Secret Lives

This is the tragic story of Lena, a young German-born woman at the start of World War 1, whom has lived all her life in France: the sudden hatred she faces on account of her birth, her subsequent escape from an internment camp, then being forced by the French authorities to become a spy, finally becoming a target for persecution by both sides.

The beautiful German star Brigitte Horney gives a magnetic performance as Lena, being sensitively directed by Edmond Greville. In his positive review of BRIEF ECSTACY, made for the same company in the same year, Graham Greene observed Greville's ability to photograph women: he demonstrates this here with a superbly composed shot of Lena, looking very alluring, having successfully completed her mission of seducing a high-ranking German official and feeding him false information, which captures her dismay and unhappiness at the work she is obliged to perform. Greville had the services of top cameraman Otto Heller, though production values are otherwise typical of a British feature of the day. The regular French officer, played rather woodenly by Neil Hamilton, whom has undergone an arranged marriage with Lena, though the two soon fall in love, methodically destroys the absurdly baroque ornamentation of the room she has been provided with, and which symbolises the twisted world of the espionage services. Ivor Barnard is at his sinister best - or worst - as Lena's creepy supervisor, while the closing frames are particularly poignant.