I believe the reason the Reds kidnapped the soldier was because he was visiting his girlfriend in the Russian Zone of Berlin, while the old couple avoided it religiously. The prisoner swap was a stretch, I'll admit. The plot-point about former Nazis wanting the anti-Hitler-plotting old couple is hardly half the story. Not only did the KGB use Heinrich Mueller (head of the Gestapo) in recruiting former German agents, but they also employed and protected an even more famous ex-Nazi -- Martin Bormann. Yes, some real rascals, those Bolshies. I can't agree that this was any kind of ordinary Cold_War film, as I know of very few of any kind. "Big Jim Mclaine" was a live-action, comic-book sort of movie, although loosely based in fact after Communist-controlled unions in Hawaii did try to strangle the island with strikes for 177 days in 1949. Hitchcock's "Torn Curtain" and the awesome "Topaze" were two more. "The Third man" was tangentially about the Cold War in Vienna -- the real center for Cold War espionage, not Berlin. Even discounting the fact that many "Cold War" movies were actually defeatist, moral-equivocating messes, I'd still guess the 4 years of WW II accounted for 200 times more movies than the entire 1922-1989 Cold War, which was 200 times more interesting than tank battles and amphibious landings, and much more important for Americans to understand.
Review of Night People
