Espionage

About Espionage

Espionage is a 1955 Austrian historical spy drama film directed by Franz Antel and starring Ewald Balser, Barbara Rütting and Gerhard Riedmann. It was shot at the Sievering Studios and on location in Vienna. The film's sets were designed by the art director Felix Smetana. It was based on the real story of Alfred Redl, an officer serving with Austrian Military Intelligence who was also secretly spying for the hostile Russian Empire before the First World War.

Article

Espionage (German: Spionage) is a 1955 Austrian historical spy drama film directed by Franz Antel and starring Ewald Balser, Barbara Rütting and Gerhard Riedmann. It was shot at the Sievering Studios and on location in Vienna. The film's sets were designed by the art director Felix Smetana. It was based on the real story of Alfred Redl, an officer serving with Austrian Military Intelligence who was also secretly spying for the hostile Russian Empire before the First World War.

Cast

Ewald Balser as Oberst Redl

Barbara Rütting as Nadeschda

Gerhard Riedmann as Hauptmann Angelis

Oskar Werner as Leutnant Zeno Von Baumgarten

Marte Harell as Gräfin Lichtenfels

Hannelore Bollmann as Pauline Von Heymeneck

Rudolf Forster as Chef Des Generalstabes, Von Heymeneck

Attila Hörbiger as Dr. Hartmuth

Erik Frey as Oberst Rabansky

Heinz Moog as Baron Letten

Karl Ehmann as Leopold, Diener Bei Lichtenfels

Hermann Erhardt as Steidl

C.W. Fernbach as Rittmeister Weidler

Harry Hardt as General Maximoff

Kurt Jaggberg as Sabrenin

Alexander Trojan as Baron Korff

Notable quotes

“Because something is not what it is said to be, Ma'am, does not mean it is a fake. It may just have been wrongly attributed.”
— Alan Bennett, in A Question of Attribution; said by Anthony Blunt
“I played it slightly tongue-in-cheek because I never quite believed that James Bond was a spy because everybody knew him, they all knew what he drank. He’d walk into a bar and it would always be, 'Ah, Commander Bond, martini, shaken not stirred.’ Spies are faceless people.”
— Roger Moore in "Roger Moore interview: 'I was never very confident with girls'" by Tim Auld, The Telegraph, 23 May 2017.
“O children of Adam, let not the devil seduce you, as he expelled your parents from the garden, pulling off from them their clothing that he might show them their shame. He surely sees you, he as well as his host, from whence you see them not. Surely We have made the devils to be the friends of those who believe not.”
— Quran, Chapter 7 (Al-A’raf) : 27
“No spy, however astute, is proof against relentless interrogation. Some unforseen circumstance, some trivial lapse, is pounced upon, exploited by the interrogator, until a break is complete.”
— Lt-Col Robin Stephens in Camp 020: MI5 and the Nazi spies (2000) by the Public Record Office, p. 105
“Indeed, there may well be many who will agree that death by hanging is almost too good for a sailor who will encompass the death of thousands of his shipmates without qualm.”
— Lt-Col Robin Stephens, Camp 020: MI5 and the Nazi spies (2000) by the Public Record Office, p. 198
“To MI5, if you steam this open you are dirty buggers.”
— Anonymous letter sent to a prominent member of the Communist Party of Great Britain; quoted in "Spycatcher" (1987) by Peter Wright, p. 46

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.