The Spider and the Fly is a 1949 British crime film directed by Robert Hamer and starring Eric Portman, Guy Rolfe and Nadia Gray. The screenplay concerns an unusual love triangle that develops between two criminals and a policeman on the eve of the First World War. Hamer made it immediately after Kind Hearts and Coronets. Plot In 1913, Fernand Maubert, the dedicated chief of police of Paris, is pursuing Philippe Lodocq, a suave bank robber suspected of a series of thefts, but the criminal always has an alibi. After the latest robbery, Maubert does capture Lodocq's accomplice, Madeleine Saincaise. When she is released from prison, Maubert warns her to stay away from Lodocq (though he has a certain admiration for the man). Impressed by her intelligence, beauty and courage, he begins to court her himself. When Lodocq visits her, she professes her love for him, but he tells her that it is too dangerous for them to be seen together and that they would eventually tire of each other anyway. Later, however, during one of their cordial occasional meetings, Maubert tells Lodocq that he can tell that Madeleine is different from Lodocq's other women; she has gotten under his skin. Later, the police are tipped off by an informant and arrive during an attempted theft. Lodocq gets away, but his assistant Jean Louis is killed, along with a policeman. Lodocq persuades Madeleine to provide him with an alibi. Maubert knows she is lying, but cannot prove it. However, he does stop seeing her. Finally, Maubert gets the break he has been waiting for. Lodocq employs Jean Louis's brother Alfred for his next theft. Maubert gets Alfred to betray Lodocq, not out of revenge for his brother's death, but by telling him falsely that Lodocq did not give his mother Jean's fair share of the loot. Lodocq is imprisoned just as World War I breaks out. During the war, Maubert becomes a major in French counterintelligence. When the Minister of War tells him that they urgently need a list of German spies in France being kept in a safe in the German embassy in neutral Bern, Switzerland, Maubert states there is only one man for the job. Maubert is authorized to offer a pardon to Lodocq in exchange for his services. The prisoner agrees after Maubert dangles the prospect of seeing Madeleine. The theft goes off without a hitch. However,