Chapter 6 of 30 · 2'30"
Candy has travelled to Berlin solely on account of Edith's letter, and finds she has lost her job for being English and plans to go home. He tries to cheer her up — "England isn't as bad as all that" — before they start planning how to find their target, Kaunitz.
Cheer Up, England Isn't That Bad
In Berlin, Candy calls on Edith Hunter, who is surprised to learn he came only because of her letter. She is in a bad spot: she has lost her job as an Englishwoman in Germany and intends to return home. Candy cheers her up, then the two begin planning how to find Kaunitz, the man they have come to deal with.
Under the courtesy, this is a scene about two English people in a foreign city deciding to work together. Edith's news is a quiet rebuke to Candy's romantic gesture: she did not need him to cross Europe for a letter, and her situation is worse than his grand arrival suggests. Yet the scene keeps its manners. They speak in questions and small offers of help — "Can you possibly mean that you've come here solely on account of my letter?" — and turn their attention to the practical task. The talk of duelling scars and German customs is both local colour and the film's real interest: what English fair play looks like when it runs into a country that fights differently. Edith's closing joke, "you are Livingstone, I presume?", puts the two of them in a familiar story and gives Candy the flattering role.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“Nor had I until now. I only arrived yesterday.”
The inversion turns a plain 'same here' into something dry and courteous, matching the period manners.
Formal
“Can you possibly mean that you've come here solely on account of my letter?”
Possibly and solely stack disbelief inside perfect politeness, and that is exactly what makes it land.
Formal
“Cheer up. England isn't as bad as all that, you know.”
As bad as all that quietly shrinks the other person's despair without arguing with it.
Neutral
“It's a proud father that has a scarred son, and vice versa.”
A cleft sentence delivers the punch, and the dry 'vice versa' makes the whole custom sound absurd.
literary
“I should obviously be absolutely lost without you.”
Two stacked adverbs turn a polite thank-you into charming overstatement.
Neutral
Up next · 07carry coals to NewcastleThe scene: Candy and Edith Argue PoliticsBecause she is English and living in Berlin, where English people are, as she puts it, not very popular. Her position became intolerable, so she had to leave.
Solely because of Edith's letter. She is surprised by it, and asks whether he really travelled all that way only on account of what she wrote.
Because they are discussing the student groups around Kaunitz, and duelling is part of that world. In Germany, a scar is treated as a mark of pride rather than shame.
To find Kaunitz. He knows a cafe with a table reserved for the man and asks Edith to take him there that evening, admitting he would be lost without her.
