The Spy in Black (US: U-boat 29) is a 1939 British spy film, and the first collaboration between the British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. They were brought together by Alexander Korda to make a First World War spy thriller novel, The Spy in Black by Joseph Storer Clouston, into a film. Powell and Pressburger eventually made over 20 films during the course of their partnership.

Plot

In March 1917, Captain Hardt, a German U-boat commander in the First World War, is ordered to spy on the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow, rendezvousing at the Old Man of Hoy. He sneaks ashore on the Orkney Islands to meet his contact, Fräulein Tiel. Tiel has taken the identity of a new local schoolteacher, Miss Anne Burnett, whom female German agents had intercepted and chloroformed en route to the island. Hardt finds himself attracted to her, but Tiel shows no interest. The Germans are aided by a disgraced Royal Navy officer, the former Commander Ashington who, according to Tiel, has agreed to aid the Germans after losing his command due to drunkenness; Tiel implies that she has slept with Ashington to obtain his cooperation.

Awards