1928 spy movie
Rating: 16/20
Plot: Spies doing spy stuff. With a romantic subplot mixed in.
Add this to the "Things I Like Seeing in Silent Movies" list that you probably have on some document somewhere: people biting coins. Here, it's a kid who does it, and I think that might make it better.
IMdB tells me this is a 90-minute film. The version I watched was an hour longer than that, and I'm not sure how it could have been abridged without it winding up completely incoherent. I don't do well with spy intrigue anyway. Even dumb spy movies confuse me, probably because I've never thought of double-crossing anybody in my entire life. Fritz Lang's Spies did confuse me, but it was never in a way that hurt my enjoyment of the movie.
Most of the stand-out sequences are in the latter half of the film. Most thrilling is a sequence involving a train crash, and even the aftermath, with its gnarled train parts, is great. Also great--coconut bombs. Also great--an ending that doesn't really mesh with the rest of the movie or make all that much sense. Most great of all--Lang-regular Rudolf Klein-Rogge's hands. Villainous hands!
This isn't as good as the best spy movie from the 20's--Keaton's Sherlock Jr.--but few things are as good as that. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that this thing was very influential, however.
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