Spies

Spies (1928)

Spione

Fritz Lang’s Espionage Epic!

The mastermind behind a ubiquitous spy operation learns of a dangerous romance between a Russian lady in his employ and a dashing agent from the government's secret service.

Date of release
1928-03-22
TMDB
7.3 / 10 (95)
Runtime
2h 25m
Genres
Thriller, Romance
Director
Fritz Lang

Casting

Interesting facts

Spione is a 1928 German silent espionage thriller directed by Fritz Lang and co-written with his wife, Thea von Harbou, who also wrote a novel of the same name, published a year later. The film was Lang's penultimate silent film and the first for his own production company, Fritz Lang-Film GmbH. As in Lang's Mabuse films, Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), Rudolf Klein-Rogge plays a master criminal aiming for world domination.

Production

According to Robert Osborne, Lang was having an affair with Maurus during filming, even as his wife Thea von Harbou was involved writing the screenplay. Lang had earlier stolen the affections of Harbou from her first husband, Klein-Rogge, who played Haghi. In spite of this, Klein-Rogge worked with Lang and Harbou on various notable films, including Destiny (1921), Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924) and Metropolis (1927).

Spione was made at a substantially reduced budget as the studio looked to cancel Lang's contract following the poor commercial return of his previous film, Metropolis. Despite this, the third act train crash in particular is considered an extraordinary technical feat which belied budgetary restraints.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended