Spione (Masters Of Cinema)

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Film Description

Aka Spies. Newly restored to its original length, Lang's penultimate silent film is a flawlessly constructed and labyrinthine spy thriller in which Lang's famous passion for meticulous detail combines with masterful storytelling and editing skills to form a relentless story of intrigue, espionage, and blackmail. As fresh and as captivating now as it was on release.

Film Information

DVD Extras

Newly restored to its original state for the first time on home video; Original German intertitles with optional English subtitles; New score by Donald Sosin; Gallery containing rare production stills; 20-page booklet with new essays.

Technical Details

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4 Stills

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Reviews & Articles

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Review by R. Dixon Smith on 24th February 2005

Fritz Lang’s long association with Ufa, Germany’s most powerful studio, began shortly after the First World War. It produced some of the finest films made anywhere in the world during the silent era, including Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1924), and Metropolis (1927). One of the best of these is Spione (Spies, 1928), arguably one of the finest genre pictures of the 1920s. Rudolf Klein-Rogge, who had portrayed Lang’s most famous criminal mastermind, Dr. Mabuse, as well as Rotwang, the mad scientist of Metropolis, stars as Haghi, the power-crazed Napoleon of crime whose network of superspies stretches throughout the world, and who hides behind the façade of a wheelchair-bound bank president. The most dangerous man in Europe, Haghi in fact leads a triple life, for he also masquerades as Nemo the music-hall Clown. Co-starring in this diabolical tale of espionage, counterespionage, world domination, treason, and treachery are Willy Fritsch as No. 326, the secret serviceman out to capture Haghi, Gerda Maurus as Sonia, the ace spy sent to eliminate No. 326, Lien Deyers as Kitty, Fritz Rasp as Colonel Jellusic and Lupu Pick as Dr. Masimoto, a Japanese diplomat and spy-master.
All the inventive pyrotechnics and Expressionist touches that Lang had used in Metropolis are deployed to sensational effect by cinematographer Fritz Arno Wagner in this exercise in intrigue and mayhem that features robbery, extortion, explosions, and assassinations. The spectacular train-wreck-in-a-tunnel sequence marks Spione as one of the most frenetic espionage epics ever made, as well as a forerunner of Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers. Fritz Lang’s Spione isn’t as famous as Metropolis, but it should be. As Lang biographer Patrick McGilligan has written, “the suspense and furioso strokes never flag.”

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Article - "Supervillains in Film: Where are you now?" by James Oliver
Friday 13th July 2007

Supervillainy is a profession in decline. Once upon a time, the authorities would routinely declare themselves ‘baffled’ by the latest well-choreographed crime spree: today, priceless works of art are protected by only modest security; the police confident they won’t...  View article in full

Article - ""Ein Film Von...": The German Films of Fritz Lang" by James Oliver
Friday 25th May 2007

Cinema was born in the last years on the Victorian era, took its baby steps in the first decade of the twentieth century and reached an earnest maturity in the teens. Then, like any irresponsible youngster, it let its hair down and started experimenting to find its l...  View article in full

Article - "Film Preservation: The Nitrate Era " by R. Dixon Smith
Monday 7th April 2008

The year is 1908. The steady torrent of coins increases daily in nickelodeon parlors throughout the world, and every two months the entire population of the globe is exceeded by the number of people patronizing the world’s movie theatres.

But within several...  View article in full

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Collections & Lists

This film is part of the following Film Collections

Masters Of Cinema

Including: Abhijan (Masters Of Cinema), Asphalt (Masters Of Cinema), Assassination (Masters Of Cinema), Bellissima (Masters of Cinema), Diary Of A Lost Girl, Edvard Munch (Masters of Cinema), F For Fake, Fantastic Planet, Faust (Murnau), Francesco Giullare Di Dio (Masters Of Cinema).

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