The Imitation Game · written by Graham Moore · 2014

Turing tests the candidate on a dummy Enigma machine; the message decodes to a German report locating the KMS Jaguar, and the team erupts in celebration.

Scene 89 of 130 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Midpoint
Save the Cat: Midpoint
Alan Turing
Hugh Alexander
John Cairncross

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:24 into a 1:57 film

The story so farBefore scene 89

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.
Scenes 51–88
Joan joins the project; the team builds and tests the machine while Turing learns to rely on collaborators.
Just before
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
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 89
This scene

89INT. BLETCHLEY PARK - HUT 8 - CONTINUOUS

Where Alan takes a DUMMY ENIGMA MACHINE, turns the machine’s rotors to the setting he wrote down (”EXBAO...”) —

ALAN TURING

Give me a fresh message. The last

one we intercepted.

Peter hands Alan one from a nearby folder —

— Alan starts typing one of today’s gibberish encrypted messages into Enigma —

— As John TAKES DOWN the decoded German letters —

— Hugh looks at what John is writing and TRANSLATES the German into English —

HUGH ALEXANDER

“KMS Jaguar... Is auf punkt — is

directed - 53 degrees, 24 minutes

north... And auf punkt 1 degree

west...”

HUGH ALEXANDER (CONT’D) ALAN TURING “... Heil Hitler.” “... Heil Hitler.”

Alan and Hugh look at each other: Oh my god.

ALAN TURING

Turns out that’s the only German

you need to know to break Enigma.

The team EXPLODES WITH JOY.

LAUGHING, HOOTING, SCREAMING, JUMPING, HUGGING.

This is the happiest moment of their lives.

John even starts to TEAR UP, and TRIES TO HUG ALAN —

— Who just STANDS THERE, limp.

JOHN CAIRNCROSS

(re: Alan)

Not a hugger. Probably could have

guessed that.