Dishonored

Fritz Lang more or less invented the spy thriller with Spies (Spione in German) in 1928, but it didn’t take long before everyone wanted to be a secret agent. Here’s Marlene Dietrich’s tilt, in only her second US movie, playing a streetwalker recruited by the head of the Austrian Secret Service himself, set a little test, which she passes with full marks for pluck and patriotism, and is then put instantly to work rooting out a mole (as no one called them in those days) in the service. Dishonored’s plot is Le Carré-esque, or it would be if the doughty Marie hadn’t soon cracked the case and exposed the mole, using only her … Read more