Watch Spies For Free

The Worst Film Ever

Brilliant and touching

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Fritz Lang is one of my favorite directors and ''Metropolis'' is my favorite film. I love ''Woman in the Moon'', ''M'', and ''The Testament of Dr. Mabuse''. ''Spies'', sadly, is incredibly average. Don't get me wrong, this film has great moments. The opening is thrilling. The train scene is suspenseful. And the last 10 minutes are really good. Everything in between is uninteresting and drawn out. I got bored a lot (this is coming from somebody who loves 2001: A Space Odyssey) and found myself looking at the time displeased. I usually despise when studios cut films (Metropolis), but Paramount was smart in cutting this from 130 minutes to 90 minutes. I got the pleasure of seeing an original Paramount copy at the Denver Silent Film Festival and found myself enjoying Spies much more. In conclusion, ''Spies'' has some standout sequences, but is a major step down from ''Metropolis''

I first saw this movie many years ago, completely unrestored and in a severely edited version but I was still carried away by the breath taking style and the twists and turns of the plot about a super spy who wanted world domination. So I was very happy to find this Kino edition with an hour of previously unseen footage. Like Lang's earlier film, "Dr. Mabuse", Haghi (Rudolph Klein-Rogge) is a master criminal extraordinare who leads several different lives - as a bank president and also as a circus clown. He is always one step ahead of the Russian, Japanese and German secret service, steals treaties and operates a radio network that brings him up to date headlines through a transmitter in his office. He has men working for him day and night, including a fruit vendor who stealthily parks his wagon in the street, cutting off a car chase and starts throwing cocoanuts which are really hand grenades."Throughout the world strange events transpire".... It is the world of spies and secret agents and disappearing ink and once again Lang holds up to ridicule the pompous bureaucrats and petty officials. A local vagrant has received a summons to appear before the local police. Willy Fritsch's introduction is a marvel of pantomimic acting but after being hustled into the station we find that he is really "No. 326" - one of the country's sharpest agents. He is put on the trail of Haghi and Haghi, in turn, puts one of his most beautiful operatives, Sonia (Gerda Maurus) in his way to seduce him. It is love at first sight (a bizarre date has them at a boxing match which also doubles as a nightclub, when the match is finished patrons instantly start dancing around the ring). When Haghi finds Sonia questioning her loyalty he captures and imprisons her at headquarters then sends another look alike agent, Kitty (Lien Deyers) out in her place. It is Kitty's job to charm the Japanese diplomat (Lupu Pick) and she does, appearing at first as a waif caught in the rain, then gradually insinuating herself into his life - until she has all the secret documents and his only recourse is to commit hari-kari.The last thirty minutes starts with an explosive train crash - both Sonia (who is on one last mission - Haghi says if she will fulfill it he will spare "No. 326"'s life, but of course he is lying) and "No. 326" are aboard. From then on there is a non stop last minute rescue and then on to the music hall for a final showdown.Rudolph Klein-Rogge was a master character actor but because most of the time Haghi was behind a desk, he didn't have a lot to do. Willy Fritsch went on to become Germany's (and Hitler's) number one actor, more at home in frothy, frivolous musicals. Lien Deyer was a discovery of Lang's and "Spies" was her first film. She and her husband fled to America during the upheaval of Germany in the 1930s but after that nothing much went right for her.

Having been molded for a lifetime with James Bond as the ultimate movie-spy, it takes a little effort to appreciate Fritz Lang's very good 'Spione' (= German for 'spies').Another step to take is acknowledging the level of technical advancement from the late 1920-s. For instance, watching a high-pressure scene about sending an urgent telegram doesn't make sense anymore in our age of email & internet.After having settled yourself in the right mood, time has come to appreciate this film. Excellent acting, to start with. A story that keeps you interested until its very unexpected end. All decors and scenarios are in very good style and taste.In 'Spione' the style of the short-lived German 'Weimar'-republic emerges unmistakeably. It is a great and very recognizable style, shaped by the unstable politics of its times. A style marked by fresh memories of a terrible world war, as well as by the fear for the future.Although in 1928, the year this film was made, the 'Weimar'-republic boomed, Adolf Hitler was only five years away.

Fritz Lang's silent crime thriller pits a government agent (Willy Fritsch) against a scheming international banker who is stealing government documents. Considered an overlooked, but crucial part of Lang's impressive canon and an important influence on the thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock; it does have some first-rate cutting and painterly images of the city's dense layering. However, (this version at least) is simply way too long. One can anticipate what is going to happen later in the film with more than ½ hour to go. The film could easily afford to lose some where in the order of one hour of its footage. A necessary viewing for anyone interested in the work of Fritz Lang all the same.