Tintin Forums

Well, firstly, we see after Tintin starts off for the Maritime Library with Snowy after the mast of the model ship breaks, someone spies into his apartment through binoculars. It must have been one of Sakharine's men, but all the same, from where was he spying?

Second, in the book, Tintin comes to know of Sakharine's name from the card which the man gave him. But in the movie, how did Tintin come to know his name? The first time Tintin calls him by the name is when Sakharine asks him in Marlinspike hall what he was looking for, and Tintin says, "I'm looking for answers, Mr. Sakharine."
But before that, Tintin hasn't asked him his name and the fact that all the events take place one after another, without a moment to pause, I don't think Tintin would have had any time to look into a directory or something.
So how does he find out Sakharine's name?
Thanks in advance.

Just a quick point to begin (it's been mentioned to you before I think), please do try and keep your questions to a single topic. Putting two or more queries into a single post, when they are unrelated by subject makes it hard to keep answers straight, and makes it much harder to find in the future, because the subject line is left very vague.
The topic heading is the first thing people see, and beyond the "Movie' theme, which at least does show the source of the query, "A few questions" tells them nothing, where "Where does the watcher spy from?", and "When does TIntin learn Sakharine's name?" at least give a clues.

On the subjects at hand, the spy is presumably in a flat opposite Tintin's, which might have been empty, or at least had a room to rent), or in the stairwell or entry of the building - these are often left open if the building is composed of separate flats, rather than being apartments within a house, like Tintin has at Mrs. Finch's building.

As to Tintin knowing Sakharine's name, although Sakharine doesn't introduce himself to Tintin at the market when he tries to buy The Unicorn model from him, he does produce a cheque book, so perhaps Tintin read it on that?

However, the context of the scene at Marlinspike Hall does suggest that Tintin has not only done further background research before going there from the library, he wants his captor to know this, so when Sakharine asks him what else he knows, Tintin's response is to drop in Sakharine's name; this he would have got from looking for information about Marlinspike and how to get there, and probably finding the article about Sakharine's purchase of the place, which can be seen on the newspapers being printed during the credits.
He may have remembered reading that article earlier, and recalled the name when his investigation talked of Marlinspike in relation to the Haddock family.