I Spy

Like I've said, I don't watch a lot of silent movies. I didn't even really notice that Spies (1928) was silent when I rented it. I just wanted to watch some Fritz Lang. As it turned out Ms. Spenser had a conference call, so I could watch this with the volume low, and she wouldn't have to leave the room. But it also turned put to be amazing. 

It starts out appropriately enough with some spy stuff. There's a stolen treaty, and a shady but good looking tramp. He gets taken to the commissioner, and, yep, he's a spy. Never mind that. What you want is the scene when a beautiful woman with a gun bursts into the room and faints in the tramp's arms.

The plot involves a Dr. Mabuse style criminal mastermind. No one who has seen his face lives to tell the tale. He's always scheming: He has suborned the woan with the gun - he threatens to tell society that she frequents opium dens. The visuals here are brief but baroque. The visuals all throughout, in fact, are striking, mad, and beautiful.

For example, the Japanese diplomat compromised by the loss of the treaty sees the ghosts of the operatives who died trying to deliver it and commits seppuku in an astounding sequence. Or look at the spy bureau set, criss-crossed with open stairways.

Or the final sequence, when a clown on stage does an act where he shoots at giant fleas with a revolver, before turning the gun on himself and dying before the whole audience. Is that a SPOILER?

Doesn't matter. I must admit I didn't follow the whole plot. It is over two hours long. But the visual inventiveness is just what they always say movies lost when sound came in. I'm not sure we've reached these levels yet.

I'm not sure I've mentioned the whole Netflix "ten last DVDs" plan. On the last day of DVD shipping, Sept. 29, they will take up to ten of the top DVDs from your queue, send them out, and not expect them back. I assume this will be based on what they have around, what they can get rid of otherwise, etc. But I'm putting this high on my queue. I would love to own it.