Soderbergh had already introduced us to the twin 1950s taboos of sex and cussing, so it wouldn’t have felt out of place for these two to do what Bogart and Bergman could only have hinted at. Throughout the movie there are various references that Clooney’s Geismar thought Blanchett’s Lena was “the best lay [he]’d ever had” and letting the audience get a look at it would have allowed Blanchett to put aside that iciness to show us what would bring a man back to Berlin over London at the end of the Second World War.

It would have been lovely to watch Clooney soften Blanchett up the way they didn’t do it in the days of old.

[Reviews of The Good German have been mixed: some thought it worked, while others felt it didn’t but the consensus rating seems to be a middle of the road 3/5.]