Fritz Lang is an enigmatic personality. His ability to bring artistic expression to cinema is, in my opinion, unrivalled, by any other director of the silent era. At least compared to the success he had. It seems to me that his visual style was so ingrained in his understanding of the media that it was the sole personal benefit of his filmic endeavours in general.
So when his previous monster of a movie, Metropolis (1927), an expected genre-defining success, turned out to be a film-company-bankrupting epic instead, they pretty much wanted to get rid of Lang instead of risking him putting more nails in their coffin. But he still had a contract for two more movies for UFA, and instead they capped the maximum spending to 800.000 marks each, which would put a natural limitation on the "epic-ness" of his filmmaking.
Lang and his writing partner and wife Thea Von Harbou, chose a suspense spy thriller format that I suppose was an easier sell on paper, than the layered and complicated metaphysics of the now legendary Metropolis, while still trying to add the expressionist touches he had such passion for.
The plot goes along a predictable suspense-spy-action thread, that has now become as much a cliché as anything on the silverscreen. But back in the 20´s, this was not exactly an everyday thing to see. I am pretty sure that Hitchcock was hugely inspired by the plot structure and the "macguffin" idea of the chase of "secret plans", which we see explored extensively in his movies in the 30´s and 40´s.
The problem with "Spies" ("Spione" in german) is that the exposition and (silent)dialogue heavy scenes, in-between the interesting action and expressive artistic parts, really is pretty boring and largely forgettable. Klein-Rogge does a decent, if slightly overacted, effort at the "Dr. Evil", Mr. Haghi. The ladies man, Willy Fritsch, playing an undercover agent, is a bit of a breath of fresh air though, in an otherwise mostly stiff and static gallery of overacting "silent" actors.
At the same time, what makes up for the overstretched plot-structure, are the many, but short, interjected, expressionist touches, that are almost other-worldly in my opinion. No one else than Lang, could come up with and establish scenery as aweinspiring and clever as he did. The boring parts stand in incredible contrast to some of the best expressionist scenery ever created in movie history. That alone makes this a must see movie, at least if you are a cinephile.
The start is a brilliant prologue collaged of various symbolic and expressive tools, to set up the rest of the plot of the movie. The angle shot of the motorbike rider being the most notable. Then there is the staircase structure of the inner police station, a classic expressionist idea seen in many different ways throughout the 20´s.
There are certainly a few interior shots that closely reminisces aspects of Metropolis' modernity in interior design, which is another interesting aspect of the filmic expression of the time. The change from the overfilled rooms with all sorts of stuff to a clean and even symmetric feel, that resembles a new age on its way.
My favorite scene and possibly one of my top 3 shots of all time in cinema history, is the highly action-filled scene where spies breaks through a hotel wall and one suited in leather coat and a gun in each hand, points in two directions at the same time, while scouring the room he just broke into. Not even the coolest parts of Neo swirling around in "The matrix" can stand up to the sheer power of this overwhelmingly action packed expressionism.
The clown-twist with the Dr. Evil character in the end has a nice theatricality to it, but does at the same time feel a little out of place and anticlimactic, within a purely action driven plot structure in my opinion. I do like the balls it takes to do stuff like that though.
Overall it is a very mixed bag this one. The film as a whole storywise, does not work for me. The characters are pretty boring and the plot is pretty generic. It is the bunch of small artistic gems hidden within this 2,5 hour long, drawn out "action" movie, that saves it from the bin of movie history.
6/10
Great movie!
Fritz Lang has a very interesting and intense look / perspectives at his movies.