Three Faces East

1930 Drama 71 minutes Directed by Roy Del Ruth

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About Three Faces East

In World War I, a captured British nurse is exposed as a German agent and sent to steal secrets from Sir Winston Chamberlain, First Lord of the Admiralty. Calling herself Frances Hawtree, and using the code 'three faces east,' she finds that Chamberlain's butler Valdar is her contact, the spy Schiller. Both of them fall under suspicion, and both Valdar and Chamberlain's son fall in love with her. Hawtree is in fact the British double agent Z-1. She shoots Schiller, whose real name is Blecher, as he tries to pass information on, and she is sent to Sweden on another job.

Cast & crew

More about Three Faces East

Roy Del Ruth directed for Warner Bros. Darryl F. Zanuck produced. Oliver H. P. Garrett and Arthur Caesar adapted Anthony Paul Kelly's 1918 play. The U.S. premiere was July 26, 1930.

Themes

  • A spy inside the Admiralty household
  • A butler who is the contact
  • A double agent who shoots her own superior
  • World War I
  • double agent
  • butler
  • Admiralty
  • code phrase
  • pre-Code

Background

Kelly's wartime spy play reached Broadway in 1918. Warner Bros. remade it as an early talkie a dozen years later.

Making

Barney McGill photographed the picture. The story stays inside the Chamberlain house once the agent is planted there.

Look

Barney McGill shot the film.

Preservation

Warner Bros. material from the 1930 release survives, including the copy on Wikimedia Commons.

Notes

  • Constance Bennett plays Frances Hawtree, also called Z-1.
  • Erich von Stroheim plays Valdar, who is also Schiller and the master spy Blecher.
  • Anthony Bushell is Captain Arthur Chamberlain.
  • The Sir Winston Chamberlain part is played by the stage actor William Holden (1862–1932), not the later film star of that name.
  • A silent version of Kelly's play was filmed in 1926.
  • The 1940 remake, British Intelligence, stars Boris Karloff and Margaret Lindsay.

Scenes

  • Hawtree learns that the decorated butler Valdar is her German contact.
  • She shoots Blecher as he tries to send the stolen information.

Influenced by

  • Three Faces East (1926 silent film)
  • Anthony Paul Kelly's play Three Faces East (1918)

Influenced

  • British Intelligence (1940)

Also available

  • Wikimedia Commons (Three Faces East (1930 film).webm)

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