Two questions I don't think were ever solved

Over the years that I've read posts here there are two questions that I don't think have ever really been answered. One is the "Bill Clay" question and the other is the "shoot the glass" one. Here's my two cents worth:

I'm not sure why this is difficult for people. First off, aside from the very obvious point that he finds Bill in a spot where one of the hostages probably wouldn't be at doing something that he probably wouldn't be doing, no one in his right mind gives a gun to a person without being sure of who or what he is. "Bill" could be yet another person, like John, who managed to escape the terrorists. But no cop would give someone a gun without being sure first. So how does know?

The first indication (I used to think) is Bill's accent. It's just dreadful and would never fool anyone. However, it may not be an actual clue, at least not as planned by McTiernan. I had originally thought that Rickman was doing an American accent that would be done by a German speaker, which would explain how bad it is. Apparently that's not the case, as McTiernan, in his Director's commentary, said that Rickman just couldn't do one very well. He says that they kept trying to get it right, and he finally just gave up. When I heard him say that I was floored. But if you don't know that bit, the terrible accent is a dead giveaway.

The other point is the cigarette thing, something Americans just don't understand, and even though I'm an American, my own personal experience helped my understand this. Germans do indeed tend to hold their cigarettes differently than Americans do. That is why McTiernan took the trouble to have Hans hold his that way. Ask yourself this: why would McTiernan go to the trouble of showing him holding it that way if it wasn't relevant?? He wouldn't have. This was especially noticeable to me because of my own experience. A year before this movie came out I was in Egypt. While there, I was nearby a group of tourists who were all speaking German. Most of them were smoking, and every one of them was holding their cigarettes that way. So a year a year later when this movie came out I had an Ah-Hah! moment, and I wondered if that would be a give away for Hans.

There's also a second point here that is also not immediately noticeable. Now I've never smoked anything in my life, but I've been told that European cigarettes generally have a harsher taste than American ones do. Therefore, when John offered Bill one of them, he made no comment about its taste, like John would have expected him to. (I think John makes some kind of comment about them when he's forced to smoke theirs since he didn't have any of his). So to me the cigarette was the prime telling point.

But there's one more point about this Bill Clay scene that no one that I'm aware of has ever noticed: it takes place in two different places. When it starts, they are up near the roof and they have their beginning conversation. Then the move scene switches to another location (I forget where), and then John and Hans are suddenly downstairs, which makes it possible for Hans to see the office directory. How did they get there?


And then there's the shoot-the-glass question, which again is mired in mystery, and so far as I know, has never been explained. In his director's commentary, McTiernan sort of explains it but not directly. He says it's common in foreign workplaces, because of the multilingual status, for orders to b e given in two or more languages. He said when he was working on another film in Montreal, every thing had to be said in French and English, and by law the French had to be said first.

But the problem with what Hans says to Karl, is that it is grammatically incorrect German. It would be something like if someone had said to you (in English), "Window, fire, take it." In that case you might scrunch your face and ask him what the hell he was talking about.

25 years or so ago, TNT used to run "Our Favorite Movies," which included little bits of trivia during commercial breaks. One of the ones for this movie said the producers deliberately had them speak a corrupted Greman, because they wanted the audience to think they were generic Europeans, apparently to keep from offending Germans. But whatever the reason, it isn't clear why Hans, who is supposed to German, doesn't speak correct German, which leads Karl to give a funny look, and then have Hans say it in English. One might assume Hans says it in English so that everyone in the audience knows what he's saying, but if that's case, why bother saying it in German? We may never know....


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There. I said it. I feel better now.