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. She is half Jewish and can speak German, though not very well on this evidence.

As Ed’s secretary and translator, she begins to suspect he is involved in spying, and the pair become lovers. After America joins the war, she volunteers to go undercover and she is sent in to Berlin to photograph some bomb plans. Sunflower (John Gielgud) and Margrete Von Eberstien (Joely Richardson) help her to infiltrate Nazi officer Franze-Otto Dietrich (Liam Neeson)’s house.

Shining Through is a shoddy, overlong, poorly acted and totally unconvincing wartime spy movie, directed by Seltzer with an unerring eye to magnifying all the clichés and absurdities in his script: ‘Tell me about the war, when did you first become interested in it?’ ‘In one leap I landed in the upstairs chambers of the German élite.’ ‘I knew it was a Friday we said goodbye because the next day was Saturday.’ ‘Mein Gott, you’ve got guts!’ The actors are stranded with lines like this.

Seltzer’s screenplay is based on a novel by Susan Isaacs.

Also in the cast are Sylvia Syms, Francis Guinan, Patrick Winczewski, Anthony Walters, Victoria Shalet, Sheila Allen, Stanley Beard, Ronald Nitschke and Hansi Jochmann.

The film is an absolute gem for those who like laughing at bad movies. Its badness shines through the decades. The movie won the 1993 Razzie Award for Worst Picture, Worst Actress and Worst Director, the 1992 Stinker Award for Worst Picture, and the Worst Picture award at the Hastings Bad Cinema Society’s 15th Stinkers Bad Movie Awards in 1992.

Shining Through is directed by David Seltzer, runs 132 minutes, is made by Twentieth Century Fox, Sandollar Productions and Peter V Miller Investment Corp, is released by 20th Century Fox, is written by David Seltzer, is shot by Jan De Bont, is produced by Peter V Miller, Howard Rosenman and Carol Baum, is scored by Michael Kamen, and is designed by Anthony Pratt.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9189

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