Three Faces East

I saw this movie in the early 1990s, at a screening given by William K Everson at the New School for Social Research in New York City. I usually took detailed notes during all of Mr Everson's screenings, but this time there was a disturbance in the auditorium (no, not my fault, you clever clots) and I didn't keep my notes. I can barely remember the film, which is not a point in its favour.

The action takes place during the Great War in the home of the First Lord of the Admiralty, who has the unfortunate name Sir Winston Chamberlain. (Any relation to Neville Churchill?) His butler Valdar is played by Erich von Stroheim, so it's no spoiler to report that Valdar is a spy for the Kaiser. He does everything but click his heels and wear a monocle.

Into this cosy inglenook comes Frances Hawtree ... played by Constance Bennett, who has never impressed me (except in her off-screen work on behalf of U.S. servicemen). We find out very quickly that Frances is a counterspy. She keeps reporting to Mr Yates of the Secret Service, who addresses her by her code number 'Z-1'. Which reminds me...

Most of the characters in this film are meant to be British, but the (mostly) American actors have the sense not to attempt British accents. Still, it's annoying to hear William Courtenay as Yates addressing Bennett as 'ZEE-one'. Was nobody in this production aware that in Britain the last letter of the alphabet is pronounced 'ZED'? Since Frances Hawtree and her C.O. are allegedly British, it would make sense if they got this detail right.

The film's title is a code phrase that doesn't seem to mean anything in clear. At one point, one of the male characters needs a pretext to leave the room, so he says he has to fetch his pipe ... but the pipe is a mere sham. That's as good as this gets.

I was impressed with the performance of the character actor who played Sir Winston. He gave several good performances in the early talkie era, and he deserves to be better known. Unfortunately, his name was William Holden: the same name as the later Oscar-winning leading man. Although there was a seven-year gap between the end of the older Holden's screen career and the beginning of the younger Holden's, I've seen several references which confuse the two, crediting all of the senior Holden's films to his younger and better-known namesake. Here, the senior Holden speaks his dialogue in his own natural American accent, yet he does an impressive job of conveying a proper upper-class Englishman.

Director Roy Del Ruth also deserves to be better known, but this is not one of his better efforts. I don't remember this film very well, but the fact that I *don't* remember much of it is evidence that it wasn't very good. Even von Stroheim is subdued, for once. I'll go out on a limb and rate it 5 out of 10, largely for William Holden's fine performance.

While it is true that not all of these very old early talkies, are wonderful, they are still enjoyable. The picture quality is very high, I did not find the sound to be bad. It is a great opportunity to see how motion pictures are progressing. The fact that this movie was released two weeks after my father was born, and he lived 90 years provided an additional incentive for me. What is also fascinating to me is to see and hear actors born in 1862 on screen. 1862 Lincoln was president. I believe this is worth your time. A spy/counter spy movie circa WWI? And yes, she is beautiful.

Remade Ten Years Later and Updated from WWI to WWII as "British Intelligence" with Boris Karloff in the Erich Von Stroheim Role. Nothing Much has Changed. The World is at War (yes again with Germany) and both Actors are Superb in a Complicated Plot of Agents, Double Agents, and Secret Plans.

Von Stroheim Steals the Picture and is Remarkable in a Tailor Made Part where He can Stroke Constance Bennett's Underwear and be Even Creepier than the Role would Assume. Everyone Else Stands Around with a lot of "Harrumphing" and Suspicion.

Not a Bad Early Sound Movie with an Opening that Intrigues and an Ending that Delivers with Some Power. The Story is More Confusing than it Needs to be (so is the remake) but Overall it is Worth a Watch for Erich and Bennett does Look Quite Beautiful. Some Miniature Work is Interesting and the Costumes are Striking.

I am a huge Constance Bennett fan, and I have two great stories about her that I'll put at the end of the review. "Three Faces East" is from 1930, based on a play, and directed by Roy del Ruth.

Bennett plays a British agent in World War I. She is sent to London to capture a major German spy named Blecher. While staying in the house of one of the government heads near London, she realizes that the butler (von Stroheim) is a German agent, so she identifies herself as one to gain his confidence. He falls for her. He explains to her that the safe needs to be broken into nightly to see the movement of troops. Then one of the sons in the family returns home (she is supposedly the girlfriend of the other son), and he remembers seeing her during one of the conflicts, working as a nurse. Meanwhile, the butler comes under suspicion as a spy, and the circumstances become complicated.

Early sound films like this are often stilted affairs, as this one is, with people over-enunciating (Bennett seems to do this) and speaking more slowly than necessary so that the dialogue has no rhythm. It's almost comical, with the son referring to his parents as Mater and Pater. Today the acting seems overdone in spots, but that was the style; after all, a lot of the talkies actors came from the stage.

My two Constance Bennett stories: one from David Niven, who said that she was so beautiful that she could go into a room in the evening, play cards all night, come out of the room at 6 a.m. and look exactly the same. I believe it.

The other story is a funny one from one of her husbands, who nearly died while drowning. He and Bennett were divorced, but he claimed that Constance saved his life. While drowning, he had an image of her in black, sobbing, and saying, "My poor Henri," very dramatically, and garnering lots of sympathy. He said to himself, "I'm not going to let her get away with it," and managed to save himself.

All in all, "Three Faces East" is a real antique. It was remade with Boris Karloff in 1940.

but is it really fair to downgrade this film because of that? Would you downgrade Star Wars because the creatures were men in rubber suits rather than CGI creations not technologically possible in 1977?

It is WWI, and Constance Bennett plays Frances Hawtree / agent Z-1, assigned to go to England by the Germans. She is to claim that she and the oldest son of Lord Winston Chamberlain and Lady Katherine Chamberlain were in the same POW hospital, fell in love, and that he died before she could escape. (He did actually die.) She brings some of his personal effects back to them. This way she can work her way into their trust, their hearts, and their home and thus abscond with some important allied secrets. Eric Von Stroheim plays Valdar, Frances' superior and contact, and is also masquerading as a butler. "Three Faces East" is the phrase that they use to recognize one another as fellow agents. I can tell you this because Von Stroheim is seen early in the movie receiving a medal from the French army. If he was a soldier there is no way he would now, a short time later, be working as a butler in the Chamberlain estate.

The rest of the movie is a series of double crosses, tricks, and surprises that have stood the test of time as far as keeping you guessing as who is really who and what happens next. Plus one thing that almost trips everything up is a piece of information that was a secret between the dead older Chamberlain son and the younger Chamberlain son, Arthur, who is home recovering from a shoulder wound. I'll let you watch and find out what happens.

Just a couple of things seem a bit silly to me. First, why is this carefully guarded information of Allied troop movements being carried by armed guard via attache case to the Chamberlain estate, then just dumped in the safe where it is completely unguarded at night where anyone could get it? Why isn't it under lock and key and under guard at a military installation, not a private estate which apparently has no security, not even a dog or alarm system? If this is the security set-up, why does Frances/Z-1 even need to be there? Couldn't Valdar sneak downstairs in the middle of the night and get the information himself? Well the answer to the this last question is probably that audiences would much rather look at Constance Bennett for 71 minutes than Erich Von Stroheim.

One more odd thing - Both young Arthur AND Valdar declare their love to Z-1, knowing only the sketchiest details about her. What if the girl has insanity in her family, lay about relatives, or annoying or spendthrift habits? But I digress.

For a well paced tale of wartime intrigue, with good dialogue and good performances, and very good direction that makes you forget that the camera still can't move much at this period in time, I highly recommend it. Plus I just love the final scene - it is not what you are expecting.