"Strange things happened all over the world..." - What may sound like a sentence from the future about our present day is actually the first intertitle in Fritz Lang's 1928 espionage thriller, in which an international secret service fights against the dark machinations of crime boss Haghi (played by Rudolf Klein-Rogge, just like Dr Mabuse in Lang's earlier film), who operates from a secret control centre under the cover of his second identity as the head of a bank. The agents wear James Bond-style numbers, are already equipped with mini cameras and die mysteriously. But instead of Bond with a girl, we have Willy Fritsch and Gerda Maurus - we are undoubtedly in the Weimar Republic and with Lang as one of the most visionary directors of the era.