As Aranhas

This serial-esque action epic is told in two parts. In the first part, "The Golden Lake", man-of-action Kay Hoog (Carl de Vogt) heads for South America to look for a secret city of Incas living in temples much as they did centuries ago. They have a Harvard professor prisoner, and are also sitting atop a huge gold mine. Kay is challenged in his quest by the Spiders, a secret multi-national criminal organization. Their chief agent Lio Sha (Ressel Orla) has the hots for Hoog, but she won't let that get in her way of taking the gold for her gang. Kay makes cute with Inca priestess Naela (Lil Dagover), which really peeves Lio Sha. In the second part, "The Diamond Ship", Kay Hoog is once again racing against the Spiders, this time in search of the Buddha diamond, a fabulous gem that is foretold to be the great emancipator of Asia from the control of the West.

There's a lot going here, with secret societies, hidden cities, cowboys, pirates, guys dressed like ninjas, a samurai, safecrackers in top hats and domino masks, human sacrifice, clairvoyants, hot air balloon rides, and much more. Despite the 137 minute running time, I was rarely bored, although the first half is much better than the second. It also ends rather abruptly, as this was originally intended to be quickly followed up by another 2-hour, 2-part installment in the war between Hoog and the Spiders, but that never got made. Instead, Lang was inspired to bring Mabuse to the screen, and the rest is history.

Forgive me for reviewing both episodes together, but things just fit together better in this format.

A surprisingly weak film. The pacing is haphazard. The special effects are ineffectual. It's hard to believe that these pitiful sets were from the set designer for The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. The actors use guns the way that inexperienced toddlers might. And the Americans, Peruvians, and Inca all look very, very German. This film is only for the compleatist, desiring to view all of the films of Fritz Lang or of this genre. Don't come here for entertainment.

I first became familiar with THE SPIDERS in David Shepard's 1999 version on Image DVD. It will always have a special place in my silent film collection as it was my introduction to the exotic pulp fiction serials of the silent era that would culminate years later in the INDIANA JONES films of Steven Spielberg. After seeing the 2 silent features that make up THE SPIDERS (THE GOLDEN SEA and THE DIAMOND SHIP), I was primed for THE INDIAN TOMB (which Fritz Lang co-wrote but missed out on directing until he made his own version 40 years later) and the earlier serials of Louis Feuillade (THE VAMPIRES, JUDEX, FANTOMAS) which inspired this film. In the company of the Feuillade serials and the later silent films of Lang, THE SPIDERS gets unfairly dismissed which is unfortunate as it has much to offer especially in this new transfer.

The biggest knock against the old version was that the print was not in great shape. Shepard explained that we were lucky to have the film at all and that it took a lot of work to put it back together from materials found in Czech archives. The new version appears to use the same Czech materials but has the advantage of new restoration techniques developed in the last 10 years. Nevertheless those expecting a complete restoration are bound to be disappointed as compared to NOSFERATU, PHANTOM OF THE OPERA or the 2003 version of METROPOLIS, this still looks pretty rough. It is longer (173 minutes -vs- 137 minutes) and, as much as I love Gaylord Carter organ scores, the new Ben Model score will be more audience friendly as will the print improvement and new title cards.

For those unfamiliar with the scenario, it involves intrepid adventurer Kay Hoog (pronounced HOAG - Carl de Vogt) and his confrontations with the international criminal organization The Spiders headed up by the remarkably intense femme fatale Lio Sha (Ressel Orla). Separately they seek to recover Incan treasure and later a priceless diamond known as the "Buddha's Head". Murders, betrayals, escapes, exotic locales are all there in the mix along with Lang's eye for striking visual composition which is what separates THE SPIDERS from the serials of Feuillade. The sets are fabulous, the costumes elaborate, and the performances (most notably Ressel Orla's) are deliriously intense. This more complete version is a welcome addition to the Fritz Lang filmography just don't expect M or METROPOLIS or for it to look like it was shot yesterday...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

This film has an enormous amount of action and adventure in it. Characters are jumping from one country to the next in the matter of minutes. There is hardly a dull moment. My only problem with this film is that it seems to jump around too fast. One episode is barely finished, and boom, you're zapped to another location. If this movie had not been made in 1919, I would swear it had copied MTV's jump cut style. All in all, The Spiders, is a good introduction in the silent film adventure genre.

German critics were apparently dismissive of this, Fritz Lang's third feature film (and first surviving one), deriding as sensationalism and nothing more. I don't disagree, but I also don't really see much wrong with it. The narrative and thematic ambitions are modest, focused more on purely entertaining spectacle rather than self-conscious art, but there's nothing wrong with that. It's not the most successful entertainment of the silent period or anything, but it functions well enough.

Kay Hoog (Carl de Vogt) is a sportsman living in San Francisco when he discovers a message in a bottle bobbing about at sea. The message describes a treasure trove of ancient gold hidden in the caves under a lost population of Incans in South America. He openly describes, reads, and shows the letter at his sailing club in front of Lio Sha (Ressel Orla), a secret operative of the criminal enterprise known as The Spiders. With the knowledge of the treasure and the message that contains some direction, she takes the information back to the Spiders' secret headquarters (including a 1919 version of a television she uses to listen in on the conversation that doesn't include her), and they decide to go after the message and the gold.

They attack and rob Hoog in the middle of the night (leaving him alive so the movie can happen), and the chase is on. Hoog takes the train down to the southern reaches of Mexico where he meets up with a scientist who works on weather balloons that he plans on hitching a ride with to get him over the mountains and to the Incan city as fast as possible. He has to steal back that message from the bottle first (for reasons? For action-adventure reasons). He faces down Lio Sha and her newly hired of bandits in a tense and exciting little exchange where he gets the paper, escapes through the roof, leads a horse chase to the scientist about to take off in the balloon where Kay jumps onto the final rope and climbs all the way up. You know...silent stunts are awesome because they were so wildly irresponsible.

Kay gets to the Incan city first, and the Incan city is really the showstopper of the film. It's a relatively small set (especially in comparison to the sets that Lang would build for Metropolis a few years later), but they are wonderfully densely designed and detailed that Lang fills with actors, giving it a dense, lived-in quality. The first person Kay meets, though, is the Incan princess Naela (Lil Dagover). Both protected from the regular human sacrifices the Incans make and also being groomed as an executioner by her father. The Incans capture Lio Sha when her party camps nearby, and Naela is trying to protect her new love Kay by hiding him in the caves and helping him build a makeshift raft that will take him to safety.

Now, the big action set piece that ends the film is curious. I don't know if it's the rough around the edges work of new screenwriters (Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou), or an intelligent subversion of action/adventure convention because it's about Kay saving Lio. They're never less than adversaries, and Kay's motive seems to be more about saving Naela the fate of having to actively participate in Lio's murder, but it's interesting nonetheless. It also coincides with Lio's men arriving on the scene for a big, brash shootout (kind of a less-comedic version of the finale to John Ford's Bucking Broadway) that ends in the caverns of gold that have been booby-trapped and lead to some fun water effects.

Good guys win, get out safely, and, because this is meant to be a serialized story of increasing stakes focused on a singular good guy, things go wrong in the final moments that give Kay the kind of motive to keep on with the fight.

Is this deep stuff? Not at all. Is it built on a fair bit of coincidence and convenience? Very much so. Is it amusing and fun? Yes, it is. It is completely unchallenging, but a fun adventure story that works well enough in the realm of spectacle while it's on. I wouldn't go so far as to call it good, but as a very early attempt from a director in the nascent German film industry, it does its job.