Film: "Spies"
With gadgets, Russian femme fatales and a criminal mastermind, Fritz Lang’s classic silent spy comedy will appeal to the James Bond fan in each of us.
Fritz Lang helped invent all kinds of genres: science fiction (Metropolis), epic adventures (Die Nibelungen), arthouse (Der Müde Tod) and TV serials. And James Bond is the spawn of his 1928 Spies, with its sex, sin and a supervillain, as well as its technical gimmicks.
UFA had lost so much money on Metropolis that Lang wanted to prove he could make a commercial movie on a low budget. Gerda Maurus, straight out of Vienna, was the “virgin actress” who became a star thanks to Lang’s attention and care. And Spies indeed came in on schedule and was a popular success. Critics may have expected more of a “class” movie, but the unpretentious fun proves Lang’s resourcefulness, his curiosity for Roaring Twenties nightlife in Berlin, and, in every shot, his love for his heroine.
D: Fritz Lang, Germany, 1928, 2h30m
