Who were the people trying to kill Doc in his hotel and who was the man watching from across the window?
The Asian assassin with the wire garrote was named Chen, and it is strongly implied he was hired to kill Doc by Szell, because Szell thought Doc was going to rob him when he got his diamonds.
This was hinted in the scene before Szell killed Doc, when Doc says "do you expect me to believe Chen acted on his own?"
The old guy watching from across the street was just some random old guy.
Devane's character said something like "Doc gave safe haven to a lot of Jews in exchange for gold", so I thought for a second that he was like a hero, like Oskar Schindler. I supppose he was a bad guy?
That wasn't exactly what he said. Szell was a doctor at Auschwitz who did experiments on prisoners, like Josef Mengele. Janeway (Devane) said Szell let it be known that he could slip prisoners out if they bribed him with gold and diamonds. Szell was just crooked and greedy.
Who names their kid "Doc" and "Babe"?
They were nicknames. Babe gives his full name once as Thomas Babington Levy.
What the heck was going on at the beginning. Who was that maniacal Jewish guy who assumes that anyone speaking German is a Nazi and why did he feel the need to all of a sudden turn a New York city street into Death Race 2000? And wasn't it a bit too convenient of a plot contrivance that they would both crash into an oil truck?
Road rage. Also there are some Jews, especially old ones only a few decades after the Holocaust, who hate all Germans. Also, Szell's brother started calling him a Jew in a derogatory way, which kind of only confirmed he was a Nazi, or at least anti-Semitic. Yes, the oil truck crash is a plot device, I guess. It's what gets the ball rolling for the whole rest of the movie.
Why would anyone care about a Columbia University grad school student at all who doesn't even know what his brother does for a living?
Because Doc went to Babe's apartment and died in his arms. Someone as paranoid as Szell (a Nazi fugitive coming to America after decades in hiding to get a diamond fortune, exposing himself to incredible risk) isn't going to just assume Doc didn't say anything to Babe.
Janeway was a mole?
Doc and Janeway both worked for a secret government organization, "The Division". They made deals with Szell in exchange for him ratting out on other Nazi war criminals. The ends justify the means, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, etc. etc. Janeway was crooked though, and only out for himself. He didn't like Szell, per se, but he allied with him because Szell seemed like the most powerful man in the room.
Who's Scyllia? It is implied that "Scyllia" is still alive in the novel sequel?
I'll grant you this one was better-explained in the book, but "Scylla" is Doc's agent code name.
What is up with Dustin Hoffman's arc? To redeem his father's suicide, he had to kill Janeway (who I'm not sure needed to be killed) and a Nazi. The people who persecuted his dad were McCarthysits.
Who said he killed Janeway and Szell to redeem his father? Also, re: Janeway not needing to be killed, Babe killed him in self-defense.
Also, why did Babe originally omit McCarthy from his thesis if he was obsessed with his dad's death.
Probably because he had the same doubts that his professor expressed...that he's too emotionally connected to the subject matter to write an objective essay. He had to write with a level of scholarly neutrality, not just rant about McCarthy, and his professor (and probably Babe himself) had doubts that he could set his own emotions aside enough to do that.
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