Spione (1928)
Directed by Fritz Lang

Film Review

After the embarrassing commercial failure of Metropolis (1927), director Fritz Lang was more or less driven to make a film with greater popular appeal (particularly as this was to be the first film for his own newly formed production company).  He hoped to repeat the success of his earlier thriller Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922), and so effectively reworked this film as Spione (1928), based on a novel by his then wife Thea von Harbou.

Like Lang's first Mabuse film, Spione is very much the prototype for the modern adventure thriller, with some easily recognisable shades of Alfred Hitchcock and James Bond (note the occurrence of hi-tech gadgets).  There's a seriously evil criminal mastermind, a tough and charismatic hero, an attractive femme fatale, and a plot with more twists and turns than you can count on the fingers of three hands.  Here, the said criminal mastermind is played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, famous for his sinister portrayals of mad scientist Rotwang in Metropolis and the unscrupulous Dr Mabuse in Lang's first two Mabuse films.

Whilst the film is shamelessly populist, Lang treats it with no less seriousness than his other films.  It may lack the striking Art Deco impact of Metropolis but Spione is a masterfully composed thriller, skilfully employing expressionistic motifs to suggest a sense of dark menace, with some meticulously edited action sequences.  That Lang was influenced by the crime serials ( Les Vampires, Judex, etc.) of French director Louis Feuillade is more than evident, although there is also a hint of the realism that the director would achieve with his next and most famous thriller, M (1931).

Mabuse, der Spieler and Spione are both compelling thrillers, enjoyable escapist fantasies, but they are equally a reflection of the world in which Lang lived.  Germany between the wars was marked by social, political and economic turbulence, which would culminate with the rise of the Nazi party in the early 1930s.  This troubled world is mirrored in Lang's films of this period, a world of uncertainty, decadence, dangerous conspiracy and unnamed threats, with the seemingly all-controlling Mabuse and Haghi prefiguring the monsters that would lead the fascist regimes of the 1930s.

What is particularly disturbing about Lang's criminal masterminds Mabuse and Haghi is there apparent lack of motive for what they do - they are genuinely immoral characters.  Both indulge in crime merely for the pleasure of being criminals.  They become powerful not with any great vision in mind, but just because they know how to exert control over people - like Nietzsche's Übermensch.   Of the two characters, Haghi is the strongest and most convincing.  Whereas Mabuse ultimately yields to failure, Haghi remains in control right to the very end, closing his career with the most perfectly staged curtain call - which, a propos, is the best ending to any of Lang's films.

Film Synopsis

When a series of top secret government documents go missing, agent No. 326 is called in to investigate.  Little does he know that he is up against Europe's most sophisticated spy ring, led by the ruthless banker, Haghi.  Using a combination of technology and blackmail, Haghi has a vice-like grip over a vast network of spies, which includes Russian émigré Sonya Baranilkowa.   Can anyone thwart Haghi's next daring scheme, to steal a vital treaty with Japan...?