SPIES (1928)

An opening title card says, "Strange things were taking place around the world." This is probably always true, but most of these strange things in 1928 involve the theft of important diplomatic documents from various embassies. The big MacGuffin here, which is never quite explained, is a secret peace treaty between England and Japan which, if exposed, could start a major "war in the East." Haghi, who to the public is a respectable German banker (Rufolf Klein-Rogge, pictured at right), is the criminal mastermind behind all these thefts, running a huge spy network, though it's never explained what his endgame is—in one sense, Haghi himself is a kind of MacGuffin. His spies are responsible for the deaths of many German Secret Service agents, but one in particular is quite a thorn in his side: a man only identified as 326 (Willy Fritsch), whom we first see in disguise as a scruffy homeless tramp. The head of the Secret Service assigns 326 to get to the bottom of the treaty thefts, but Haghi gets wind of this and has Russian femme fatale Sonya (Gerda Maurus) seduce him. She does, but she also falls for him. The dandyish Col. Jellusic is working with Sonya but I never really figured out who he worked for, though he seems ready to betray anyone for enough money. There is also Matsumoto, the Japanese diplomat who is trying to keep the treaty safe; he sends three couriers off with copies of the treaty, but when Haghi gets hold of them it turns out that Matsumoto has bluffed him. Things do not end well for Matsumoto. Lady Leslane is a rich socialite who has a secret opium habit and is being blackmailed by Haghi to help him. Finally, there is German agent 719 who to the public is Nemo the Clown and who seems harmless but is not.

This 150-minute silent spy movie by Fritz Lang is crammed full of plot—what I've laid out above accounts for what I could keep clear in my head, but there's lots more going on, all tied to the central story of the treaties. But really, you can enjoy this film even if you can’t follow it. Most of the running time is packed full of incident, making it feel a lot like a serial, and the film might make more sense if watched in short chapter bursts, but then you would lose the propulsive forward motion. Well, most of the film is propulsive. In the first 20 minutes, I took almost a page full of plotpoint notes, but then things slow down a bit, pick up a bit, slow down a bit, and end with some slam-bang action scenes. Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who for some of the film is in a wheelchair with slicked-down Hitlerish hair, played bad guys for Lang before (Rotwang in Metropolis, the title character in Dr. Mabuse) and continues his mad mastermind ways here. (And if you’ve seen those films, you know that coherent plotting is not exactly in Lang's wheelhouse.) He overacts a smidge, what with villainous facial tics and such, but that's par for the course for evil masterminds. Willy Fritsch (326) was primarily known as a handsome, clean-cut romantic figure, and the opening scenes of him as a hobo played against his persona. He's fine as a kind of proto-James Bond figure. Gerda Maurus is also good as Sonya, and Lien Dyers plays another sexy agent named Kitty (whose part in the proceedings was a bit murky to me).

The reason to watch this movie is for the sets, the visuals and the camerawork. A famous shot from this film, which actually has little to do with anything (see left), is of criss-cross staircases in Haghi's secret lair; it's just fun to look at. This was filmed on a lower budget than Metropolis, which lost money for the studio, and some of the sets do look cheap, in particular Haghi's main office, but the occasional sparse set actually adds to the weird atmosphere. There are lots of notes passed, lots of smoking, lots of close-ups, lots of characters not always well delineated. I first watched this over ten years ago and took copious notes for my blog review, but I lost the notes. About two years ago, I found them but couldn’t make sense of them. But I’m very glad I decided to watch it again (on a very nice Blu-ray restoration from Kino with a good hour-long documentary about the movie). My advice is to put the movie on and just go with the visual flow. It’s worth being a little confused and even bored now and then. [Blu-Ray]