‘Spione’ or — From Russia… With Liebe?
A safe is cracked, documents stolen, a bike hurtles through the night, telegraph antennae signal morse-code communiqués that vibrate across the sky, the Minister for Trade is assassinated, a frantic search for missing papers ensues, a secret service agent is shot dead through a window before he can tell the authorities the identity of the master-criminal pulling the strings… and all this within the first 3 and half minutes of Fritz Lang’s ‘Spione’ (‘Spies’ — 1928)? Phew!
‘Spione’ is, essentially, Lang taking another stab at ‘Mabuse’ as it involves a criminal organisation causing international social mayhem controlled by an all-seeing, all-powerful mastermind. Except here Lang has stripped everything down (if you considering a two and a half hour runtime stripped down) and jettisoned the evil Dr’s somewhat silly mind-control shenanigans with its overtones of spiritualism opting, instead, for cutting-edge technology and scientific fidelity, albeit scientific fidelity of the spy-fiction kind. So we are treated to miniature cameras, hidden listening devices, invisible ink, coded messages, cyanide capsules and something I, personally, would love to see return to the silver screen — explosive coconuts.
And it’s a blast with Lang bringing a real sense of fun to all the boyish exploits and with quite a bit of flare. For example — there’s a very nice, and very confident, shot where the camera is looking down on a boxing-match only for the floor to be suddenly crowded by dancing couples as soon as the final bell rings; it’s the sort of thing you could imagine Scorsese or De Palma pulling off. There’s also a couple of nice, and very subtle, pieces of humour outside the boxing-match involving promotional pictures of the boxers and how secret agent №326’s physical actions relate to them; easy to miss but they’re there and demonstrate Lang’s attention to detail and sly wit, sometimes so sly it remains, like an evil genius, practically hidden from sight.
Another impressive set-piece involves a train carriage stuck in a tunnel as a speeding steam-powered locomotive comes unwittingly hurtling through the night on a lethal collision course. The way Lang executes this with the lights and smoke set against the darkness is exceptionally nice being aesthetically arresting as well as dramatically gripping.
‘Spione’ was made when Lang still had the protection of his benevolent producer Erich Pommer, always ready to indulge Lang and allow him access to the technical largesse and resources of Ufa. So despite Lang calling ‘Spione’ a “small film” it still feels epic. There are some wonderful compositions which bust-open all that contained tension and add to the scope and excitement surging from the screen. And did anyone at that time know how to film people smoking better than Fritz did or make it look so action-packed?
The acting is strong here too with Gerda Maurus making an appealing Russian spy, Sonja Baranikowa, sent to seduce good agent №326, played by Willy Fritsch. Indeed, Fritsch plays a type of character we haven’t really seen in a Lang film up until now — laconic, laid-back and with an easy going wit and insouciance. He’s sort of a precursor to Cary Grant… until №326 falls in love and he’s reduced to a doe-eyed idiot for a while. 326 is also insolent to his bad-tempered boss who sits behind his desk in his office as he informs the agent of the mission he’s about to embark on. And talking of James Bond…
There’s tonnes of stuff going on here that must have directly influenced Bond ranging from ‘From Russia… With Love’ (female Russian spy plus the Orient Express), ‘Octopussy’ (spies dressed as clowns and a “clown climax”), ‘Golden Eye’ (tunnel action) and even ‘A View To a Kill’ (think ‘chauffeurs’). Again, you can feel Lang laying the ground-work for the spy-movie template to come. Also, was this the first movie to contain the trope where a person rips up the black-mail photos given to them only to be informed — “But I still have the negatives, my dear”?
The film still has Lang’s pacing issues, something that would reach the maximum point of exasperation with his next film — ‘Frau Im Mond’ (1929), with certain scenes here feeling they could be trimmed or bumped-off entirely. The love story, especially, drastically reigns in the momentum and almost threatens to bring the entire film to a halt, although the combination of the movie being almost a hundred years old, plus the fact that silent movies had to make room (and time) for the inter-titles, mitigates some of the apparent drag and even when the pacing dips there’s always a burst of energy round the corner ready to pick it up again.
Lang also gets a bit meta with ‘Spione’ with a Vertov type figure, a literal man with a movie camera, filming the proceedings before they steal his motorcycle and speed off, dragging the camera behind the roaring vehicle; it’s the old cow-boy gag brought into the mechanical age. Likewise when №326 is out on the street at night where posters advertising some new film called ‘Metropolis’ plaster the walls behind him (you can tell Godard was a Lang fan).
‘Spione’s ending is ludicrous and absolutely ridiculous but oddly satisfying and appropriate. It FEELS like the ending everything that proceeded should have and I can imagine the first audience watching this at the time tempted to rise to their feet and applaud. It also gives the evil Haghi, played as ever by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, one hell of an exit.
Although one last note before that curtain falls and it’s a depressing one but does need mentioning as this is a film that reveals Lang’s penchant for sadism and violence, and not just in his movies. Near ‘Spione’s end Haghi ties Gerda Maurus up in leather bonds, abuses her and sadistically punishes her… much like how Lang treated the actress in his bedroom. Don’t believe me? Just ask G.W. Pabst where Gerda got all the bruises from when she walked on set each morning.
