Summary
A traumatised Rhineland orphan, Marie-Louise, arrives on American soil freighted with guilt-by-association: her foster parents swallowed prussic acid in a Weimar courtroom rather than answer charges of sedition. Ellis Island processes her body but not her ghosts; cat-calls of “Hun” trail her like a sooty comet. In a Hoboken drizzle she collars the patrician ship-builder Davidge—part Ahab, part Saint-Hubert—bargaining sweat for citizenship, rivets for redemption. Daylight clangs against steel while nocturnal shadows conspire: Verrinder, velvet-gloved saboteur, slips her a cabal’s poisoned invitation. The yard becomes a moral crucible—every blow-torch flicker asks whether blood-loyalty or chosen nationhood will finally weld her identity. Sabotage, court-martial, a midnight launch ablaze with magnesium flares—her climactic choice brands the film’s thesis onto the smoke-black sky.
Synopsis
In Germany, young Marie Louise's foster parents commit suicide rather than face charges of treason. Marie emigrates to the US, but when she gets there she is met with contempt and suspicion because of her German nationality. She meets Davidge, who owns a shipbuilding company, and persuades him to get her a job in his shipyards, so she can prove her dedication to the war effort. One day at work she is approached by a man named Verrinder, who is in actuality a German spy. He and some fellow spies are planning to sabotage the shipyards and want Marie to help them.
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