East German dissident Alex Holbeck, living in Paris, hosts a radio program aimed at Iron Curtain countries. Bodley, a CIA agent, recruits Alex to take on a dangerous assignment. Alex is sent to East Berlinon a mission to steal an Enigma codescrambler. This is part of an attempt to stop the Russian assassination of five Soviet dissidents planned for Christmas Day. Alex does not know is that the CIA already has a code scrambler. By stealing the scrambler in Berlin, they are trying to convince the Russians that they do not have a copy. On arrival in Berlin, Alex finds that the East German police and KGB knows that he is there. Alex must use numerous disguises and escape from a number of capture attempts. He seeks shelter with his former lover, Karen Reinhardt, before moving on, as it is too dangerous for her. Karen and a number of Alex's other old friends are arrested and tortured by the police in an attempt to gain information about Alex's whereabouts. As he gets more desperate, Alex enlists Karen's help again; she seduces Dimitri Vasilikov, the KGB man in charge of the hunt for Alex, to obtain information. In the end, Dimitri catches Alex and Karen and finds the scrambler hidden in an exhibition artifact. As he is in love with Karen, he lets them go, but keeps the scrambler, which was in fact not needed. On Christmas Day, the assassination attempt is successfully thwarted.
put up $58,000 in development costs and invested £985,000 in the budget of $8.1 million. The company received £355,000, losing £630,000. Enigma was shot partly, in 1982, at Paris–Le Bourget Airport. A scene was shot in the terminal, in the hall of eight columns, disused at the time, others on the terrace or in front of the entrance. The aircraft in Enigma are:
in her review for The New York Times, decried the "wise-guy" attitude in Enigma, writing, "There are plenty of mysteries about 'Enigma' but they aren't necessarily the ones the film makers intended. As directed by Jeannot Szwarc, best known for 'Jaws 2' and 'Somewhere in Time', this is the spy film at its most absurdly hard-boiled and at its most, icily perfunctory. It is punctuated by crisp titles, played very close to the vest and riddled with false alarms..." Film historian and critic Leonard Maltin in Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide 2013 noted a "fine cast does its best with so-so material."
