Under False Flag
Under False Flag (original title Unter falscher Flagge) is a German cloak-and-dagger film directed by Johannes Meyer set in World War I, that was produced in Berlin from the end of November 1931 to the beginning of 1932. The producers were the German UFA (Universum Film AG) and the so-called Tonbild-Syndikat AG or Tobis. The script to the film was written by Johannes Brandt, Josef Than and Max W. Kimmich after a film novel the latter had written earlier.
1934 Universal made an American remake Madame Spy with Fay Wray, directed by Karl Freund.
Plot
Captain Herbert Frank (Gustav Fröhlich), a German intelligence officer, fights in World War I and gets severely wounded in 1916. While in hospital, he is cared for devotional by a nurse called Maria Horn (Charlotte Susa). Later on, he asks her to become his wife, and she gives in to him. But just a few days after their wartime wedding, her husband is commanded to Berlin, where he is appointed to the chief of the counterintelligence service against Russia.
Meanwhile, the Russian secret service has got wind of a coming-up German attack and is eager to get hold of the German attack plans. Frank and his two assistants, Captain Weber and Commissioner Schulz soon find out that the most dangerous agent at the Russian side is a certain Sulkin, whom nobody seems to know. After a short time, Schulz and Weber begin throwing their suspicion on Maria. But as they do not want to destroy their boss's marriage, they begin to observe her secretly. One day, they follow her to the Marabou-Bar, where Maria's brother is acting as a singer. Here they get final evidence that Maria and the mysterious Sulkin are identical. But Maria manages to escape, while her brother, whom she had informed about her work for the secret service, is killed by the Russian counterespionage. When Frank learns that his wife had been an enemy agent, he nearly collapses. Later on, he asks for being sent to the front with a suicide squad.
Meanwhile, Maria has returned to Russia. She feels sorry for the abuse of confidence she offended at her husband, and wants to make up for it again. But when she tries to withdraw her giving-in to working as a secret agent, her bosses pretend that Frank had killed her brother, so that she begins to hate him. Some time later, she and Frank meet each other at a big ball in Russia by accident. First she wants to tell him on and leads his fingerprints to the Russian secret service, but in the end he is able to convince her of his innocence at her brother's death. Now that she is convinced of his innocence, she helps him to escape, but is killed at this occasion.
Sources
- Klaus, Ulrich J.: German soundfilms. Film encyclopedia of full-length German and German-speaking sound films, sorted by their German first showings. - Ulrich J. Klaus / Berlin [et al.] - (Klaus-Archive, Vol. 3, 1932)