It's a surprising movie. It's set in 1917, in the middle of the First World War, and it was released in 1939, a year in which Britain was at war with Germany. Yet the opening scenes show us Conrad Veidt and his officers returning from a successful cruise on their U-boat, and they're given a respectable showing, slightly comic. After sixteen days of subsistence on tinned sardines and herring, they cheerfully order a stew at their hotel, only to be told that it's a meatless day. Veidt is treated with respect and even sympathy. They aren't at all the sneering Nazi bastards that would show up in some later war films.
Veidt and crew are sent on a mission to the Orkney Islands, near the Grand Fleet, where they will meet a young woman who is a German agent. Cut to a young woman on her way to the Orkney Islands to become the new head school mistress. The young lady is June Duprez. She's one of those British actresses, like Merle Oberon, who, from certain angles, are so near feminine perfection that they defy description. Duprez' eyes are catlike, only lacking vertical pupils. Neither she nor Oberon had careers that really took off, probably because they were mediocre actresses. Yet -- yum.
Is June Duprez the spy that Veidt is meant to contact? Certainly not. In fact, Duprez' is etherized, kidnapped by the innocent-seeming German agents and held in a remote stone cottage, while a agenuine German agent substitutes herself.
The agent is Valerie Hobson. Now, Hobson herself is no slouch when it comes to pulchritude, but it's a qualitatively different order of attractiveness. Duprez looks like she should be seated on your lap and stroked. Hobson's beauty is arid, elongated, elegant and impenetrable. If she were any more statuesque she'd look as if being drawn through a black hole in space. Her appeal is of the genre that suggests any intimacy between you might lead to your having a red rubber ball strapped in your mouth. Later, when Veidt puts some moves on the fake schoolteacher, she shoes him off and says, "You're not one of my pupils." Hm.
Veidt's submarine makes its way the the Isle of Hoy in the Orkneys and he goes ashore on a motorbike to rendezvous with the local German agent. While rehearsing the plans with his officers he's compelled to recite "Die Lorelei", a poem by Heinrich Heine, which I once thought was just an anonymous folk song. Heine, who died in 1851, was one of Germany's best-known poets and one of the good guys in that the Nazis hated his work and burned his books. Anyway, the officers get a kick out of seeing their stern captain spout poetry.
On the island, Hobson puts Veidt up in a room. Veidt refuses to remove his uniform. "If I'm going to be shot, it will be as an officer, not a spy." He doesn't know it but he's stumbled into a trap, a little too complicated to explain. Everything turns out to the advantage of the British, but the Germans, however many mistakes they make, are never deprived of dignity and pride. The print available on YouTube is one of the most crisply defined I've watched. The model work is of the period but there are some fine shots of destroyers and cruisers at sea. All in all, it's a well-made and thoroughly entertaining film.
Veidt and crew are sent on a mission to the Orkney Islands, near the Grand Fleet, where they will meet a young woman who is a German agent. Cut to a young woman on her way to the Orkney Islands to become the new head school mistress. The young lady is June Duprez. She's one of those British actresses, like Merle Oberon, who, from certain angles, are so near feminine perfection that they defy description. Duprez' eyes are catlike, only lacking vertical pupils. Neither she nor Oberon had careers that really took off, probably because they were mediocre actresses. Yet -- yum.
Is June Duprez the spy that Veidt is meant to contact? Certainly not. In fact, Duprez' is etherized, kidnapped by the innocent-seeming German agents and held in a remote stone cottage, while a agenuine German agent substitutes herself.
The agent is Valerie Hobson. Now, Hobson herself is no slouch when it comes to pulchritude, but it's a qualitatively different order of attractiveness. Duprez looks like she should be seated on your lap and stroked. Hobson's beauty is arid, elongated, elegant and impenetrable. If she were any more statuesque she'd look as if being drawn through a black hole in space. Her appeal is of the genre that suggests any intimacy between you might lead to your having a red rubber ball strapped in your mouth. Later, when Veidt puts some moves on the fake schoolteacher, she shoes him off and says, "You're not one of my pupils." Hm.
Veidt's submarine makes its way the the Isle of Hoy in the Orkneys and he goes ashore on a motorbike to rendezvous with the local German agent. While rehearsing the plans with his officers he's compelled to recite "Die Lorelei", a poem by Heinrich Heine, which I once thought was just an anonymous folk song. Heine, who died in 1851, was one of Germany's best-known poets and one of the good guys in that the Nazis hated his work and burned his books. Anyway, the officers get a kick out of seeing their stern captain spout poetry.
On the island, Hobson puts Veidt up in a room. Veidt refuses to remove his uniform. "If I'm going to be shot, it will be as an officer, not a spy." He doesn't know it but he's stumbled into a trap, a little too complicated to explain. Everything turns out to the advantage of the British, but the Germans, however many mistakes they make, are never deprived of dignity and pride. The print available on YouTube is one of the most crisply defined I've watched. The model work is of the period but there are some fine shots of destroyers and cruisers at sea. All in all, it's a well-made and thoroughly entertaining film.