The snake (1973)

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Movie
German title The snake
Original title Le Serpent
Country of production France
Germany
Italy
original language French
English
German
Publishing year 1973
length 119 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Henri Verneuil
script Henri Verneuil,
Gilles Perrault based
on the novel “Le treizième suicidé” by Pierre Nord
production Henri Verneuil,
Horst Wendlandt
music Ennio Morricone
camera Claude Renoir
cut Pierre Gillette ,
Rosemarie Ruddies
occupation
synchronization

The Snake is a 1973 Franco-German-Italian spy drama directed by Henri Verneuil and starring Yul Brynner , Henry Fonda , Dirk Bogarde and Philippe Noiret .

action

The second counselor at the Soviet embassy in Paris, Alexej Fedorowitsch Vlasow, has met at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris to travel home to Moscow with his wife Tatiana. He notices that he is being watched by two conspicuously inconspicuous gentlemen in long coats. Before Vlasov goes to his terminal, he buys a bottle of cognac in the duty free shop and, when he tries to pay, gives Jeannine Santelli a note saying that she should call the American embassy because he wants to go to it USA overrun. At a favorable moment, he escapes his guards, who are watching him from a distance, sits down and first faces the French authorities. The defector, in fact a Soviet KGB colonel, is causing tremendous excitement among the international secret services because, as he assures his French and later American colleagues, he has a lot to say. So he knew who from politics, diplomacy and the military in France and in the Federal Republic of Germany would actually be in Soviet service. Lucien Berthon, Vlasov's contact person from the French secret service, does not want to hand over the key witness to the US embassy because he wants his agency to benefit from Vlasov's information. So he puts the Soviet officer under pressure by instructing his subordinate Tavel to drive Vlasov back to the Soviet embassy. The concept does not work, Vlasov does not fall for the bluff, especially since Tavel receives a call from his boss Berthon in front of the embassy, ​​in which he says that Tavel should bring the Soviet defector back.

Vlasov is now handed over to the Americans as requested, and they fly him out to Langley. There, CIA chief Allan Davies has him put through its paces and questioned by an interrogation specialist. Connected to a polygraph , Vlasov doesn't pass every question. Especially when it comes to the question of whether he intends to damage the interests of the United States by changing sides, the device turns out to be massive. Nevertheless, the information that Vlasov willingly reveals seems so interesting that one apparently overlooks one or the other doubt. Davies' British colleague Philip Boyle, who knows Vlasov from a time when he, like Vlasov, was stationed at the respective embassy in Turkey, is also used to weight the information. A photo of the two with the snow-capped Mount Ararat as a backdrop seems to confirm this. In the next conversation, Wlassow mentions names, including that of the Bundeswehr General von Streilitz, who shot himself while riding a little later, and Horst Felsens, the adjutant of the German intelligence chief Lepke. Felsen, who is currently on vacation with his family at an Upper Bavarian mountain lake, is then dragged out of the boat and drowned by two divers who approach his rowing boat underwater. On a ferry crossing the lake, a man with a cigarette case adorned with a snake relief watches the scene. Obviously, this man is the head of the spy ring, which has witnesses, confidants or simply pawn sacrifices eliminated.

Davies flies to London to tell his friend Boyle that two British people have also been exposed as Soviet spies at the State Department. Then Davies and Boyle's most important contact person with the French, Berthon, gets caught in the crossfire. French newspapers report that he collaborated with the Nazis between 1942 and 1944, i.e. during the German occupation. In a radio talk show, Berthon is also confronted with the fact that 15 years ago he was alleged to have used torture while interrogating freedom fighters in the Algerian war . Berthon reacts coolly and calmly, but suspects that he is now finished and will probably soon be relieved of his post at the highest order. Now Berthon's own colleagues are on his heels, as it is believed that he also works for the Soviets. Berthon meets at night with Boyle, who, as the head of the espionage organization, pulls the strings in the background. He is the man with the snake on the cigarette case and, unmoved, explains to Berthon that he had abused it for his own purposes when he mentioned the names of the two British traitors at the Foreign Office at the funeral of the German general. Now the suspicion of suspicion falls on Berthon, since the two London Soviet spies have left and Boyle is out of the field of fire. The British double agent advises Berthon to leave for the Soviet Union as well and puts a false passport in his car. But the Frenchman doesn't even think about making himself available as a pawn sacrifice and wants to drive off in his car. Then a sniper hidden in Boyle's car opens fire with a machine gun on Berthon, who then loses sight for a moment because of the splintered windshield. At the last moment, the Frenchman was able to avoid an oncoming truck. The car overturns and Berthon is seriously injured.

In Langley there is a final conversation between Davies and Vlasov. The American seems satisfied: 13 murders or suicides in Germany. The obvious traitors have been eliminated, and France finally appears “clean” again with the arrest of Berthon, who was found to have a forged passport. Vlasov is amazed when he hears the names Burger and Lane for the first time; He never mentioned these names in the British Foreign Office, since as a KGB officer he never had anything to do with Great Britain, as he assures us. But that puzzles Allan Davies. He confronts Vlasov with the familiar shot of Boyle and the Russians, with Mount Ararat in the background. Both Boyle and Vlasov have always maintained that the recording was made in 1967 in the NATO country Turkey. But as the present CIA expert Atamian, who comes from Armenia, confirms, this cannot be true, because the picture of the mountain shown must have been taken from the territory of the USSR. Vlasov's plan has failed, he is exposed as a double agent. He carried out this entire operation, in collaboration with Boyle, in order to cause massive damage to the West from the deaths and arrests in NATO and political circles. Ironically, the particularly suspicious-looking Berthon turns out to be innocent and his actions were merely an attempt to restore his reputation.

Half a year has passed since Vlasov's dramatic exposure. At a bridge between West and East Germany, Vlasov is exchanged for a US pilot held captive by the Soviet Union. Smiling confident of victory, Davies explains to his French colleague Berthon that Vlasov could no longer be of any use to the West anyway, and that the Russians had made a bad deal with the return of Vlasov, who had been “spoiled” by luxury in the West. He'll get a few more medals, but then his own people will put him off. Because: "The snake has tasted paradise, you no longer trust it".

Production notes

The snake was shot in autumn 1972 at several locations in France and the Federal Republic of Germany (including Munich and the foothills of the Alps). It premiered on April 7, 1973 in Paris, and six days later the film also opened in Germany. The first German television broadcast took place on January 19, 1991 on ARD .

The buildings were designed by Jacques Saulnier and Hans-Jürgen Kiebach , the costumes Ingrid Zoré and Hélène Nourry. For the German Elga Andersen , who played a hostess in the service of the US secret service and specially assigned for Vlasov's sexual pleasure, this was the last appearance in a movie. The composition by Ennio Morricone was conducted by Bruno Nicolai .

The funeral service was not filmed in a Munich church, but in the library of the university ( LMU ) on Ludwigstrasse.

The film relates to the Heinz Felfe espionage case and to a series of deaths of high-ranking West German officers in the Federal Intelligence Service in 1968, including Flotilla Admiral Hermann Lüdke and Major General Horst Wendland .

synchronization

role actor Voice actor
Colonel Alexei Vlasov Yul Brynner Horst Niendorf
CIA chief Allan Davies Henry Fonda Helmo Kindermann
Philip Boyle Dirk Bogarde Michael Chevalier
Lucien Berthon Philippe Noiret Martin Hirthe
BND chief Lepke Martin hero he himself
Tavel Michel bouquet Friedrich Georg Beckhaus
Annabel Lee Virna Lisi Ursula Heyer
CIA computer expert Farley Granger Rolf Schult
CIA interrogator from Vlasov Robert Alda Lothar Blumhagen
Deval Guy Tréjan Thomas Danneberg
Debecourt Robert Party Heinz Giese
Atamian Larry Dolgin Randolf Kronberg
Pastor at funeral service Ernst Fritz Fürbringer he himself

Reviews

“'The Snake' by Henri Verneuil, who obviously couldn't decide between a thriller, a CIA cultural film and a star parade (Yul Brynner, Henry Fonda, Dirk Bogarde, Philippe Noiret, Michel Bouquet, Martin Held). The superfluous commentary extols the authenticity of the story. The Russian agent, who is cleaning up the Western secret services by apparently seeking asylum, is mounted under documentary recordings of the Supreme Soviet. Senseless episodes, stupid simplifications, the Cold War of the sixties as a stereo typology of the nations involved in the co-production. "

- The time of April 20, 1973

“The lavish film (directed by Henri Verneuil), a German-French co-production, shot from a book by the French factual novelist Pierre Nord, does not clumsily mix authentic material and fiction. But he rolls out his confused story too wide (the film lasts almost two hours) and, especially towards the end, puffs up almost to a film opera. The background music by Ennio Morricone also contributes to this. The top stars of the film are: Yul Brynner, Dirk Bogarde and Henry Fonda, they act as usual. Interesting alone Dirk Bogarde as Englishman Boyle and Philipp Noiret in the role of the French espionage boss Berthon. "

- Hamburger Abendblatt dated April 28, 1973

In the lexicon of international films it says: "Superbly photographed and solidly staged spy film, but implausible and only moderately exciting."

On cinema.online it says briefly: "Too devoured to really captivate."

Individual evidence

  1. Bodo V. Hechelhammer : Spy without borders. Heinz Felfe. Agent in seven secret services . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-05793-6 , pp. 292 .
  2. The snake. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on September 8, 2018 .
  3. The snake. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed November 20, 2015 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. Die Schlange on cinema.de

Web links