The Imitation Game · written by Graham Moore · 2014

At midnight the team’s daily work becomes useless; Hugh blames Turing’s rewiring demands and leaves Hut 8 to confront him.

Scene 55 of 130 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Jack Good
John Cairncross
Peter Hilton
Hugh Alexander

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 46 min into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 55

At Bletchley Park, Alan Turing must persuade a skeptical team to build a machine that can break Enigma before the war is lost, while concealing the self the law condemns.

Scenes 1–12
Turing is investigated as a guarded outsider in 1951, then enters Bletchley in 1939 looking for the puzzle he can solve.
Scenes 13–30
He sees the scale of Enigma, believes a machine can solve it, and grows isolated from colleagues who make little progress.
Scenes 31–50
Churchill’s order gives Turing authority and his half-built machine advances toward sustained work.
Just before
Scene 52
Turing disguises Joan’s codebreaking role as clerical work among women to reassure her parents, and they agree to discuss the offer.
Scene 53
Outside the house, Joan asks why Turing is helping her; he says solving Enigma matters and tells her that overlooked people can do unimaginable things.
Scene 54
Joan arrives at Bletchley with other WRENs, and she and Turing exchange a small wave across the grounds.
Scene 55
This scene

55INT. BLETCHLEY PARK - HUT 8 - NIGHT

Later in Hut 8, the team (w/o Alan) — Hugh, John, Peter, and the new guy, Jack — work frantically into the night.

The team uses their PERFORATED SHEETS to find linguistic patterns in the Enigma messages, everyone working as hard and as fast as they possibly can until —

— Suddenly a BELL GOES OFF.

Everyone stops their work, frustrated.

Angry, Hugh KICKS his desk.

JACK GOOD

... What just happened?

JOHN CAIRNCROSS

Midnight. All the work we did today

is useless. But don’t worry: We’ve

a few hours before tomorrow’s

messages start pouring in. And we

start all over again.

PETER HILTON

From scratch.

HUGH ALEXANDER

I am sick of this. Sick. He made me

waste four hours this morning re-

wiring his plugboard matrix. Three

hours yesterday on rotor positions.

JOHN CAIRNCROSS

Don’t go over there.

HUGH ALEXANDER

No. If our job was not impossible

before it bloody well is now.

Hugh stands and heads to the door —

JOHN CAIRNCROSS

— Hugh, don’t —

— But Hugh is already gone to

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