Torn Curtain

Excellent Hitchcock film with a stellar cast - Paul Newman, Julie Andrews. Normally, Hitchcok is all about the drama, the suspense, and ordinary people involved in extraordinary situations. Perhaps, his emphasis on the details of daily events and their significance is his most biblical contribution to film. In this film, Newman is a scientist and a spy, who early in his mission has to kill a man. He's at a farmhouse and is discovered by his guide, actually a secret service man who trails him. He's one of the most likable people in the movie, the secret service man, I mean, but he's also a ruthless, committed East German Communist. Newman's only help in the killing comes from the woman of the farmhouse. The killing is drawn out, not easy. The scene makes you realize that killing a human being is a difficult thing, unlike the quick deaths one sees in war and action movies. It is not pretty, and you do not leave the scene with a good impression of Newman. You understand why he had to do it, but you also empathize with a man who is used to the classroom and mathematical formulae. He's sickened by his own actions, and it makes you wonder if good people can make good spies. He's an amateur who has had a chilling initiation into that world. Hitchcock is a genius at showing a killing and how unsavory it is. That also is biblical.

Hitchcock's movies also respect women, and Newman's fiance' who thinks he has defected to the Communist block, is perfectly portrayed as the loyal woman who can't understand what Newman is doing, yet faithfully follows him anyway. Yet, vain women like the Ballerina, who expects media attention (and is disappointed twice because of Newman), he holds up to ridicule. There are several dramatic scenes in the movie that keep you on the edge of your seat, even though the plot is hard to swallow. The idea that an American scientist would have to go all the way to East Germany to get a German scientist to explain a math formula for a special missile project is preposterous and plays on that old caricature of German scientists being so exceptional and Americans just copy-cats. It would be much simpler for a brilliant scientist to just perform his own experiments and manipulations of the mathematical formula. But it's still a good flick.

The human element is foremost. The scenes of the East Germans who help Newman are much more affecting emotionally than Newman's courageous scientist, who goes in and out of East Germany. We know those who stay must continue under great hardship, perhaps even death. And they help Newman anyway. This is Christ's way - to die for ungrateful mankind, to stay in this life as a human until the job was done for our sakes. Yet, we show so little appreciation for Him.