Joey Paur
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I’ve got a fascinating trailer for a documentary titled A Compassionate Spy, and it tells the incredible true espionage story of Manhattan Project scientist Ted Hall, who shared classified nuclear secrets with Russia during the development of the Atomic Bomb.
A Compassionate Spy is “a gripping real-life espionage thriller about controversial Manhattan Project physicist Ted Hall, who infamously provided nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, told through the perspective of his loving wife Joan, who protected his secret for decades. Recruited in 1944 as an 18-year-old Harvard undergraduate to help Robert Oppenheimer and his team create a bomb, Hall was the youngest physicist on the Manhattan Project, and didn’t share his colleagues’ elation after the successful detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb. Concerned that a U.S. post-war monopoly on such a powerful weapon could lead to nuclear catastrophe, Hall began passing key details about the bomb’s construction to the Soviet Union.”
Before the war, “he met, fell in love with, and married Joan, a fellow student with whom he shared a passion for classical music and socialist causes —and the explosive secret of his espionage. The pair raised a family while living under a cloud of suspicion and years of FBI surveillance & intimidation. Two-time Oscar nominee Steve James’ nuanced, ever-relevant documentary film reveals the twists and turns of this real-life spy story, its profound impact on nuclear history, and the couple’s remarkable love and life spent together during more than 50 years of marriage.”
Hall himself is interviewed along with his wife Joan Hall, and he has quite an insane story to tell. It makes me wonder if he regrets what he did knowing what Russia eventually became.
The movie comes from director Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Life Itself about Roger Ebert, The Interrupters, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail). Magnolia Pictures will release the film in select theaters and on VOD on August 4th, 2023.