The Spider and the Fly (1949)

The Spider and the Fly is a 1949 British crime thriller directed by Robert Hamer.

The setting is France in 1913, the last days of La Belle Epoque. Fernand Maubert (Eric Portman) is a senior police detective and he’s a man wth an obsession. That obsession is Philippe de Ledocq (Guy Rolfe), a brilliant criminal. Maubert is convinced that Philippe has been behind a series of daring robberies but somehow Philippe always has an unbreakable alibi.

After a recent bank robbery Maubert did manage to detain Philippe’s accomplice, the very pretty Madeleine Saincaize (Nadia Gray). Madeleine is Philippe’s mistress. Maubert had no real evidence against her. He had hoped that she might betray Philippe but Madeleine is hopelessly in love with the master criminal.

Maubert and Philippe are on quite friendly terms. In fact the two men like each other. Maubert disapproves of criminals and is therefore determined to convict Philippe but mostly what annoys Maubert is that Philippe was born into privilege and power. Maubert cannot understand why such a man would betray his family and his upbringing and turn to crime.

Philippe likes and admires Maubert as a man but he strongly disapproves of policemen.

The first two-thirds of the movie is a cat-and-mouse game between Maubert and Philippe. Philippe is clever but Maubert is dogged.

Madeleine provides a complication. She has been Philippe’s mistress but Maubert is falling for her. Maubert is also hoping to use her in order to trap Philippe, so Maubert’s motivations are rather murky.

Then the movie switches gears and becomes a slightly different (and in my opinion less satisfactory) kind of movie but I can’t say any more without revealing spoilers.

We’re presumably expected to see Maubert as a noble dedicated policeman and that’s certainly how he sees himself. I’m afraid that to me he came across as smug and self-righteous, and not at all honourable. Maybe I’m just not so tolerant of policemen using lies and emotional manipulation to achieve their ends.

Eric Portman’s performance is solid enough but he was unable to persuade me to feel any sympathy at all for his character.

Guy Rolfe is much much better as Philippe - charming and not particularly trustworthy, a likeable rogue. Rolfe is able to make a somewhat over-the-top character fairly believable.

Nadia Gray is fine although in some respects Robert Westerby’s script did her no favours.

George Cole as a detective makes a reasonably effective sidekick to Maubert.

The surprise ending really does come as a surprise but I felt that it came out of left field and was contrived and unconvincing. It required the characters to behave in ways that seemed to me to be inconsistent with what we had earlier learnt about their personalities. But perhaps it’s an ending that would appealed to audiences in 1949. There’s also an epilogue which I detested but I imagine audiences in 1949 would have lapped it up.

Robert Hamer as director does a perfectly competent job with a couple of effective suspense scenes.

The movie was of course shot in black-and-white.

The Spider and the Fly is enjoyable enough and it’s worth a look.

This movie is a bit hard to find but there is an Italian DVD which offers the original English soundtrack as an option and the transfer is satisfactory if less than pristine.