Plot: Representing the U.S. Interspace Committee, nuclear physicists Professor Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman) and Dr. Sarah Sherman (Dame Julie Andrews) - the latter not only the former's assistant, but also his fiancée - are attending a scientific congress in Copenhagen. She knows that he didn't want her to come on this trip, and when she learns that he is trying to leave Copenhagen without her during the middle of the congress, she discovers why: he is defecting to East Germany to work for the other side in he being angered that the U.S. cancelled his work which, if he was able to carry it to its completion, he hoping now to be able to do so at Karl Marx University in Leipzig alongside famed Professor Gustav Lindt (Ludwig Donath), it would render the atomic bomb and thus nuclear war obsolete. Caught behind the Iron Curtain along with Michael, Sarah has to decide if her love for him is stronger than her love of country and loyalty to the U.S. What she is unaware of, and what Michael has not told her for her own protection, is that he is acting as a double agent trying to get the missing piece of the puzzle to his work from Lindt, without giving up anything meaningful in return, to bring back to the U.S. Sarah's presence only complicates matters in now having the underground that is assisting him needing to get two instead of one person back to the west after Michael gets what he needs from Lindt. With the East German Secret Service carefully watching Michael and now Sarah's moves, their task becomes all the more difficult especially in the escape with Michael's very high profile arrival in East Germany making him a minor celebrity.
Alternative Plot: American physicist Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman) shocks his friends and family by defecting to East Germany to work with the Soviets during the height of the Cold War. Even his fianc
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