Organ Cinema: Spies (1928) - Silent film classic with live soundtrack

Organ Cinema: Spies (1928)
Silent film classic by Fritz Lang with live soundtrack
Theresa Szorek, voice
Fabian Luchterhandt, piano
Lars Schwarze, organ
Running time: approx. 180 min, including an intermission
Courtesy of the Murnau Foundation

The head of the Haghi banking house secretly leads a double life. He is also the mastermind behind an international espionage ring that employs robbery, murder, and extortion. The head of the secret service assigns the young agent Donald Tremaine to track down the mysterious figure. Haghi, in turn, learns of this and tasks the top Russian agent Sonja with eliminating the secret agent Donald. But then Sonja and Donald fall in love...

Following the financial failure of METROPOLIS, Ufa was skeptical of Fritz Lang’s work. But SPIONE became a major commercial success, and newcomer Gerda Maurus became famous overnight. Stylistically, Lang built on his Dr. Mabuse films, significantly advanced the spy thriller genre, and became a role model for Alfred Hitchcock. His hero, No. 326, played by Willy Fritsch, no longer has a name but instead goes by a code number, much like 007. The film also features gadgets like a mini-camera, spectacular car chases, seductive female agents, and an iconic villain, and has essentially become the mother of all spy films.

Contemporary reviews:

»The new Fritz Lang film from Ufa-Lichtspiele [...] is superbly made and showcases Lang’s extraordinary directorial skills. The plot, which has the same kind of suspense as an Edgar Wallace novel, unfolds at lightning speed and features wonderful shots of the city, train accidents, and telephone booths—a fantastic visual report that, while relying a bit too heavily on staged set pieces, features dazzling scenes and transitions and is edited with a skill that is hard to surpass.” (Siegfried Kracauer, Frankfurter Zeitung, April 11, 1928)