In a special appearance at JDIFF, the film will be accompanied by pianist, violinist and composer Gunther Buchwald
After the embarrassing commercial failure of Metropolis (1927), director Fritz Lang was driven to make a film with greater popular appeal. 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.
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. 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.
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 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).
James Travers
