is very much worth your time. Enjoy!
Spies
Lang constructs Spies (1928) in six Episodes: 1) A non-character driven opening, showing the criminal spy network run by evil master mind Haghi, and the spies' high tech networks of communication. 2) The story of the hero and heroine of the film, noble English spy Donald Tremaine and Sonja Barranikowa, the Slavic spy who is assigned to get information on him 3) The attack on the sympathetic Japanese spy Akira Matsumoto by the evil spy organization. 4) The attack on Tremaine's life in the train. 5) The final destruction of the evil spy organization. 6) Tracking down Haghi, the master evil spy. These stories are virtually independent episodes, although they all use common characters. Lang's use of independent episodes will often occur in his other work. It has both strengths and weaknesses. The individual episodes are brilliant, but they do not tend to "build" on each other. They can also produce a sense of anticlimax. For example, the final episode of Spies is hardly a climax to the whole film, in any conventional sense. It is not as exciting as the events in earlier stories. One has a similar structure in Lang's later Ministry of Fear (1943). That film contains one brilliant set piece after another. They are linked together like pearls on a string, with little direct connection between them.
Lang's hero, Donald Tremaine, is played by an actor who looks rather like Lang himself. One wonders if there is a bit of a fantasy here, Lang imaging himself as a spy. This is not at all self indulgence: a large number of great storytellers imagine themselves in their stories. It is part of the creative process.
Spies and British Spy Fiction
Despite speculation by some critics, I find it hard to regard Spies as a commentary on the coming Nazi era, soon to hit Germany. For one thing, the nationalities in the tale, English, Russian and Japanese, seem to be picked to be as far from Germany as possible. This is an escapist tale of international espionage, not a look at Germany itself. For another, Spies is in the tradition of a huge body of prose spy fiction, that had been flourishing since the late 1890's. Critical histories of spy fiction suggest that this genre is mainly centered on England, although it has representatives in many languages and countries. For example, see the introduction to Michael Cox' excellent recent collection, The Oxford Book of Spy Stories (1996). Lang's film is straight out of the British spy tradition, as embodied in the earlier stories in Cox' anthology. Lang's hero Tremaine is plainly English, and his boss seems to be the head of the British Secret Service. This sort of hero, agency and superior were staples of early (and later) British spy fiction.
Lang's film seems close in its approach to the work of, the at one time very popular British spy writer, William Le Queux. Some parallels in both Spies and Le Queux: a gentlemanly English hero, who works for the British Secret Service. He is a full time professional, and brings considerable expertise to his job. The hero's boss, an agency official who is an older, typical English gentleman, bluff, honest and refined. A look at upper class high life as the area of operations for his hero, filled with bon vivants, and upper crust but racy social activities - in Lang's case, his hero has a valet, a million dollar wardrobe, and hangs out in expensive hotels and nightclubs. A concern with getting information about secret treaties, as the chief aim of espionage. An emphasis on means of communication of secret information. An international perspective, involving named countries throughout the world, and an "inside" look at their social customs - Japan in the case of Lang's film. Glamorous, somewhat lurid women who have liaisons with the hero, and who are sometimes involved in spy schemes. Physical peril and death traps for the hero. The use of chases, and high speed vehicles. All of these are common elements in Lang and Le Queux. Le Queux had been publishing since 1890, and was a long established writer by the time Lang began his film work, so I am suggesting an influence from Le Queux to Lang, not the other way around.
Le Queux, as noted above, was full of schemes for communicating secret information. Lang is as well, but he gives a uniquely high tech twist to this. The opening of Spies shows radio, cameras, telephones, duplicating devices and other high tech appurtenances used by his spies. This is typical of a long range fascination in Lang with modern communication technology's ability to dominate and control people. In Lang's While the City Sleeps (1956), the television network and its broadcasting and news divisions are shown reaching out their tentacles, and gaining control of everybody and everything in the United States. One also recalls the mirror device for spying in The Spiders (1919), the automatic alarms in the office building in M (1930), the news reel cameras in Fury (1936), and the television monitoring in The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960). These reflect the mirror device in Feuillade's Judex (1916).
In both Le Queux and Lang, the realism of the social setting is implicitly used to justify a loosening in sexual morality. These are heroes that have to function effectively in the real world of upper class men and international diplomacy. The safety of their countries depends on this. They cannot exist in a straight laced fantasy world of Sunday School moralists. Instead they have to live in the real world of well to do men, mistresses, high society parties, romantic liaisons and intrigue. Because of this, they are constantly involved with glamorous loose women. Furthermore, their lives are filled with turmoil, and near sudden death. All of this suggests that they can and should have affairs. These arguments are undoubtedly specious, but they make superb escapist entertainment. One hastens to add that the heroes are always single men, that they treat the women well, and that the women want the affairs just as much as the men.
One can see aspects of Lang's interest in Le Queux' themes as far back as The Spiders Part II: The Diamond Ship (1920). The hero of that film is placed in a death trap: an underground pit that fills with water. The gang of The Spiders is mainly interested in getting hold of international treaties.
Composition
Lang's most important skill as a director is his use of composition. His shots tend to show elaborate geometric patterns. One favorite Lang composition shows a large circle dominating the space of the shot, playing off against the rectangular border of the frame. In Ministry of Fear, we see the circular table, and the characters gathered around it for the phony seance. In Spies, there is the circular tunnel down which the train speeds. The interior of the train itself also shows a circular corridor. Rooms in Lang tend to be large. His characters are rarely hemmed in, although the hero of The Spiders seems often to be climbing up and down ladders between floors. We often see the corner of one of Lang's large rooms in his shots. It reminds one of J.G. Ballard's dictum, that there is a moral significance to the angle between two walls. There is a recurring shot in Spies, of a woman hurled into a room's corner. Haghi tends to be always seated at his desk, which seems to be an extension of him; whereas the women in his office are either standing, sitting at external tables, or seated spectacularly on top of his desk. One always sees that they are outsiders in these shots, but outsiders with spectacular power. A recurring Lang posture shows a woman holding something up at arm's length to look at it. These are among the most glamorous shots in Spies.
One can also see the influence of Feuillade on Lang's compositions in Spies. One of Feuillade's trademarks, the double door with one door open and one door shut, occurs in Spies as well; it will recur in The Indian Tomb (1959). Feuillade liked to compose scenes in several flat planes, as David Bordwell has pointed out; we get a similar effect in Lang. A door or window will be open toward the back of the shot, revealing another wall with people standing in front of it. We see such shots in Haghi's office, in the telegraph office towards the beginning, and the shot where Sonja sees in Tremaine's railroad car from her own. The shots of the stairwell in Haghi's building are built on the sort of diagonals one occasionally sees in Feuillade, as well. The unusual uniforms worn by Haghi's guards also recall Feuillade: here they are in head to toe black leather. In general, Lang's film is full of uniforms of every sort: Lang seizes every chance to include police and Army members and include them in his compositions.
Spies is full of shots of clocks ticking away. These anticipate the opening of Ministry of Fear, which also shows Ray Milland up all night, watching a clock. They also recall the workers in Metropolis, who tend machines that look like large clocks. Both Metropolis and Ministry of Fear suggest that human beings are subjected to such time oriented machines. One also remembers the many clocks that control the action in The Woman in the Window, the pickpocket with the watches in M, and the alarm clocks in Clash by Night. Other Lang devices include the mirror in the hotel suite, recalling the store window in M, and the mirror around the fireplace in The Woman in the Window, which are used by Lang to show a single person reflected at two angles. A striking shot uses a shadow as a sinister way for a character to make an entrance, like the villain in M.
When people walk in Spies, they tend to do so in forceful straight lines. For example, we see guards marching purposefully past Haghi's open office door, parallel to the planes of the shot, perpendicular to the spectator's light of sight. Also: at the dance, when the hero is looking for the heroine's dropped necklace, we see first a close-up of feet moving in one direction, then another set of feet moving exactly perpendicular to the first. Third example: at the telegraph office, the bad guy exits directly towards the back of the shot, followed by the entrance of the hero perpendicularly, straight from the left of the screen.
Lang tends to show people in medium shot, say from the waist up. There is often plenty of "upper" space in Lang's compositions. It shows the high walls and ceilings of Lang's sets, which are usually tall and imposing looking. It also gives room for Lang's characters to jump up or suddenly stand up, which they do frequently. Feuiilade's shots also often have this sort of upper space: the lower half of the shot shows the people, the upper half shows the architecture of the place in which the characters find themselves.
A whole parallel world in Spies are the close-ups of characters' hands. Lang often cuts to hand shots, showing the characters holding clues, guns, papers or the Russian icon which plays such a key role in the plot.
Characters and Society
There is some doubling up of characters in Spies. The Japanese spy and Kitty echo the hero and heroine of the movie. The benign head of the British Secret Service is a double for Haghi, who heads his evil spy ring. Both men are usually shown in their office, behind their desk, a desk loaded with high tech communication equipment. There is some difference in staging here. The British character is always shown with men in his office, while Haghi is typically entertaining his women agents. The British Secret Service head acts as a father figure to the hero. He gives him personal encouragement, but mainly this seems designed to certify that everything the hero does is fully approved by the patriarchy that runs society, symbolized by the Secret Service chief. The British office is set up to indicate the Secret Service chief's authority. He sits on a tall chair, while the hero and other visitors are in a chair whose seat is at virtual floor level. The relationships in the office are simple: a boss with men subject to his authority. This makes the hero's relationship to society simple and straightforward: he is subject to the proper, male social authorities, and approved by them. By contrast, Haghi's relationship to the women is vastly more complicated. They are often shown sitting on top of his desk, like visiting queens. They are in a huge number of different postures and positions in his office.
