Three Faces East is a 1930 film directed by Roy Del Ruth.
The story is set in 1917, as World War I rages. The opening scene shows a Belgian officer, Valdar (Erich von Stroheim), receiving a decoration from the King of Belgium. Cut to a German field headquarters, where German generals meet a nurse, Frances Hawtree (Constance Bennett), who was captured in the last German attack. They are interviewing her because she is actually a German secret agent.
Frances is given a new mission. She is to be sent to England, to the home of Sir Winston Chamberlin, First Lord of the Admiralty, whose son Robert has died in a German POW camp. Passing herself off as Robert's girlfriend, she will gain the confidence of the Chamberlins and worm her way into their household, so she can discover secret British naval intelligence. Frances follows orders, goes to the Chamberlin mansion, and is invited to stay. As it turns out, Valdar is there too, now working as the Chamberlin butler. Who's spying on who?
Tropes:
- And the Adventure Continues: The film ends with Frances getting orders to go off to Sweden on another mission.
- Cobweb of Disuse: The storage shed where Valdar/Schiller has his hidden radio set is festooned with cobwebs.
- Complexity Addiction: Why did the Germans send Frances to the Chamberlin house at all, when Valdar was already there and had access to the safe?
- Idiot Ball: The British and German secret services practice some truly godawful spy craft.
- Before sending Frances off on a secret mission, undercover to England, her German masters reward her with a bracelet monogrammed by the Kaiser. And she wears it, and it falls off in Sir Winston's safe, forcing Valdar to make some quick excuses. He calls her out for this specifically.
- Frances chooses to wear high heels while she's creeping around Sir Winston's office late at night. She winds up breaking a heel, which incriminates her.
- Arthur catches Frances out about Robert having had a secret wife. Instead of coloring her supposed relationship with Robert as a case of Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder, Frances chooses to confess that she's a British agent. Naturally, Valdar overhears.
- Lingerie Scene: Frances spends much of the second half of the film in various slips, like when she has secret conversations with Valdar in her bedroom or when she is creeping around the Chamberlin mansion late at night.
- MacGuffin: The sailing orders for the first American division being sent to France, which are sent to Sir Winston as the First Lord. The Germans want that intelligence so they can sink the transports en route.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: "Sir Winston Chamberlin", First Lord of the Admiralty, is obviously Inspired by… Winston Churchill, who was First Lord of the Admiralty during World War I. This being a 1930 film, Churchill wasn't then as famous as he later became.
- No Romantic Resolution: Arthur proclaims his love for Frances, but nothing more comes of this, as she goes off on her next m
- Secret Test of Character: Yates, who is suspicious of Frances, arranges for a test in which a fake "German agent" runs into Frances's apartment, identifies himself, and asks her to hide him. She sees through it and reveals the man.
- Spy Fiction: Martini flavored. A beautiful female spy is sent off to England on a daring secret mission.
- Stocking Filler: Valdar, observing from a hidden passage, observes Frances peel off her stockings before he confronts her about her confession to Arthur.
- Title Drop: "Three faces east" is the password that Frances is to use to identify herself to her German handler, Schiller.
- Trust Password: Valdar and Frances recognize each other by a sign/countersign in which she mentions the "three faces east" and he talks about traveling "forwards and backwards."
- We Have Ways of Making You Talk: Said almost word-for-word by the German general interrogating Frances, who says "We have ways of making you open your mouth!" The other officers then reveal that she is a German agent.
