Film Snail

The Spy in Black
The Spy in Black

6.4

The Spy in Black

NR·1939·82m

Summary

A German submarine is sent to the Orkney Isles in 1917 to sink the British fleet.

Crew

Director

Michael Powell

Scenario Writer

Roland Pertwee

Screenplay

Emeric Pressburger

Story

J. Storer Clouston

Reviews

narrator56

narrator56

April 27, 2021

7

This is a classic black and white spy thriller, thought of highly enough to be part of a national project to restore old films.

The movie is entertaining, with a couple of departures from normal thrillers, I think (though I am not a follower of the genre). The bulk of the story is told from the perspective of the Germans, the enemy, as it were. It would be like the movie The Alamo being told from the perspective of Santa Anna’s Mexican army. Also, the ending is unusual compared to a modern thriller, where then good guy and bad guy usually square off and settle things in a climactic final scene.

But they do produce a plot twist, the norm for any spy movie, and it works. It is a short movie, well under 90 minutes, and it moves right along. The lack of color adds to the atmosphere of the film. The script is fine. Oddly, several lines are delivered in German with no translation, but obviously nothing critical is left out because of it. You can sort of get what they must be saying and they are brief bits of dialogue.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch this movie a second time, but I don’t regret the time spent watching it.

Media

Status:

Released

Original Language:

English

Budget:

$4,668,069.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Keywords

northern england
submarine
world war i
sea battle
german spy
british fleet
german navy
triple agent
torpedoed ship
orkney
counter-espionage
imposter