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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. This is our old friend, the Idiot Plot, all the way (you know, where the movie would be over in 10 minutes if everyone in it weren't an idiot).
Take that climactic scene, for example, in which Michael Douglas , dressed as a Nazi officer, with a bloody bandage around his neck, tries to carry the unconscious Melanie Griffith past a border checkpoint even though he speaks no German. How does he handle the guards' questions? He's got a plan. He's been on many previous missions to Germany, and he always carries along a little card that says “Wounded war veteran. Unable to speak.” That, and the bandage on his neck, do the trick.
Uh-huh. At the border, he doesn't even produce the card. He simply points to his neck. That's after the border guard has asked him about nine questions in German. Here's what the movie hopes doesn't occur to us: If he doesn't speak German, he doesn't understand it either, and even if you can't talk, you need to understand what's being said to you in order to make the appropriate non-verbal responses. Far from carrying Griffith across the border, Douglas would have been lunchmeat within five minutes of his first trip behind enemy lines.
But never mind. There are larger problems with this movie, which is sort of a cross between “ Working Girl ” and “The Cassandra Crossing.” The film starts with Griffith as a bilingual Irish-Jewish secretary who gets a job as Douglas' secretary. He seems to be a lawyer, but she figures out right away that he's a spy. (What a clever girl: She notices that the letters he dictates are in code.) They fall in love, he is a rat with women, he goes off to spy, she works in the secretarial pool, he returns, she wants a chance to go into Berlin and rescue her father's relatives, and so on.
The first half hour of the movie isn't bad, especially when she stays a jump ahead of him because of her familiarity with war movies. But there is never any believable romantic chemistry between Griffith and Douglas (his body language toward her is that of a man who detects bad breath), and once she's in Berlin, all plausibility breaks down.
Imagine this. She is infiltrated into the house of a top Nazi official, as a cook. She botches the meal, serving hot cucumber soup and raw poultry and spilling a dish in a Nazi's lap. She is fired. But another top Nazi immediately offers her a job as the nanny for his children. I know people who couldn't believe “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle” because the nanny wasn't checked out first. Would a Nazi let an unknown person have the run of his house? There's lots of Nancy Drew stuff, as when Griffith discovers the secret room in the Nazi's basement by noticing there are two windows on one side but only one on the other, and there's a hilarious scene in which she flees, frightened, through the city streets in a red opera cloak and a flowing white dress, and of course we get the “friends” who turn out to be enemies (we can tell because their eyes harden), and the escape down the laundry chute, and the convenient plans for the entire Nazi rocket-bomb operation, which she microfilms. But enough.
The movie is told in flashbacks, for no good reason, with an elderly, agonizingly coy Griffith recalling her story for a BBC interviewer. This would have worked better if Griffith had found a way to age her speaking voice, which remains in her usual breathless, good-little-girl style. It is said that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Hollywood will have to return to the Nazi era for their villains. If they don't find some smarter Nazis, we're in for a slow couple of years.
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Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.
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Shining Through (1992)
Rated R For A Scene Of Sensuality
127 minutes
Michael Douglas as Ed Leland
Melanie Griffith as Linda Voss
Directed by
- David Seltzer
Based On The Novel by
- Susan Isaacs
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Shining Through Reviews
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[Shining Through] is very much like the lush, sweeping, sentimental epics that Hollywood churned out during the '40s -- and as overblown and treacly as any of the patriotic paeans released during those war-torn years.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 17, 2021
David Seltzer has had the good sense to stick to a proven formula and the whole thing is genuinely romantic.
Full Review | Jul 23, 2018
Lavishly staged in German locations and handsomely costumed -- with some particularly fetching hats for Griffith -- Shining Through is never hard to watch. Sometimes, however, it is ludicrous to listen to.
Full Review | May 30, 2018
Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 7, 2011
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 12, 2005
fails as an espionage thriller, but also as a romance
Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Jan 16, 2005
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 26, 2004
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 24, 2004
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 29, 2004
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 13, 2004
Griffith as an American spy posing as a German during WWII. Gimme a break!!!
Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | May 21, 2003
The word 'bore' comes to mind
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 19, 2002
Full Review | Original Score: 0/5 | Jul 26, 2002
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.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 1, 2000
Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 1, 2000
Full Review | Original Score: low +2 out of -4..+4 | Jan 1, 2000
Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jan 31, 1992
Shining Through
By Peter Travers
Peter Travers
What’s this — everybody’s favorite working girl, Melanie Griffith, chirping. “Heil Hitler!” as troops of Nazi soldiers goose-step past her? Never fear. In this lavish film version of Susan Isaacs’s bestselling 1988 novel Shining Through , Griffith has been cannily cast as Linda Voss, a poor but enterprising German Jewish secretary from Queens, New York. And what brings Linda to Berlin at the start of World War II is not any misplaced passion for the Fnhrer. Linda has turned in her steno pad to act as an undercover agent for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).
Shining Through is an awful lot of fun for a movie that’s nothing more than slickly packaged fluff. It helps that writer-director David Seltzer retains a good measure of the book’s smartass zing. It helps even more that Griffith is just about perfect as the wisecracking sweetheart of the OSS. She’s basically playing the same Cinderella role that won her an Oscar nomination in Working Girl. Then, she was Tess McGill, a Staten Island secretary whose ambition overcame social and educational barriers on her climb to the top. As Griffith told Harrison Ford in the film, “I’ve got a head for business and a bod for sin — anything wrong with that?”
Nothing that the makers of Shining Through could find. Linda is Tess in Forties fashions, with the stakes raised from career advancement to life or death. When she enters the Manhattan office of attorney Edward Leland (Michael Douglas, in what is essentially the Ford role), Linda knows she’s not the Vassar type he’s looking for in a legal secretary. But she also knows how to seize an opportunity; in her job interview she tells Leland what secrets she can learn about him from a quick glance around his office.
Griffith shows an unexpected flair for the script’s rat-a-tat dialogue. Her sparring with Douglas (also in fine form) suggests those bracing Thirties comedies in which a snappy comeback is the ideal prelude to seduction. Linda has another ace up her sleeve: Leland needs a German translator, and her immigrant father taught her the language. Linda takes a romantic interest in Leland — he’s grouchy but cute — but her lust doesn’t blind her to those codelike references in his mail. This lawyer is really an OSS colonel.
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They have an affair, natch, allowing Griffith to show off that bod for sin. They also battle when Linda wants to go undercover in the home of a ranking Nazi official. Leland thinks it’s too dangerous; Linda thinks it’s an adventure right out of her favorite Hollywood movies (Passion! War! Betrayal!). Besides, she has relatives in Berlin, and she wants to get them out.
Shining Through plays like one of those movies Linda loves — the kind you crave on a rainy day when the brain switches to escape mode. As empty experiences go, it’s a pretty good one. Linda’s farewell to Leland is right out of Casablanca , and her foray into Germany — colorfully shot by Die Hard ‘s Jan De Bont — tips a nicely parodic hat to Hitchcock’s Notorious.
In Berlin, Linda’s spy contacts include the infamous Sunflower (a sharp cameo from John Gielgud) and the German glamour puss Margrete Von Eberstein (Joely Richardson), whose mother is a pianist revered by the Nazis. Margrete introduces Linda for the fun of seeing her mother “kiss a Jew.” Margrete is a juicy role that Richardson — the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and the late director Tony Richardson — plays with an irresistible blend of mirth and malice.
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Linda begins as a servant in the home of a Nazi official who trusts her to supervise a dinner for leaders of the Reich. The dinner is a riotous disaster, salvaged only by Linda’s meeting with Franz Dietrich (Liam Neeson), a widowed Nazi officer who hires her as a nanny for his two children. No one in the OSS dreamed that Linda would make a connection like this. No one who read the Isaacs book would dream it, either. Dietrich is a sympathetic Seltzer invention meant to indicate that all Germans didn’t sprout horns. Though Seltzer’s attempt to add complexity to the clichTd spy genre is admirable, it’s also a drag on the movie. When Linda takes Dietrich’s children along to look for her family, the film stops cold to deliver lectures about humanity that are incongruous amid the entertaining nonsense that surrounds them. In the past, Seltzer has shown a sentimental streak as a screenwriter ( Table for Five, Six Weeks ) and a strained seriousness as a writer-director ( Lucas, Punchline ). He indulges both weaknesses in Shining Through , giving an overblown, self-important cast to a movie that should float like gossamer.
The same ailments afflicted Fox’s recent nostalgia piece For the Boys , but this time the damage is minimal. Shining Through gives us a woman warrior to match any macho counterpart. In a moment bursting with her beloved passion and betrayal, Linda blows away an enemy to save the world for Uncle Sam. Seltzer errs by including a scene in which Leland carries a wounded Linda. Nobody carries this baby. Whether Linda Voss is a heroine or just an ordinary woman up against it, Griffith plays her with enough screw-you-buster courage and crack comic timing to earn a salute.
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Shining through.
Directed by David Seltzer
He needed to trust her with his secret. She had to trust him with her life.
Spirited New Yorker Linda Voss goes to work for international lawyer and secret Office of Strategic Services operative Ed Leland just before World War II. As they fall in love, the United States enters the fight against Hitler, and Linda volunteers to work for Ed spying undercover behind Nazi lines. Assigned to uncover information about a German bomb, Linda also has personal motives to fulfill: discovering the fate of her Jewish family members in Berlin.
Michael Douglas Melanie Griffith Liam Neeson Joely Richardson John Gielgud Hansi Jochmann Mathieu Carrière Thomas Kretschmann Constanze Engelbrecht Hans Martin Stier Michael Gempart Anthony Walters Francis Guinan Patrick Winczewski Victoria Shalet Sheila Allen Stanley Beard Sylvia Syms Ronald Nitschke Peter Flechtner Alexander Hauff Renate Cyll Dana Gladstone Lorinne Vozoff Deirdre Harrison Wolf Kahler Wolfe Morris William Hope Nigel Whitmey Show All… Rob Freeman Lisa Orgolini Jay Benedict Klaus Münster Markus Napier Martin Hoppe Fritz Eggert Ludwig Haas Clement von Franckenstein Lorelei King Hana Maria Pravda Markus Kissling Anna Tzelniker Andrzej Borkowski Simon De Deney Tusse Silberg Suzanne Roquette Roy Alon Juliet Aubrey Lucien Morgan Mary Ann Schmidt
Director Director
David Seltzer
Producers Producers
Carol Baum Howard Rosenman Nigel Wooll Kathy Sykes
Writer Writer
Original writer original writer.
Susan Isaacs
Casting Casting
Mary Gail Artz Barbara Cohen Simone Reynolds Risa Kes
Editor Editor
Craig McKay
Cinematography Cinematography
Jan de Bont
Executive Producers Exec. Producers
Sandy Gallin David Seltzer
Production Design Production Design
Anthony Pratt
Art Direction Art Direction
Desmond Crowe Kevin Phipps
Set Decoration Set Decoration
Peter Howitt
Stunts Stunts
Greg Powell
Composer Composer
Michael Kamen
Costume Design Costume Design
Marit Allen
Peter V. Miller Investment Corp. Sandollar Productions 20th Century Fox
Releases by Date
31 jan 1992, 12 feb 1992, 19 feb 1992, 05 mar 1992, 06 mar 1992, 14 oct 1992, 23 feb 2021, releases by country.
- Theatrical U
- Digital Disney+
- Theatrical 16
- Theatrical 15
- Theatrical R
132 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page
Popular reviews
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Review by shookone ½ 3
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Review by matt lynch ★★★
Wish it was a MIchael Curtiz movie from like 1946 (say after MILDRED PIERCE but before LIFE WITH FATHER -- maybe William Holden and Ingrid Bergman?), but this was fun.
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Review by UltimateMovieRankings ★½ 2
The winner or should I say loser of the 1992 Razzie for worst picture of the year. Melanie Griffith plays the worst spy in the history of spies...she makes Johnny English look like James Bond. Her accent is wrong, she serves meat raw, she drops secret stuff on the floor in front of Nazis, she causes scenes when she is trying to be stealth...sounds like I am describing a comedy...not a serious World War 2 drama.
On the plus side...the production value is impressive....lots of huge scenes that had to cost a fortune to make. Michael Douglas is ok...Liam Neeson is pretty good in supporting roles. And finally they do reference movies through out the movie....I like when they do…
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Review by Evasive ★★★
Melanie Griffith is a really clumsy spy who drops secret notes in front of Nazis and takes the German children she's nannying to the house where her Jewish cousins are hiding, but it's all somehow in character for her??
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Review by Michelle Parsons ★★★½ 2
I have had a soft spot for this movie ever since I saw it 30 years ago on the satellite dish. ❤️
Michael Kamen’s score for this film still moves me to tears.
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Review by porksweats ★★★
in dusseldorf, they serve the doves cold, the cucumber soup hot and this film earning razzies is an honor
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Review by SARAH🦕 ★★★
the second best Liam Neeson movie about wwii made in the early 90s
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Review by Richard Dawson ★★ 1
Melanie Griffith is the worst spy ever.
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Review by Michael Vazquez ★★★
Melanie Griffith plays the worst spy I can think of making Johnny English look like Harry Caul hahaha. Melanie did ok, it just wasn’t her finest moment. Michael Douglas and Liam Neeson did good though. This was sorta fun. Not bad.
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Review by olivia ★★ 4
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Hilarious Razzie worst picture winner, watched as a kid. In 1992, the BBC interviews Melanie's character - in crazy prosthetics/makeup (neck like crêpe paper, eyes youthful) - about her harrowing WWII story. This old woman with a child's voice narrates the film, often getting facts wrong, like who starred in The Fighting 69th or mistaking peninsula for island. The effect is similar to Costner’s Dances with Wolves narration.
Plot is wild.. Back in 1940, after watching every war movie and hearing stories about Jewish relatives in Berlin, Melanie decides to become a spy. She interviews for a job and when asked if she has anything to add since her degree from Queens college is not competitive enough to make her stand…
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Review by Luke Thorne ★
David Seltzer’s romantic thriller in which an American woman of Irish, Jewish-German paternity goes secret in Nazi Germany. Starring Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by Susan Isaacs, which was published four years earlier, the story concerns feisty New Yorker Linda Voss (Melanie Griffith) goes to work for worldwide attorney and undisclosed Office of Strategic Services operative Ed Leland (Michael Douglas) just before the Second World War.
As they fall for each other, the United States arrives for the battle against Hitler, and Linda offers to work for Ed scouting secretly behind Nazi lines. Allocated to find out details about a German bomb, Linda also has individual purposes to accomplish: discovering the providence…
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Review by Amar ★★
Watching Shining Through is enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. One example is Melanie Griffith as Linda Voss. Her character is quite possibly the most incompetent and annoying spy to ever grace the screen, and that makes it so fun to watch. Her monologue about strudel is a masterclass of bad acting.
Illogically plotted, poorly acted and gloriously campy, dare I say that Shining Through is one of the most unintentionally hilarious piece of cinema ever produced.
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Shining Through Review
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13 Mar 1992
125 minutes
Shining Through
After spending every moment watching war movies, Linda Voss (Griffith), a half-Jewish, secretary from Queens, decides she wants to become more involved in the Second World War which, in 1940, has not yet fully touched America. As luck - and coincidence - would have it, she manages to get a job as secretary to Ed Leland (Douglas), who also just happens to be working for the secret service as a spy.
Within the space of a few minutes, Linda reveals her talent for speaking German - which Leland, despite being a spy cannot speak - and also falls for her boss, the pair enjoying a romance until he disappears off to the war again. Knowing she has Jewish relatives hiding in Berlin, Linda concludes that she should be a spy too, and when Leland returns she manages to convince him to send her to Berlin, to infiltrate a family with connections to Hitler, posing as their cook.
A few plot contrivances later and the plucky girl has managed to befriend a society woman (Richardson), get up the nose of a crusty old fellow spy (Gielgud), and spy on a top Nazi (the miscast Neeson) posing as nanny to his children. All the while, Leland flies in and out of Berlin trying to save her - quite a miracle on his part when you remember he can't sprechen sie deutsch at all.
Despite being bogged down by Griffith's voice-over, some dreadful dialogue ("I knew it was Friday the night Ed left because the next day was Saturday"), and a cliche-ridden plot, which though never boring, has enough holes to fly a squadron of B-17s through, the film works on a purely entertainment level, with Griffith and Douglas giving their all in roles tailor-made for them. Don't go expecting a documentary of war, this is simply a romantic war drama in the style of Casablanca and Yanks, but if those are to your taste, this more than fits the bill.
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Shining Through
Time out says, release details.
- Duration: 132 mins
Cast and crew
- Director: David Seltzer
- Screenwriter: David Seltzer
- Michael Douglas
- Melanie Griffith
- Liam Neeson
- Joely Richardson
- John Gielgud
- Francis Guinan
- Sheila Allen
- Sylvia Syms
- Mathieu Carrière
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Movie Review
Shining through.
US Release Date: 01-31-1992
Directed by: David Seltzer
Starring ▸ ▾
- Michael Douglas , as
- Melanie Griffith , as
- Liam Neeson , as
- Franze-Otto Dietrich
- Joely Richardson , as
- Margrete Von Eberstein
- John Gielgud , as
- Francis Guinan , as
- Andrew Berringer
- Patrick Winczewski , as
- Anthony Walters , as
- Dietrich's Son
- Victoria Shalet , as
- Dietrich's Daughter
- Sheila Allen as
- Olga Leiner, Margrete's Mother
Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith in Shining Through
Shining Through is a romantic take on World War II. You can call to task the inaccuracy and implausibility of it all, or you can just sit back and enjoy the movie. Just as the main character, Linda, likes to discuss old movies, Shining Through unfolds very much like an old fashioned black and white film, only longer.
It is told in flashback with an elderly Linda being interviewed by the BBC about her experiences in World War II. In 1940, she was hired as a translator for Ed Leland in a New York office. Ed is a man of mystery, whom Linda soon discovers is a spy. This first part of the film is like Working Girl set in 1940. Linda is a middle class girl trying to make it in a business world where people have higher pedigrees and education.
Linda and Ed fall in love but are soon parted due to the events on December 7, 1941. In a scene reminiscent of Casablanca , Ed and Linda say goodbye, with Linda delivering the film's most telling line, "What's a war for-if not to hold on to what we love." Ed disappears to unknown assignments while Linda goes to work in the war department. One day at a USO party, they run into each other and reconnect. Linda goes back to work for Ed,only now she has near full disclosure of what his job is.
After an agent is killed, Linda convinces Ed to send her into Germany to take the agent's place in retrieving information on Germany building rockets. Linda intends to become a cook for a high ranking Nazi, but things do not go as planned and she ends up a nanny for a widowed German officer's children.
Although this is the part of the film that is intended to be exciting, it quickly becomes bogged down in a plethora of storylines and coincidences. Linda's contact is a grumpy old man. She makes friends with a German woman of high standing. She sends a message through a fishmonger looking for her Jewish relatives hiding in Berlin. The single father develops feelings for her. Through it all, Linda has one close call after another, but it needed a better focus.
Before everything is said and done, Linda is betrayed and nearly killed. The tension is always there but as we know by the BBC interview, she obviously lives through the war. The scene of her escape from Germany with Ed's help is exciting and very over-the-top.
What makes Shining Through work at all is Melanie Griffith. She plays common better than anyone. Other than in Working Girl , her charm has never been better displayed. Although she had been acting since the 1970s and continues to today, this was the height of Melanie Griffith's career. After her dismal performance in the remake of Born Yesterday (1993), she fell out of favor at the box office.
As a film buff it was interesting to hear Linda refer to so many old films like The Mortal Storm (1940) and Espionage Agent (1939). However, at one point she says that The Fighting 69th (1940) starred Brenda Marshall and Cary Grant, when in fact it starred James Cagney and Pat O'Brien.
Photos © Copyright Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (1992)
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SHINING THROUGH
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(L, VV, SS, NN, A, M) 4 obscenities & 5 profanities; shooting woman in stomach, stabbing, bombs & handguns, explosions, & destruction of property; bedroom scenes & fornication; slight female nudity; and, alcohol use & smoking.
More Detail:
In SHINING THROUGH, Melanie Griffith plays Linda, a WWII military secretary who wants to become a spy. Half-Jewish and lacking the proper schooling, she would have remained stateside if her boss and lover Ed Leland had not found out that she spoke German. Thus, Linda finds herself in Berlin to gather information on a rocket bomb Hitler is developing. Posing as a cook for a S.S. officer, she plans to rendezvous with Colonel Leland in two weeks. When her cooking humiliates the officer at a dinner party, a higher-ranking officer decides that she can serve the Reich better as the nanny to his children. At his house, she uncovers blueprints to the dreaded weapon, but loses communication with the Allies. As she tries to deliver the microfilm across the border, we’re served up the requisite thrills: explosions, double-crosses and daring Douglas to the rescue.
Although SHINING THROUGH is relatively free of offensive language and gratuitous violence, there is an illicit sex scene with sleight female nudity. However, it is a well-executed movie, with fine acting, photography and music. Also, the fact that the lead isn’t a feminist, shows a boldness on the part of the filmmakers.
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Shining Through (1992)
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But never mind. There are larger problems with this movie, which is sort of a cross between " Working Girl " and "The Cassandra Crossing.". The film starts with Griffith as a bilingual Irish-Jewish secretary who gets a job as Douglas' secretary. He seems to be a lawyer, but she figures out right away that he's a spy.
Rated: 2/4 Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Marc Savlov Austin Chronicle Rated: 3.5/5 Jan 1, 2000 Full Review Ryan Murphy Miami Herald [Shining Through] is very much like the lush, sweeping, sentimental ...
Shining Through is a 1992 American World War II drama film which was released to United States cinemas on January 31, 1992, written and directed by David Seltzer and starring Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith, with Liam Neeson, Joely Richardson and John Gielgud in supporting roles. It is based on the novel of the same name by Susan Isaacs.The original music score was composed by Michael Kamen.
Shining Through: Directed by David Seltzer. With Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, Liam Neeson, Joely Richardson. An American woman of Irish and Jewish-German parentage goes undercover in Nazi Germany.
All Audience. Verified Audience. Ryan Murphy Miami Herald. [Shining Through] is very much like the lush, sweeping, sentimental epics that Hollywood churned out during the '40s -- and as overblown ...
This is a beautiful looking spy/war film with good acting from the 2 leads. Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffiths play an American spy chief and his secretary. Liam Neeson plays a nazi general,as usual he spends most of the film with his shirt off. If I have to be critical I have to say the script is a rather poor.
Shining Through is an awful lot of fun for a movie that's nothing more than slickly packaged fluff. It helps that writer-director David Seltzer retains a good measure of the book's smartass zing.
Spirited New Yorker Linda Voss goes to work for international lawyer and secret Office of Strategic Services operative Ed Leland just before World War II. As they fall in love, the United States enters the fight against Hitler, and Linda volunteers to work for Ed spying undercover behind Nazi lines. Assigned to uncover information about a German bomb, Linda also has personal motives to fulfill ...
Read the Empire Movie review of Shining Through. ... After spending every moment watching war movies, Linda Voss (Griffith), a half-Jewish, secretary from Queens, decides she wants to become more ...
A lavish, ludicrous WWII melodrama in which Griffith plays a plucky, half-Jewish secretary from New York who, through her job with lawyer and secret spymaster D
Shining Through is a romantic take on World War II. You can call to task the inaccuracy and implausibility of it all, or you can just sit back and enjoy the movie. Just as the main character, Linda, likes to discuss old movies, Shining Through unfolds very much like an old fashioned black and white film, only longer.
Although SHINING THROUGH is relatively free of offensive language and gratuitous violence, there is an illicit sex scene with sleight female nudity. However, it is a well-executed movie, with fine acting, photography and music. Also, the fact that the lead isn't a feminist, shows a boldness on the part of the filmmakers.
Audience Score. 65. Watch on Max. R 2 hr 12 min Jan 31st, 1992 Drama, Romance, War, Thriller. Spirited New Yorker Linda Voss goes to work for international lawyer and secret Office of Strategic ...
Synopsis. In 1940, Linda Voss (Melanie Griffith), a young woman of Irish/German Hebrew parentage, begins a new job as a secretary with a New York law firm. Because she can speak German fluently, she becomes assistant/translator to Ed Leland (Michael Douglas), a humorless attorney. Linda gradually comes to suspect that Ed hides dark secrets.
Film; Reviews; Dec 31, 1991 11:00pm PT Shining Through An old-fashioned women's picture that could pass for a television movie except for its lavish trappings, this oddly titled melodrama [from ...
David Seltzer. 6.2. (3,445) Shining Through is a film directed by David Seltzer with Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, Liam Neeson, Joely Richardson .... Year: 1992. Original title: Shining Through. Synopsis: In this romantic espionage thriller set against the backdrop of World War II, a secretary from Queens is transformed into a government ...
Shining Through 1992 Directed by David Seltzer. Starring Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, John Gielgud, Liam Neeson, Joely Richardson. REVIEWED By Marc Savlov, Fri ...
Reviews and Comments Gripping, tense, and utterly unbelievable from start to finish, this wartime thriller has Melanie Griffith going behind enemy lines in Nazi Germany. She succeeds largely because the Nazis are stupid rather than because she outsmarts them, and yet there are some fine moments, and the movie maintains enough momentum to keep ...
Shining Through, Movie Reviews, Movie Lists, Movie Trailers. On S List of Movie Reviews (For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.) Shining Through (1992) Rate: 6 Viewed: 3/23 3/23: Melanie Griffith is a competent actress, but she can be easily miscast as evidenced in Shining Through.
Shining Through (1992, Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, Liam Neeson) - Classic Movie Review 9189. Melanie Griffith stars in writer-director David Seltzer's hypnotically awful 1992 World War Two-set romantic thriller drama Shining Through as Linda Voss, gets a job at a New York law firm and later becomes a spy for colonel Ed Leland (Michael Douglas)'s OSS agency.
T his fictional WWII spy story has good performances all around and authentic costumes and sets; yet it doesn't have an emotional, realistic "feel" as the best modern films do. It seems more like an elaborate stage play or a film produced in the '40s. Maybe that's because it's presented as the later-life reminisces of lead character Linda Voss (Melanie Griffith), who supposedly got ...
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Shining Through (1992) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.