Inside the Lines is a 1930 film directed by Roy Pomeroy.
Germany, July 1914. War looms. Jane Gershon (Betty Compson), an Englishwoman, has fallen in love with a man named Eric—but she says she has to go away immediately. Eric grudgingly accepts. Why does Jane have to leave? Because she is a German spy. She meets with her handler in Paris, who gives her a mission: she is to go to Gibraltar and infiltrate the home of Sir George Crandall, the British governor of Gibraltar.
Adopting the name of Ellen Courtier, a childhood friend of the governor's wife, Jane makes it to Gibraltar and passes herself off as "Ellen". Her handler in Gibraltar explains her assignment, which is to obtain the plans of British fortifications in the harbor, with the goal of destroying the British fleet. Jane has established herself in the Crandall household when who should show up but her boyfriend Eric—who is a British officer. Maybe.
Tropes:
- Chekhov's Gunman: Amahdi, Sir George's longtime Indian servant, is #54, the real German spy.
- Handshake Refusal: Sir George Crandall receives a visitor, an old Army buddy named Capper who is now a twitchy alcoholic. Capper tells Crandall something unpleasant: that he happens to know the real Ellen Courtier from Paris, and that the woman whom Capper just saw calling herself "Ellen Courtier" in the hotel is an impostor, and must be a spy. Crandall responds by throwing Capper out of his office, refusing Capper's outstretched hand.
- High-Class Glass:
- Well of course the German spymaster in Paris would wear a monocle, just like any self-respecting German aristocrat would.
- Major Bishop, Eric's superior officer on Gibraltar, also wears a monocle.
- Public Secret Message: Jane receives a letter that on the surface appears to be idle chatter from a friend in Paris. When she puts a special stencil over the letter, the holes cut out in the paper reveal the real message, which is to report to the German spymaster in Paris immediately.
- The Reveal: The very end of the film reveals that Jane actually is not a German spy. She is a British agent who apparently infiltrated German intelligence. (The film does not explain what Jane's real mission was, although it seems likely she was trying to ferret out the identity of #54, the spy who was supposed to receive the intelligence she was stealing.)
- Secret Test: Sir George attempts this with Jane, trying to trip her up by pointing to the wrong portrait as that of the former governor's wife. But Eric realizes what's happening and nudges Jane's attention to the right portrait.
- She Is All Grown Up: Lady Crandall, who hasn't seen "Ellen" since they were children in school, says she can't believe how much Jane has changed, and specifically marvels at how she grew from a plain girl to a very beautiful woman. Subverted, as "Ellen" is actually an impostor and not Lady Crandall's childhood friend.
- Silly Simian: Lt. Chumley the foppish officer is hitting on Jane, putting on the full-court press in the garden, when he is momentarily distracted by a monkey yanking on the seat of his pants. (Gibraltar has a thriving native population of monkeys.)
- Spy Fiction: Martini Flavored. A beautiful woman who is also a German spy enters Gibraltar under a fake name, on a secret wartime mission.
- Spy Speak: Jane, who is in the office of the maitre d'hotel in Gibraltar, shows him her violin and the piece of music inside. The hotel manager, speaking rather deliberately, observes that it is an old melody and thinks it was written in 1889. Jane says no, it was written in 1893. This is the secret code by which Jane, Agent #1893, reveals herself to the hotel manager, who is her spy master in Gibraltar.
- Verbal Irony: Lady Crandall breathlessly tells Jane, who is a German spy, how Gibraltar is teeming with German spies.
