Lancer Spy
                             
Director: Gregory Ratoff
Year: 1937
Rating: 5.5
"If ever it could be said that one man won the war, that is him at the front of the plane,". It is always interesting to see when an anti-German film was produced by an American film studio, in this case Columbia. American studios were very hesitant to be critical of Germany in the late 1930s in order not to offend the German box office which was very important to them and also not to offend American Firsters who wanted an isolated America and, in some cases, were sympathetic to the Nazis. This film keeps its distance from current events in Germany but sets it during WWI and though the Germans are the villains, they are treated with kid gloves. War was on the horizon for Europe but not yet for America.



The film is told in a long flashback by Col. Fenwick (Lionel Atwill) to a woman on the plane to Berlin. He had been in charge of British espionage during the war. The man he is referring to is Michael Bruce (George Sanders). It is now 1937, but the story begins in 1917 with the war still being fought in the trenches. A high-ranking German military officer is captured - a good Prussian Baron with impeccable manners and an adjutant to shine his boots. A British officer notices that he has a remarkable resemblance to the British officer, Lt. Bruce. They bring Bruce into a plan - to impersonate the German - no one ever mentions whether he speaks German - small detail - by studying him and learning everything about him. Even be able to fool the adjutant.



They do the old escape trick and he manages to get back to Germany where he is hailed as a hero - except by a spy unit headed by Sig Ruman and his deputy Peter Lorre. They suspect him right from the beginning and send a woman to find out who he really is. Dolores Del Rio.  A dancer in a nightclub. The film is quite solid but it would have been more suspenseful if it wasn't being told in flashback. We know he makes it. Still a bit of tension. This was Sanders' first leading role and he is excellent in his double role, especially as the German. Two years later Sanders was The Saint. Directed by Gregory Ratoff at a slim 78-minutes.