Torn Curtain

Torn Curtain is a 1966 American spy political thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. Written by Brian Moore, the film is set in the Cold War. It is about an American scientist who appears to defect behind the Iron Curtain to East Germany. Plot In 1965, Michael Armstrong, a US physicist and rocket scientist, is traveling to a conference in Copenhagen with his assistant and fiancée, Sarah Sherman. Armstrong receives a radiogram to pick up a book in Copenhagen; it contains a message which says, "Contact in case of emergency." He tells Sherman he is going to Stockholm, but she discovers he is flying to East Berlin and follows him. When they land, he is welcomed by representatives of the East German government. Sherman realizes that Armstrong has defected, and is appalled that, given the circumstances of the Cold War, if she stays with him, she will likely never see her home or family again. Armstrong visits a contact, a "farmer", where it is revealed that his defection is in fact a ruse to gain the confidence of the East German scientific establishment, in order to learn how much their chief scientist Gustav Lindt and by extension, the Soviet Union, knows about anti-missile systems. Armstrong has made preparations to return to the West via an escape network, known as . However, he was followed to the farm by his appointed chaperone, Hermann Gromek, an East German security officer. Gromek realizes what is and that Armstrong is a double agent, and as Gromek is calling the police, a tortuous struggle commences that ends with Gromek being killed by Armstrong and the farmer's wife. Gromek and his motorcycle are buried on the land. The taxicab driver who drove Armstrong to the farm, however, sees Gromek's picture in the newspaper and reports him to the police.