#Enigma movie full
#Enigma movie code

Only a select few commanders were made aware of the full significance of Ultra, and it was mostly used only sparingly, to prevent the Germans thinking their ciphers had been broken.ĭespite providing some otherwise inaccessible information, it was some time before Ultra made any significant contribution to the war effort. The British described any intelligence gained from Enigma as 'Ultra', and considered it top secret. The Germans were convinced that Enigma output could not be broken, so they used the machine for all sorts of communications - on the battlefield, at sea, in the sky and, significantly, within its secret services.

#Enigma movie code

With German invasion imminent in 1939, the Poles opted to share their secrets with the British, and Britain's Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, became the centre for Allied efforts to keep up with dramatic war-induced changes in Enigma output.Ī host of top mathematicians and general problem-solvers was recruited, and a bank of early computers, known as 'bombes', was built - to work out the vast number of permutations in Enigma settings. Helped by its closer links to the German engineering industry, the Poles managed to reconstruct an Enigma machine, complete with internal wiring, and to read the Wehrmacht's messages between 19.įew realised the significance of the work going on at Bletchley Park It was only after they had handed over details to the Polish Cipher Bureau that progress was made. Over the years the basic machine became more complicated, as German code experts added plugs with electronic circuits.īritain and her allies first understood the problems posed by this machine in 1931, when a German spy, Hans Thilo Schmidt, allowed his French spymasters to photograph stolen Enigma operating manuals, although neither French nor British cryptanalysts could at first make headway in breaking the Enigma cipher. The receiver needed to know the exact settings of these rotors in order to reconstitute the coded text. It’s a drop of smart in an ocean of dumb.Enigma allowed an operator to type in a message, then scramble it by means of three to five notched wheels, or rotors, which displayed different letters of the alphabet. Jagger deserves points for rolling the dice with this spy game. Winslet makes Hester’s blossoming feelings for Jericho quietly touching, and Northam is a real smoothie, with the looks and style of a younger, nastier Cary Grant. The film is mind-twisting fun, with first-rate performances. Or does he? Enigma opens and slams so many doors, your head will be spinning. With the help of Claire’s mousy roommate, Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet), who also works at Bletchley, Jericho tries to protect his former love from charges of treason and the interference of Wigram (Jeremy Northam), a British intelligence agent who thinks Claire is a mole. Jericho’s suspicions are further raised when he visits her house and finds German navy codes hidden under the floorboards. Jericho is considered a burnt-out case until the Nazis change their transmission code and he’s called back in to decipher it.įunny thing is, Claire has disappeared without a trace. That is, until a failed love affair - she dumped him - with co-worker Claire Romilly (gorgeous Saffron Burrows) drives him to a nervous collapse.

Dougray Scott ( Mission: Impossible 2) anchors the film with a canny, complex performance as mathematician Tom Jericho, a star code breaker at Bletchley Park.