Very disappointing...

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

An unusual spy thriller in that the main characters are all German spies or collaborators. THE SPY IN BLACK is set in Orkney in 1917, where a German U-boat captain has been sent to infiltrate the locals in respect of a planned attack. He soon develops a relationship with a school teacher who's also working for the Germans, and the stage is set for the forthcoming assault on the British fleet nearby.THE SPY IN BLACK offers far more than your usual war-time thriller, and it has a very interesting plot to boot. Michael Powell handles the direction superbly, crafting a fine-looking and atmospheric little thriller on what is obviously a low budget, and the small scale somehow adds to the effect. There are plenty of twists and turns in the short running time, many of which you won't see coming, alongside a ton of drama and incident.Headlining the cast is German actor Conrad Veidt, still packing a strong presence some 20 years after his role in THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI. The supporting performers are equally effective, especially Sebastian Shaw as the turned British officer Ashington and Valerie Hobson as the spy-turned-schoolmistress. Altogether this is a highly effective thriller and one of the best of the decade.

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.

"The Spy in Black" is often regarded as the first "Archers" film, although it was not actually described as such; Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger did not start to describe themselves as "The Archers" until "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" from 1942. It was, however, the first film on which they worked together, with Powell being credited as the director and Pressburger as one of the scriptwriters. (In most of their later films, Powell and Pressburger were to share a joint writer- producer-director credit). Most of The Archers' early collaborations were wartime propaganda films, and "The Spy in Black" can also be regarded as such, even though it was made before the outbreak of war. (It actually opened in August 1939, a few days before the German invasion of Poland). The previous year Alfred Hitchcock had been forced to set another spy thriller, "The Lady Vanishes", in a fictitious fascist dictatorship, although it was clearly aimed at Nazi Germany. By 1939, however, it was widely recognised that war was imminent, and that there was no longer any point in British filmmakers trying to pretend that Germany was not a hostile power. "The Spy in Black" is therefore a World War I spy thriller, doubtless made with the agenda of preparing the British people for the coming conflict and reminding them that they would soon need to be on guard against German spies. The action takes place in the Orkney Islands, a remote part of Britain but one which took on great significance in both world wars because Scapa Flow, the body of water lying between the main islands, is one of the great natural harbours of the world and served as a British naval base. (A later "Archers" film, "I Know Where I'm Going!", was also set in a remote part of Scotland, a country which Michael Powell loved). The story is set in 1917, a time when Germany was being brought close to starvation by a British naval blockade. There are numerous references in the script to the hardship which this was causing in Germany, another piece of disguised propaganda to reassure the British people that British sea power had won the First World War (partially true) and that it would win any Second World War (a prediction which was to be proved wrong by events). After the Battle of Jutland, the German surface fleet did not dare to leave port, so Captain Hardt a German submarine commander, is ordered to lead an attack on the British Fleet. He puts ashore on the islands to make contact with a German spy, Fraulein Tiel, who is posing as the local schoolmistress. Tiel introduces him to Lieutenant Ashington, a disgraced British naval officer, who is offering to betray his country for money and to reveal vital secrets about British ship movements. There are, however, to be further developments, which leave Hardt wondering whether Tiel and Ashington are really what they claim to be. The film is in many ways similar to an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, although the Hitchcock film with which it has most in common is not one of his British spy thrillers from the thirties, like "The 39 Steps" or "The Lady Vanishes", but rather with "Notorious", which was not to be made until 1946. Both Hardt and Ashington fall in love with the beautiful young Fraulein Tiel, leading to a love-triangle reminiscent of that between the characters played by Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant and Claude Rains in the later film. There are two particularly fine performances from the lovely Valerie Hobson and Conrad Veidt, later to become famous for his role in "Casablanca". Although Hardt is German, he is really the central character in the film, playing a more prominent role than any of the British characters, and is many ways a sympathetic one, being played as an honourable officer and gentleman rather than a villainous thug, which is how German officers were generally portrayed in British propaganda. This sort of characterisation, however, was to become typical of Pressburger's writing; even in films written after war had broken out he never lost sight of the fact that the enemy were human, and most of his wartime films include at least one "good German" such as Theo in "Colonel Blimp". The film contains one glaring plot hole at the end when the U-Boat surfaces to try and sink the Orkney Islands ferry; would a submarine on a vital secret mission really have given itself away in order to sink so insignificant a target, especially in an area where British warships are known to be operating? This, however, would really be my only complaint. "The Spy in Black" may have been made as a "quota quickie", films made quickly and cheaply to fulfill a government requirement that British cinemas show a minimum number of British films, but it is an exciting, well-made thriller which asks some pertinent questions about patriotism, loyalty and the moral dilemmas of war. For a "quickie" there is also some very attractive photography of the Orkney coastal scenery, shot on location. I would not rate this film quite as highly as the Archers' great war films like "49th Parallel", "Colonel Blimp" and "A Matter of Life and Death", but it certainly points the way towards them. 7/10

This excellent birth of "The Archers" just managed its London premiere the very week WWII was declared in Britain and all places of entertainment were ordered to close,albeit temporarily. Second of all Veidt was and is my favourite actor,having seen all but some rare silents from "Caligari" onwards. He was the definitive popular German swine(Eric Von,notwithstanding)although he did play many other parts - Jew Suss/Under The Red Robe,a mediaeval swashbuckler, the mysterious stranger in "Passing of the 3rd Floor,Back" or the aviator in "FP1"(English version). Shortly after fleeing the Nazis (whom he loathed) in the 30s he gladly set up a home near Korda's famous Denham studios and was a doting father to his daughter while soon becoming the tall and cultured idol of thousands of women.He was also a Korda favourite and this first pairing with then one of Britain's favourite glamour girls.Valerie Hobson, following her brief success with Universal,he was rushed into another naval adventure,"Contraband" equally entertaining. Like,say, Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes", this is great escapist stuff with a mystery character at the centre of the story. But one point in the movie has always bothered me - just how does one manhandle a motor cycle up the steep conning tower of a submarine? We are never shown how Veidt managed it!By the same token, how did Erik in "Phantom of the Opera" manage to get his organ/piano into his hideout amongst the Paris sewers? After all, we see the problem he had with the small boat! Curiously, Veidt's Nazi officer in "Escape" & "Casablanca" both died in the middle of a phone call while attempting the prevent an escape."Spy" has its share of amusing lines & allusions. On his entry at the start he & fellow submariner get seated at a crowded fashionable hotel anticipating a slap-up meal after a long period at sea only to be told almost every dish is "off" - even for naval officers. They leave in disgust & still starved. A while later when Hardt has been secretly landed on the Orkneys with motorcycle,late at night & having avoided discovery.he meets his contact V Hobson (a British agent posing as a local teacher)at home. Entering the kitchen he stops short & stares hard,alarming her and utters the word "boota!" in some disbelief which she interprets as "no,"butter!".and as he proceeds to dig with relish into a side of ham he remarks "These English - they are so long without their food!" The time was WW1 and an ironic comment on the German shortages - but the film's settings were equally appropriate to forthcoming WW2 conditions in Britain. During the film's production all the menacing signs of 1938/1939 were there but it seemed only Churchill was convinced of the inevitable when everyone wanted to believe Chamberlain. The film's scheduled release to London's Odeon cinema did not anticipate the decisive act of Germany's invasion of Poland.Sadly, there was a real-life similarity in both Veidt's & Bing Crosby's sudden collapse just following a game of golf. Veidt had barely turned 50 as a Warner's star and still had lots to offer.