OK, it had technical errors. The dress blue uniform. Didn't come along for several years after the time of the movie. But the movie was excellent. The story line, the plot, the whole deal went together well. If I were qualified to judge Melanie Griffith in this role, I would judge it her best. It seems her voice does add something to this particular part. Remember I didn't judge this movie on its technical accuracy. Nor its historical accuracy, but how well I enjoy watching the movie. The movie accomplished its goal, it entertained. Douglas was great in his part. But then again, isn't Douglas always great. A very young Liam Nesson is also present in this movie as a bad guy.

Shining Through (1992)Wow, this had sooooo much potential. A great story, epic and funny and dramatic and complex and romantic. And some excellent talent, not only the leading role played by Melanie Griffith and the somewhat leading male role played by Michael Douglas, but the smaller role by Liam Neeson and an even smaller but critical one by the great John Gielgud. Even Joely Richardson as a sidekick of sorts to Griffith in the Germany might have gone somewhere chilling and wonderful.But it doesn't work. The entire time you want it to take off, to cash in on the high stakes that are laid out in plain view. But the director single handedly drags this down into a disappointing, slow mess. So much potential.It's WWII in America, and we start by loving the sassy, highly intelligent Linda Voss (Griffith) as she gets a job in a respected office in New York. The unapproachable boss Ed Leland (Douglas) likes her sharp wit and her unwillingness to be a female object to him. She wants to prove her worth. Great. We're on board. It's edited too slowly by far but the characters makes sense, especially Voss. (Douglas never quite shines in the movie for some reason.)Eventually we end up in Germany where Voss, herself half-Jewish, goes undercover for a couple reasons, one of them to find some relatives in hiding. And this is where the movie should soar with every possible intrigue and emotion. Richardson is a charming ally we are slightly suspicious about, and Neeson is a Nazi we are not quite as suspicious of as we should be (he's a young handsome fellow here in a role one year before playing the leading German in "Shindler's List"). And there is Griffith's Voss, now suddenly a demure and downright stupid woman. She bumbles, she can't think on her feet, she is slow to move and slow to react. It makes no sense, and it's no fun to watch. We know it should be incredible high stakes fictional movie-making, but it isn't, which only makes it worse. The script is there, the actors are there. But director David Seltzer drags it down in every way, even making the worst of competent Dutch cinematographer Jan de Bont ("Die Hard"). He has a short resume and that's probably a good thing. If you watch it be warned, you may end up watching the whole thing, all two and half hours. And as one bad choice follows another you'll probably end up agreeing that you might have picked another movie.

Shining Through is a 1992 romantic thriller with a WWII espionage edge that attracts our ceaseless interest in that time in history. It tries even harder nevertheless to appeal to an even wider audience by adopting the tone and style of Mervyn LeRoy movies, that swift, superficially efficient gib shot festival approach and capricious indulgence in the flashback and dream sequence formats. Indeed, the movie is told in flashbacks, to no necessary end, with an aged, awkwardly demure Melanie Griffith recalling her story for a BBC interviewer. This would have worked better if Griffith had found a way to add mileage on her speaking voice, which stays in her common asthmatic, good-little-girl pattern. It was said in this film's era of release that with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Hollywood would have to double back to the Nazi generation for their villains. Thankfully, they cooked up some smarter Nazis for subsequent films. Maybe Susan Isaacs' initial material stands a better chance of preventing certain elements from straying too far into the clouds.Nevertheless, the main turning point of the story is what makes the least sense: No intelligence agency, no matter how hard up, especially in a world war, would send a secretary behind enemy lines with no training, or a senior officer who doesn't even know the freakin' language. Also, if you, a secretary with no combat experience, can hide a microfilm in your glove right before winding up incoherent in a laundry basket and not wearing any gloves, being discovered scantily clad overall, more power to you, but the movie gives us no plausible reason why Griffith should be boasting of this in her interview, or why a journalist for a network as prestigious as the BBC would buy it.But since it is what it is, we have Michael Douglas, playing a Colonel in the OSS, covering as a lawyer. Purposeful, sophisticated. Melanie Griffith's character reacts to him as if he is humorless. Nonetheless, quiet or loud, he always seems powerful and determined. And Griffith, all things considered, empowers her character with a noble bearing.The subject matter offers a great mine of fascination, intensity and entertainment, not to mention suspense. The Resistance during WWII had a profound effect on its partisans. There are many films, before this one and after, that more portray the sensory, tangled reality of the experience and less trivialize it in romanticized escapism. Nonetheless, can one fault a film for having been entertained by it?

This is a terrible film, ruined by the catastrophic miscasting of the two leads. As the male lead, Michael Douglas gives one of the worst screen performances of the twentieth century. He manages to go all the way through the film without showing the slightest trace of any emotion whatever, despite the fact that the story contains much romance. It would be wrong to say that Douglas is wooden, as that is an insult to wood. Even stone is too good for him. Low-grade concrete would be more like it, the kind that crumbles and gives way. What is wrong with him? He has the eyes of a dead fish floating downstream, several days later. To say that there is no chemistry between him and the hapless Melanie Griffith is such an understatement that there is no point: how can you have chemistry with a corpse who kisses you? Melanie Griffith struggles valiantly to show emotion, and often succeeds, but she is walking in molasses. The situation is not helped by the fact that she was desperately miscast and is not at all well directed. Her soft voice is tragically wrong for the part, her quiet manner totally off beam. The underlying story seems to have been good, and Susan Isaacs's novel must have been interesting. In the second half, the film even becomes exciting despite itself, through the sheer power of the story, though the plot and details are all wrong in the film. The one splendid performance in the film, which is truly dazzling, is by Joely Richardson. She would have been a far, far better choice for the female lead. And Liam Neeson, who also does well, could have been the male lead. Why relegate those two fine actors to supporting roles? This whole film is simply a disaster. But if done properly, it could perhaps have been marvellous.