The Two-Headed Spy (1959)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

THE TWO-HEADED SPY is a WW2 true story from HOUSE OF WAX director Andre de Toth. The tale is about a high-ranking Nazi officer who secretly worked as a spy for the British, and who spend most of his time trying not to be found out. The plot is a perfect one for the cinema and the film is full of all the suspense and intrigue that you'd expect, building to a couple of set-piece moments that prove moderately exciting. Jack Hawkins is well cast as the sympathetic lead, and there's a fine cast of supporting players to lend him a hand, from the sultry Gia Scala to a well-utilised Felix Aylmer and even a young Michael Caine at one point.

First of all, thanks to DavidGPS of GB for rectifying what we already knew - that Germany pioneered magnetic tape in the late 1930s. Now lets get to this little-known Jack Hawkins film. Andre DeToth made some excellent movies in his time, but this true story was as gritty as it got in 1958. There are some very hard to stomach scenes of a tyrannical and evil police state at war - not for the squeamish or children, by any means. Among the greatest of WWII movies, Hawkins depicts General Schottland, a British native of German decent who came back to the Fatherland during WW1 and fought in the German ranks. As a result, he was able to infiltrate the German High Command and even became trusted by Hitler. As he became a valued and important source of information to the British, he also endangered himself and all those who helped him. There were some really great WWII movies, but this one has you on the edge of your seat and riveted to the screen for the entire duration. Definitely my favorite Jack Hawkins movie of all time, and hats off to DeToth for daring to be so bold as to show how ruthless these bastards really were.

I have nothing much to add to the reviews already here, but that I loved the film. Stylish, beautifully paced, and remarkably suspenseful, it features an intriguingly controlled and flawlessly nuanced performance by Jack Hawkins, who makes you believe it possible that a British agent, hidden for twenty years, could exist undercover at the highest levels of the Third Reich. And as a sign of the 1958 that produced "The Two-Headed Spy," most revealing of the relationships between international film interests that the blacklisted Michael Wilson and Alfred Levitt were denied credit as scriptwriters in a British film because of its U.S. release by Columbia.However, for the record, I would like to correct a remark made by oxbridgeup from New Hampshire, who took issue with the use of tape recording in a scene, stating that it was not invented until 1947. Tape recording had actually been invented in Germany in the 1930s; it was used extensively in radio stations and by the Gestapo, most effectively as a tool to issue simultaneous statements by Hitler to units at all the various military fronts to give the Fuhrer the illusion of omnipresence. 1947 is the year the technology was introduced in the United States, and was patented by a group funded by Bing Crosby, who saw the potential in the format. An American audio engineer who, while assigned to the U.S. Army Signal Corps, had absconded with two of the pioneering German Magnetophon recorders (and numerous IG Farben magnetic tapes) at WWII's end, presented the technology to MGM and Crosby. Before this forming of Ampex, Farben had held the rights for magnetic tape (originally patented in the '20s as a long paper strip with an iron oxide coating) and AEG for recording/playing decks and their improvements -- most significantly, AC tape bias and stereophonic recording. Farben was, of course, dissolved in 1945 because of its cooperation with the Nazi regime (and notorious production of Xyklon-B), thus leaving its patents for the taking. How the AEG patents were voided is a mystery to me, but perhaps some knowledgeable reader might enlighten us.

**SPOILERS**Having been planted in the German Army by British intelligence back in 1914, some 20 years before the Nazis took control of Germany, Alex Schottland, Jack Hawkins, was in the unique position, even though being a former British citizen, to work his way up the ladder. Scottland worked his way up to the point where he became in charge of supplies for the German Army without the slightest suspicion of German Furuer Adolph Hitler, Kennith Griffih, and his dreaded secret police the Gestapo.After the German conquest of Poland in 1939 Scottland is promoted to general for his excellent efforts in suppling the German Military in its 34 day blitzkrieg. The Nazi blitzkrieg on Poland stunned the world who thought that the war would last some six months well into the winter of 1939. Working behind the scenes Schottland with the help of his contact British Secret Agent Cornaz, Felix Aylmer, who poses as a inconspicuous old watchmaker gets the information back to MI5, the British version of the CIA, that the long expected invasion of Britian, Operation Sea Lion, was called off! Hitler and his General Staff decided instead to launch a massive 3 million man invasion of Soviet Russin the following summer. This gave the battered British Army and Navy breathing room to recover from the beating they took in the Nazis conquest of Western Europe in the spring and early summer of 1940. Britain who was being supplied with huge amounts of much needed war material by the US, who at the time considered itself to be neutral in the war, hoped that the Soviet Red Army would do what the allies, Britian & France, were unable to since the war began ;Stop the then unstoppable Nazi Juggernaut!As the war progresses and the Nazis start losing it becomes apparent to their high command that someone high up is giving the Allies secret information on their military planning! That's when things start to go sour for Gen.Schottland and those whom he's secretly working with. The first shoe to drop is on Gen. Schottland secret British contact in Berlin watchmaker Cornaz. Caught red-handed, in sneaking out information to Britain, by the Gestapo Cornaz is tortured to death but keeps his mouth shut not revealing his fellow spy Gen. Schottland.Having Cornaz replaced by the British with Italian singing sensation Lili Geya, Gia Scala, doesn't help Gen, Scottland much either. Gen. Scottland, who knew Lili before the war, was too busy keeping his eyes on the beautiful Lili more then his work leading to a number of major screw-ups on his part. All that eventually leads to Lili's unfortunate death in the dying days of WWII. Lili was shot by Gen, Schottland Aid-de-camp Lt. Reinisch, Erik Schumann, who recognized her when she tried to cross over to the British lines with a secret map, provided to her by Schottland, about future German troop movements.***SPOILER ALERT*** The both sly and slippery Gen. Schottland is so good at his work that he manages to outfox the Nazis at their own game, trickery and deception, by getting Nazi Generals loyal to the Fuhrer arrested and executed by the Gestapo for treason and disloyalty. Gen Schottland even goes so far as getting German Generals, one of them Gen Hartz played by Donald Pleasence, who are secretly in league with the allies like himself, to do in the Fuhrer, exposed and summarily executed just to keep the Gestapo from suspecting him!I don't know if the story about Gen Schottland is real but if it is the guy made legendary British Secret Agent James Bond look like a rank armature. Always a step ahead of the Nazis Gen.Schottland seems to be the luckiest man on the face of the earth in all the escapes he makes from being caught, at the expense of his fellow British spies, that he comes across not only as being unbelievably lucky but both omnipresent and prophetic, in him knowing what the Nazis are to do ahead of time even before the Nazis do, as well!P.S Look for an uncredited and young 25 year old Michael Cain in the movie playing a Gestapo Agent.