Spione (English title: Spies, under which title it was released in the United States) is a 1928 German silent espionage thriller directed by Fritz Lang and co-written with his wife, Thea von Harbou, who also wrote a novel of the same name, published a year later. The film was Lang's penultimate silent film and the first for his own production company; Fritz Lang-film GmbH. As in Lang's Mabuse films, such as Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler (1922) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), Rudolf Klein-Rogge plays a master criminal aiming for world domination. Spione was restored to something short of its original length by the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation during 2003 and '04. No original negatives survive but a high quality nitrate copy is held at the National Film Archive in Prague. Plot Germany, 1927: Beautiful Russian spy Sonja Baranikowa seduces Colonel Jellusič into betraying his country (an unnamed eastern European one) for her employer, Haghi, a seemingly respectable bank director who is actually the diabolical mastermind of a powerful crime organization. Jason, head of the German Secret Service, gives the task of bringing the mysterious Haghi down to a handsome young agent known only as Number 326, who believes his identity is a secret. Haghi, however, is well aware of him and assigns Sonja to worm her way into 326's confidence; Sonja convinces him that she has just shot a man for trying to rape her. He hides her from the police. Haghi does not anticipate that the couple will fall in love. Unwilling to betray 326, Sonja quietly slips away after they spend the afternoon and evening together. He trails her to Jellusič, whom he mistakes for her lover (she is actually paying him off). Haghi suspects Sonja's feelings for 326 and when she refuses to act against him, Haghi confines her to a room in his secret headquarters. Haghi seeks to steal a secret Japanese-British peace treaty, which will prevent "war in the East" unless it is exposed, before it reaches Tokyo. He blackmails Lady Leslane, an opium addict, into betraying what her husband knows of the negotiations. Akira Matsumoto, the Japanese head of security responsible for the treaty's safekeeping, crosses paths with 326. When 326 seeks out Sonja, he finds her apartment stripped bare; Matsumoto finds him drowning his sorrows in a bar and informs him that he would have arrested the woman as a spy.