Les espions

Fritz Lang was one of the great silent film directors (His talkies are great as well) and this is his best silent film. Agents target the mysterious Haghi (Rudolf Klien-Rogge), a master criminal out to topple the banks of the world. The pursuit includes a seductive young female spy driving a Japanese business man to hari-kiri, assassinations, a chase and a showdown on a train (that collides in one heck of a sequence.) The film concludes with Haghi trapped on a stage where he is dressed as a clown (Why a powerful bank president moonlights as a third rate clown has always puzzled me.) Alfred Hitchcock openly cites this brillaint film as an influence. Also, there is a priceless glimpse of 1920's Germany here- the decadence of Berlin, where apartment dwellers turn their tiny flats into bars for extra cash. Even when the film plays in its complete 3 hour form, it's an exciting time at the movies.

What a hoot! As the other comments have pointed out, this movie has everything and then some. The Image DVD furthers this excitement with the use of an Expressionist typeface for the intertitles and punctuation that includes "-!?", "—!!", and even at one point, "––-!!!" "Spies" offers an almost perfect print with superb music and sound effects. Newbies to silent film will have to adjust to the wild and sometimes bizarre pantomime style of the acting, but give it half a chance and "Spies" will have you on the edge of your seat, even at the 140- minute length. I love Fritz Lang's American films, like "Rancho Notorious" and "Clash by Night"—don't miss these if you have the chance—but Lang's German work shows a young director always at the top of his form, full of brilliant ideas and bursting with energy.

I saw the restored version which is an hour longer than the print commonly available. Lang did some amazing things with text and graphics. His great reputation for innovation is well deserved.

This film is also very funny at times... as a result of intentional exaggeration for the most part. The level of expressionist abstraction allows one to view the mechanisms of the plot at some distance... the better to enjoy the formal qualities of Lang's vision.

Fritz Lang, undeniably one of the greatest and most influential film-makers in all of cinema, is one of my favorites and, from his early work – which remains, perhaps, his most important – I only had a few of his surviving films still to catch up with. SPIONE was one of them and, now that I've watched it, I can confirm its stature as one of his very best, if relatively little-known.

The film is basically a follow-up to Lang's seminal two-part DR. MABUSE, THE GAMBLER (1922) and, indeed, it's Rudolph Klein-Rogge himself – who originated the role of Mabuse – who plays the evil crimelord here (called Haghi and who is made-up to resemble Lenin!). SPIONE follows much the same pattern of intrigue, thrills and action; however, the film's narrative structure is not straightforward but rather elliptical and, even though ostensibly dealing with the conflict which may arise were a treaty to fall into the wrong hands, several major plot points are left deliberately obscure (in fact, we never get to know what the treaty actually contains – a precursor to Hitchcock's beloved "McGuffin", perhaps – or what Haghi's intentions are, once he gets his hands on it!). In this respect, the social conscience so pronounced in the Mabuse diptych – coming, as it did, on the heels of Germany's defeat in WWI – is largely jettisoned here in favor of romance (between a female spy desired, and being blackmailed, by Haghi and the Secret Service agent who is the mastermind's nemesis), eroticism (the ensnaring of a central political figure by a vamp in Haghi's service) and technical dexterity (ensuring that SPIONE's considerable 2½-hour running-time goes by rapidly and without any longueurs, in my estimation at least, as opposed to the sluggish and rather static Mabuse). It is not inconceivable, therefore, to discern in Lang's fanciful melodrama the germ for all the spy thrillers which followed – from Hitchcock to the James Bond extravaganzas and beyond.

As befits a master story-teller like Lang, particularly during this most creative phase of his career, SPIONE is virtually a catalogue of memorable scenes (interestingly enough, the supplementary photo gallery includes shots from sequences that are missing in the main feature!) – chief among them a ghostly visitation, a ritual suicide, a train-wreck, a police raid on a bank and a stage performance by a clown; however – as opposed to the DVD back-cover, which blatantly spells out its most clever twist – in emulation of the film itself, I've refrained from giving too much away about them here

In the space of the first one minute and 37 seconds, a safe is burgled, a diplomat is killed, two secret documents are stolen, and an intertitle demands "WHO IS BEHIND THIS?" We're off in the world of Fritz Lang's "Spies"

This film has everything that would later become spy film cliches: the ultra cool, ultra suave secret agent; the evil powerful genius, confined to a wheelchair, who dreams of world domination; his beautiful seductress, who falls for the secret agent. There are hidden microphones and disappearing ink and secret packages and bulletproof wallets. There's a motorcycle/car chase, and an in-tunnel train wreck to round out the action.