Fritz Lang’s penultimate silent film, Spione (Spies), is a flawlessly constructed labyrinthine spy thriller. Hugely influential, Lang’s famous passion for meticulous detail combines with masterful storytelling and editing skills to form a relentless story of intrigue, espionage, and blackmail.
An international spy ring, headed by Haghi (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), uses technology, threats, and murder to obtain government secrets. As master spy, president of a bank, and music hall clown, Haghi leads several lives using instruments of modern technology to spearhead a mad rush for secrets — secrets that assert his power over others.
Setting in stone for the first time many elements of the modern spy thriller, Spione remains remarkably fresh and captivating over 75 years since its first release. Lang carefully reveals the elaborate methods of the spies as they move through his unknown city, no doubt creating a mirror of troubled Weimar Germany. Made by Lang’s own production company and, like M and Metropolis, written by Lang with his wife Thea von Harbou, Spione is “the Grandaddy of decades of intrigue epics. In its rigorous austerity it remains the most modern of the bunch.” (Elliott Stein, Village Voice). —Eureka Entertainment
Bringing to the screen an obsessive and fatalistic world populated by a rogues’ gallery of strange and twisted characters, Lang staked out a uniquely hostile corner of the cinematic universe; despair, isolation, helplessness, all found refuge in the shadows of his work. A product of German Expressionist thought, he explored humanity at its lowest ebb, with a distinctively rich and bold visual sensibility which virtually defined film-noir long before the term was even coined. Born Friedrich Christian Anton Lang in Vienna, Austria, on December 5, 1890, he initially studied to become an artist and architect. He first entered the German film industry as a writer, penning a series of horror movies and thrillers beginning with 1917’s Hilde Warren Und Der Tod. In 1919, he and director Robert Wiene teamed on the script of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and although Lang exited in the pre-production stages to begin work on another project, his major contribution to the story, a framing device… read more
The twist are good.. haha, I really don't know how to react on this silent film. Maybe because it was too long...
Featuring gadgets way ahead of their time, double crossing dames, a megalomaniac villain and bundles of suspense you'd be forgiven for thinking I was describing a James Bond film. But over 30 years before Dr. No hit the big screen, I'm describing this remarkable silent film from the great Fritz Lang. I've heard this film described as Lang's North By Northwest and that's not far off the mark. Terrific entertainment...
Not quite on the level of Fritz Lang's other masterpieces, but an innovative and genre-defining work from a master filmmaker in his prime. Over the top at times, and cleverly subtle at others, it's a sharply crafted and action-packed, even if Thea Van Harbou's convoluted story can get tricky. A classic.
DEATH CANNOT STOP TRUE LOVE. ALL IT CAN DO IS DELAY IT FOR A WHILE. Capitaine Fracasse, based on a novel by Theophile Gautier. Directed by
This is my favourite of Fritz Lang’s silent films. It’s lighter in tone than the MABUSE films or any of Fritz’s other films but it’s no less acute in its social observations. The villain is a Mabuse… read review
“Spione” is such a splendid film—a perfect balance, for Lang, of aesthetics, emotions, and technical skill. Compared to “Metropolis” it seems a little cold, perhaps a little too technically perfect… read review