Badly wounded and unable to leave her hiding place, she is discovered by Sunflower and Ed, who has come to Berlin in the guise of a mute high-ranking army officer. Ed takes her to the railway station and they travel to the Swiss border. Linda is barely alive and her travel papers are out of date. Ed's bluff fails to sway the border guards and he shoots his way out. He struggles towards the frontier line, badly wounded by German fire, makes it - just - and is rescued by Allied agents. In a short sequel, told in flashback many years later as part of a television interview, it is revealed that whilst Linda and Ed recover in a Swiss hospital, the microfilm of the documents is retrieved from its hiding place in Linda's glove (a trick she saw in a war movie). It proves to be the location of a secret rocket base, which is then bombed and destroyed.
