Movies
Spy In Black, The (1939, Conrad Veidt, Valerie Hobson)
‘Alex Korda used to say that I was the greatest technician he ever knew in his film career,’ said Michael Powell, ‘he gave me a job when nobody else would and when he didn’t even know where his next million was coming from.’ In 1937 Powell was considering going to Hollywood when Alexander Korda offered him a one-year contract. The first project, Burmese Silver, fell through and Powell was assigned to taut espionage thriller The Spy In Black about which Film Weekly wrote: ‘This is a spy story with a plot sufficiently different – and disciplined – to be freshly interesting and vigorously different.’
During World War One German submarine commander-turned-agent Captain Hardt (Conrad Veidt) is ordered to make contact with a German agent posing as a village schoolteacher in the Orkneys. But the British Secret Service has learned of his scheme to use information from a British naval officer to give U-boats the location of a large number of British warships, and Jill Blacklock (Valerie Hobson), the wife of a naval officer, takes the place of his contact. Too late, Hardt realises the truth. Disguised, he makes a desperate attempt to escape on the local ferry, releases the German prisoners on board and tries to reach the German fleet to warn it. But the ferry is sunk by Hardt’s U-boat and then a British submarine sinks Hardt’s vessel…
The Spy in Black marked the first felicitous teaming of Powell and Emeric Pressburger, a collaboration that later produced such classics as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and A Matter of Life and Death. Pressburger, brought in by Korda to resolve the stalemate that had grown between Powell and producer Irving Asher, completely refashioned Roland Pertwee’s original material and, noted Powell: ‘The script was typically Emeric. Well you know it’s the way Hungarians see the world. They always see the world inside out. All their jokes are reverse jokes. They deal in paradoxes, that’s why Chesterton is to them a revered writer.’
Pressburger wrote the shooting script as filming progressed, and, complemented by Powell’s atmospheric direction and effective location filming in the Orkneys and Scapa Flow, The Spy in Black emerged as a hugely entertaining piece of work. German-born Veidt (who, married to a Jewish wife, had had to leave Germany when the Nazis came to power) gave a forceful and impressive performance. Monthly Film Bulletin said he ‘is brilliant in the lead. He is throughout a tragic if slightly sinister figure, and wins respect and sympathy as a patriot with the qualities most admirable in soldier, sailor or airman of any nationality – loyalty, courage, obedience and steadfast endurance,’ and went on: ‘Hobson is delightful… the remaining players are all excellent in their different ways.’
production details
UK | London Films | 82 minutes | 1939
Director: Michael Powell
Writer: Emeric Pressburger, from Roland Pertwee’s adaptation of the novel by J Storer Clouston
cast
Howard Marion-Crawford as German Officer in Kieler Hof Hotel
Hay Petrie as Engineer
Cyril Chamberlain as Bit Part
Bernard Miles as Hans – Hotel Receptionist
Valerie Hobson as The School Mistress
Esma Cannon as Maggie
Helen Haye as Mrs. Sedley
Conrad Veidt as Captain Hardt
Bryan Herbert as Corporal Guarding POW’s on Ferry
Cyril Raymond as The Rev. John Harris
Mary Morris as Chauffeuse
Marius Goring as Schuster
Skelton Knaggs as German Sailor looking for Capt. Hardt
Athole Stewart as The Rev. Hector Matthews
Robert Rendel as Admiral
Sebastian Shaw as Ashington
June Duprez as Anne Burnett
Agnes Lauchlan as Mrs. Matthews
George Summers as Captain Ratter
Grant Sutherland as Bob Bratt
Margaret Moffatt as Kate
Torin Thatcher as Submarine Officer
John Penrose as Newlywed at Kiel Hotel
Johnnie Schofield as Armed Guard of POW’s on Ferry
Diana Sinclair-Hall as Undetermined Minor Role
Graham Stark as Bell Boy
Jack Lambert as Passport Official (uncredited)
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