The Imitation Game · written by Graham Moore · 2014

The team configures Christopher with the known settings and 6 a.m. message; the machine stops on a candidate rotor setting, which Turing writes down.

Scene 88 of 130 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Alan Turing
Hugh Alexander
John Cairncross
Joan Clarke
Peter Hilton

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:23 into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 88

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 85
The team chases Turing through guarded Bletchley grounds into Hut 8.
Scene 86
Turing spreads old decrypts across the floor and identifies recurring weather and Hitler phrases as known text that can narrow Christopher’s search; Joan finds that morning’s message.
Scene 87
Turing and the team hurry from Hut 8 to the machine hut with the intercept.
Scene 88
This scene

88INT. BLETCHLEY PARK - HUT 11 - CONTINUOUS

Alan, Joan, John, Peter and Hugh burst in —

ALAN TURING

Hugh — the right hand letter-rings.

Set them to —

HUGH ALEXANDER

— I know, I know. “Veter.”

“Hitler.”

— Hugh turns the rings while —

ALAN TURING

— Peter, John — Run voltage from

those rings through the back

scramblers —

— John and Peter go around back —

JOHN CAIRNCROSS

— So we’ll use the loops?

ALAN TURING

— Yes. Joan, what’s the last 6am

message?

Joan reads aloud to Alan as he enters it in:

JOAN CLARKE

L - H - W - A - U - Q - X - K...

They all stand back as Alan TURNS ON the machine.

They watch the CLACK CLACK CLACK of Christopher as he processes the message...

— They’re nervous, fretting, anxiously awaiting his calculations...

... Finally, Christopher STOPS.

Silence, as a SERIES OF ROTORS on the side of Christopher snap into place, displaying a SET OF LETTERS.

PETER HILTON

What happened? Did it work?

Alan SCRIBBLES down the letters (”EXBAO...”) and they all run back to —