TERROR AND MYSTERY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 626, 1 April 1929, Page 15

TERROR AND MYSTERY

“THE SPY” AT THE STRAND ANOTHER U.F.A. TRIUMPH The most dramatic thriller seen in Auckland for years is being shown this week at the Strand Theatre. The picture is “The Spy,” featuring Rudolph Ivlein-Rogge, Willy Fritsch and Gerda Maurus. It is produced by Ufa Films under the direction of Fritz Lang, the brilliant artist who was responsible for “Metropolis.” The story is taken from the book -by Thea Von Harbou and deals with the villainies of an underground spy service and international gang which the secret service set out to crush. The secret service, however, fails for a time until its most capable agent, No. 326, is put on the job. But Heghi, the leader of the gang, to combat the detective, deputes Sonia, one of his beautiful accomplices to entrap him. How No. 326 escapes the first attack is thrilling, but then Sonia falls in love with him and all the arch-spy’s plans fall to pieces. Sonia refuses to work for Heghi any longer, but Heghi, who is bringing off a last coup—the theft of the text of a secret treaty between two great Powers —persuades her to make a last journey for him. While on the way she hears that her lover has been caught in a train smash engineered by the spy. She flies back, manages to save No. 326, and then comes the final unmasking of Heghi and of a band which had been in a fair way to terrorise the whole of Europe. So much for the plot. It perhaps sounds banal, but is it? The excitement never wanes from the murder of a Minister of State in the first hundred feet of film to the final collapse of Heghi and all his power. The picture is crammed with incident, but with no unnecessary incidents put there for the sake of effect. Each adventure is a part of the whole story and to miss one would be to spoil the whole film. The cast is a fairly small one and honours are evenly divided. Of course, the beautiful Gerda Maurus as Sonia Barranikawa is the star both by title and by right. A superb actress—indeed, the best in the picture, which is saying a good deal—she is beautiful in the best style of European beauty. Perhaps, however, the acting honours should go 1o Rudolph Klein-Rogge in the part of Heghi, the super spy. He doesn’t overdo the terror or the frightfulness like some actors we can think of, but one feels that he is exactly the sort of man who would and could control such an organisation. Willy Fritsch as No. 326 and Craighall Sherry as the excitable but brilliant head of the secret service, Miles Janson, filled their parts capably and well. No. 326 was an ideal hero, possessing all the dashing bonhomie of the successful detective.

But, of course, all these people, fine actors though they are, would be nowhere without the direction of Fritz Lang. Lang is probably the greatest film director in the world to-day—his work in “Metropolis” proved that. There is a hint of “Metropolis’ in this picture, but there is an absence of freak “shots” that shows that Lang’s technique as a director is improving. He now gets his results by orthodox methods. The photography, as in alal Ufa Films, is almost perfect and from a technical as well as from the amusement point of view the film is one of the best seen in Auckland for months. Preceding the screening of “The Spy” a delightful stage interlude is presented by Yorke Gray. This consists of a ballet, “The Grecian Temple,” in which charming pupils of Miss Cecil Hall dance hi the temple. Miss Isobel Brooke, who appeared a few weeks ago at the Majestic, gives a solo dance which delights* the audience. There is also an amusing comedy and the usual interesting Strand Magazine. The Strand Symphony Orchestra, under Miss Eve Bentley, plays as attractively as ever.