FilmAuthority Imagine waking up and turning over to your lover only to find her missing and a huge black spider on her pillow. Imagine parachute jumping from a hot-air balloon high above the ruins of an Incan city in Mesoamerica. Imagine the chief protagonist dressed like Batman sans cape and living shipboard in a crate complete with your favorite liquors, a reading library and arsenal. Imagine a primary character name Kay Hoog – who happens to be a man. If you can imagine that, then it might be a flash-back to this film. Fritz Lang showed his filmmaking genius early in his career with "The Spiders." These two first installments, beg for a remake and for some creative effort to produce the final two segments - "The Secret of the Sphinx" and "For Asia's Imperial Crown" - that were never made.

poe426 Whoever likened this one to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK certainly knew whereof he spoke. He might, as well, have likened it to some of the adventures of the pulp heroes that followed. "Kay Hoog" reminds one more than a little of both Lamont Cranston (The Shadow) and Clark Savage (Doc Savage). (The Shadow, quintessential man of mystery- and the very first "Dark Knight"- was also thought to be one Kent Allard. If one were to take Savage's first name first and add to it the Kent, you end up with- voila- Clark Kent. Funny, innit?) Like Indiana Jones, Hoog isn't above pilfering the artifacts of an ancient civilization (though his thefts are often more blatant and less "charmingly roguish" than Jones's). Unfortunately, this two-parter is a far cry from subsequent serials (from any era) in terms of overall quality. One of the first indications that something is amiss vis a vis the cinematic storytelling is a scene where desperados on horseback, quite literally breathing down his neck, simply watch as Hoog escapes their clutches in a hot air balloon. Why they don't bother to shoot down the balloon is just one of the many movie-making mysteries that plague these two films.The second half of this two-parter is even worse than the first. Granted, this was one of the first ever serials and, as such, should be cut a bit of slack- but there are limits, even, to tolerance. (At one point, the capture of the hero is effected not on screen, but in the narration itself! Talk about cutting corners...) Fritz Lang happens to be one of the greatest filmmakers to ever make films; unfortunately for those of us who admire most of what he did, THE SPIDERS is a bitter pill indeed to swallow...

Cineanalyst Originally, "The Spiders" was planned as a four-part serial, and it shows. I dislike serials; they're typically ridiculous, convoluted and banal. This one is no exception. In the first part of "The Spiders", "The Golden Lake", a rich adventurer thwarts the plans of a gang of criminals--the Spiders--to steal gold from Incans. A silly love triangle ensues, with some Cowboys and Indians action. The sensationalism and exotica of it didn't entertain me.One can legitimately trace themes from this two-part series to Lang's later, far superior work. And, the film-making is better than in other serials I've seen from this time, including "Les Vampires" (1915). In "The Spiders", the camera isn't as static, and this film is fast paced, thankfully. The tinting and lighting are adequate, too. None of that's remarkable, though. It's nearly unseemly, however, in how closely this series resembles Louis Feuillade's serials; the criminal gang dresses and behaves like those in "Les Vampires"--only the names, and to a lesser extent, the situations have changed.For the further comments on The Spiders series, see the web pages for it.

Snow Leopard This first episode of Fritz Lang's "The Spiders" is an entertaining adventure story, and it is particularly notable for its imaginative settings and visuals, and for the way that each sequence leads smoothly into the next. The story is far-fetched, of course, but Lang tells it quite well, and it makes for enjoyable viewing.The basic setup of the sinister organization of "Spiders" involves some of the themes that Lang used in more detailed form in his Dr. Mabuse movies. Here, the story is strictly for entertainment purposes, and as such it works well. Ressel Orla is suitably elegant as the leader of the "Spiders", and she usually makes the best of her opportunities.The opening message-in-a-bottle scene sets the tone, establishing tension and mystery right away. From there, Lang builds up the story nicely, as the characters learn about the hidden treasure and compete with each other and with other adversaries to find it. His style here is similar to that in some of the best of contemporary action movies, such as the Indiana Jones films. Most of the scenes work well in themselves, and once it gets going, each scene also moves the story ahead immediately to the next scene, without letting you pause for breath.Lil Dagover also adds a lot in her role as the priestess. Carl de Vogt is adequate as the hero Hoog, but he does not have a lot of presence or charisma, and most of the energy level in the characters comes from the female leads.This episode got "The Spiders" off to a good start, and it is the best of the two segments that Lang actually filmed. It does not have the deep themes found in Lang's best movies, but as entertainment it works quite well.