The bigger a liar I may appear

Interesting line: “What can I say… It’s hard to be honest to the end, Pastor. And the more honest my answer is, the bigger liar I may appear to you.”

This line comes toward the end of a long dialog in part six of “Seventeen Moments of Spring.” The English is slightly awkward, but that’s how I found it on the subtitles from Memocast. I presume it’s good enough, though I must confess that in this part of the dialogue I can’t follow the spoken Russian except for a few isolated words. I wish I had a Russian transcript to study like I do with some other movies I’ve gotten from Memocast.

It’s a good scene, with just the two men talking to each other — Col. Stirlitz (the Russian spy working as a Gestapo officer) and Pastor Schlag — the two not daring to be completely honest with each other but trying to come to an understanding without revealing how much each knows. The acting is just right — expressive, not overdone.