The mastermind behind a ubiquitous spy operation learns of a dangerous romance between a Russian lady in his employ and a dashing agent from the government's secret service. If this sounds like the quintessential espionage romance-thriller plot, that's because it is: Fritz Lang's 1928 classic silent SPIES introduced all the ingredients that the genre would revisit over the next 90 years. Obsessed with making his film feel as real (and as dangerous) as possible, the director actually used a real gun and real bullets in one scene, shooting at a glass plate directly behind the actors."You never can tell the outcome in this superb melodrama by the man who made METROPOLIS," was the film's tagline when it first came out and still holds true today.
