Though he may not have admitted it, Alfred Hitchcock borrowed quite a few stylistic elements from Fritz Lang. The German filmmaker's 1928 journey into deceit has individual moments that Hitchcock utilized in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and "The 39 Steps." However, Lang's world was more expressionistic. In "Spies," characterization takes a back seat to suspense and intrigue. With the exception of Rudolf Klein-Rogge's mysterious presence as the criminal mastermind Haghi, the heroes and villains are forgettable. Despite this drawback, Lang stages plenty of serial-style action with cinematic bravado. "Spies" may not rank as high as the director's "M" (1931) and "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" (1933), yet it remains among the silent era's most exciting thrillers.

This masterpiece could be, and I believe, was accepted as potent anti-Soviet propaganda film. Mr. Haghi, with Lenin-style wheelchair, Lenin-Trotsky-Buharin style beard, anarchist-fashioned look. He was 'richer than Ford' - as was each Soviet worker - co-owning of all the people's state wealth. Against whom could be directed a secret military treaty between Germany and Japan, the main interest of Haghi? To add some, GPU/NKVD-style uniform, mauser guns and caps of Haghi's guards, Russian names, 'oriental express', Sonya's past and it's influence on her 'struggle'. Kitty and Sonya are also NKVD-style spy-syrens of 20's and 30's. End of Haghi could be also a propaganda cliche (a few German guys defeat Commie-beast easily). And Spies could become a strong ideological prototype to (all too far from being called masterpieces) Bond series.

If you simply take the movie at face value, it's an exciting story from the silent era. This came out during that nervous time between the World Wars. People remembered Russia's recent actions in WWI, and remembered Japan's war with Russia, a few decades past, as a clear indication of a force affecting the West. Weimar Germany represented another unstable force. Soviet infighting was also recent news, as the Trotsky-esque bad guy reminds us. Fiction about international intrigue had plenty of fact to work with - so Lang produced this remarkable work. The modern music suits the movie beautifully. Although other instruments appear, solo piano carries most of the musical narration. Even though it's not synchronized to the imagery on screen, onomatopoetic passage trill to a ringing phone, syncopate to the staccato of Morse Code, and hammer out gunshots, when not simply voicing the general mood of the scene.

Amid the excitement that must have been high-budget in its time, we see the origins of the modern spy-movie staples we see today: elaborate and fallible plots on the good guy's life, the bad guy's lair coming down around his ears in the end, chases, a babe who's not just there to be saved, and a little moral ambiguity. Sonja wasn't 100% on the good guys' side, at least to start, even if she came around in the end.

Anyone with the Bourne movies or Mission Impossible in mind will find the pacing sleepy at best, the effects ineffectual, and the acting as stylized as Kabuki theater. Today's movies learned from this one, though, and from the eighty more years of development between then and now. Taken by itself or as the progenitor of modern spy flicks, it remains an important and engrossing movie.

-- wiredweird

This film seems rather similar to Lang's earlier 'Dr. Mabuse: Der Spieler' in that it takes quite awhile for the story to be fully set up and the viewer to be drawn into the plot and characters, but once it does really get going, it just gets better and better, more and more riveting and compelling, as the film unfolds. It's also similar in that there's a powerful and dangerous criminal mastermind, Haghi (Rudolf Klein-Rogge, one of the best actors in Lang's stock company), pulling strings behind the scenes (he's running his criminal operation right out of the bank he's the director at), though the people trying to unravel his twisted web and apprehend him are always several steps behind him because of how sharp he is at alluding them. Like Dr. Mabuse, Haghi too is a master of disguise, which helps in his success at always throwing the authorities off of his trail.

There are a lot of characters (most of them minor) and subplots in this film, which can add to the initial feeling of slowness and difficulty in being fully drawn in right away, but the main storyline is that of Agent 326, who, when working on this case, meets Haghi's best spy, Sonja, a beautiful Russian woman whose father and brother were murdered by the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police. She knows that he's on the other side, but he has no idea that she's a spy too, let alone that she's been sent by Haghi to try to take him down. Being the movies, they typically fall in love at first sight, though like most love at first sight contrivances, I didn't really find this one that realistic or believable either. (I can see 326 lusting for Sonja at first sight because she's quite good-looking, but while he's sort of cute, he's also not exactly one of the handsomest men I've ever seen!) During their first date, Sonja receives orders to report for official spy business, but 326 is a man on a mission and refuses to believe the real reason she ran out on him and why he caught her running away from another man when he caught up to her. Things get more and more intense as their paths collide again, with the viewer constantly wondering if he'll find out she's a spy, if she's going to betray Haghi by letting 326 get away, if he's going to want anything to do with her if he does find out her true identity. What does happen seriously displeases Haghi, and he launches one final scheme. The secondary subplot of most importance seems to be the one about the Japanese businessman who is taken in by another of Haghi's female spies, and ends up having some important treaties stolen from him.

As good as the film is, though, I wouldn't recommend it as an ideal first Lang. It does take awhile to really set up the story, which can be more of a hindrance to someone new to silents, and there isn't a whole lot of character development for most of the characters. And numerous times, we're not even told the characters' names right away or at all, which can make it harder to follow and get engrossed in the story. There were also a number of scenes where I felt there could have been a few more intertitles to really convey everything that was going on; the lack of intertitles was a bit confusing at times. It's the kind of film that makes more sense and gets better with repeated viewings. Bonus features are a photo gallery, information about the restoration, and a trailer for the 2002 restoration of 'Metropolis.'

The evil super-spy Haghi wants to topple the German government. Agent No. 326 is assigned to stop him. One of Haghi's operatives, the beautiful Sonya Baranilkowa, is directed to stop Agent No. 326. Unfortunately for both spies, Agent No. 326 and Sonya, they fall in love with each other. It's one of those love-at-first-sight things. In the meantime, the Japanese are finalizing a delicate treaty with Germany, and Haghi wants to get his hands on the treaty before it is delivered to Tokyo. Therefore he appoints another of his Mata Hari types, Kitty this time, to seduce Doctor Matsumoto and bring the treaty back to him. Meanwhile...

But what's the point? Fritz Lang's silent SPIES (1926) has enough plot points to fill ten movies. It plays for a long 144-minutes, is as convoluted as a pretzel, with multiple plot threads to challenge, and I guess, in some cases, delight the audience. The bad guy, the wheelchair-bound Haghi, is reminiscent of Lang's Dr. Mabuse (master criminal) in terms of his nefarious omnipresence. According to Lang, as quoted by Lotte Eisner in `Fritz Lang,' Haghi, "the master spy, is nothing less than what we would call today (quoted in 1967) a human computer... He has an utter disregard for human beings." I'm probably not the first person to point this out but the hero, Agent No. 326, is suave and dashing enough to lend credence to claims he's an early model for British super-spy James Bond. He even has a number for a name and a hot blonde with connections to the alpha bad guy panting after him.

This may cost me my membership in the Fritz Lang Appreciation Society, but SPIES (1926) didn't work for me. It's not the acting, which, by silent film standards, is above average and effective. I especially like Sonya Baranilkowa (Gerda Maurus,) who has to go from the throes of ecstatic love (with Agent No. 326) to the depths of distrusting hatred (with Haghi.) By today's standards Maurus, along with everyone else, is over-the-top, but by its standards her performance is very convincing. Some of the visual touches, the looming shadows fighting on the wall while the captive heroes struggle to get out of the chair they're tied to, are nice, too. The big problem I had was with the pacing, especially at the beginning of the movie. We're introduced to Agent No. 326 when he's in disguise as a street tramp, and slowly - oh so slowly - learn Haghi is killing off the government spies, presumably as part of his evil empire gig, and Agent No. 326 is on his list. The first time we see Haghi he's trying to blackmail a beautiful opium addict into joining his nefarious empire. All of this stuff works to establish the character of two of the movie's major characters, but it chews up an awful lot of celluloid, and none of it directly relates to the plot. SPIES eventually gets on track but, because it has so many plot threads to attend to, it never really gains much forward momentum. You can add another star onto my ratings if you have more patience than I do. There's not many extras on the Kino disk to help you out, either. There's a text-only "Notes on the restoration" video that'll tell you how this print was cobbled together. Even for strong Fritz Lang fans I'd recommend watching this one before you decide to spring for this premium priced dvd.