Spiders, Part 2 (1920)

Kay Hoog learns the secrets of the Buddha-head diamond

Directed by Fritz Lang
Starring Carl de Vogt, Ressel Orla, Georg John
Produced by Decla-Bioscop AG

Remember the moment early in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where Indy awakens on his plane to find the pilots have bailed out and left no parachutes.  Inspired by his desperation, our hero grabs his two reluctant traveling companions and leaps from the plane in an inflatable raft.

Now imagine that Dr. Jones' plan the entire time was to take a plane to a remote Asian jungle and leap from it in nothing but a life raft.  Imagine it was not borne out of necessity and survival instinct, but instead was always the preferred way of leaping from the plane.

You have just gained an understanding of the awesomeness of Kay Hoog.

Early in Spiders, Part 2, Hoog accompanies the police on a raid of the house where his arch-nemesis Lio Sha is hiding out.  Hoog elects to take a biplane and leap from the aircraft onto the roof of the house.  Without a parachute.  He does this not out of desperation or necessity.  He leaps from a low flying airplane because IT'S HIS PLAN!  He does it because he's Kay Hoog and if he has the opportunity to jump out of a plane, he's taking it.  He does it because it is the coolest way to go in.

Spiders, Part 2 is the follow up to the appropriately titled Spiders, Part 1.  The previous chapter found Lio Sha expressing her love for Hoog and him telling her to pound sand.  He was in love with the Incan princess he had just rescued.  Sha responds by killing said royalty.  Now Hoog is out for revenge.

He gets his opportunity as both Hoog and Sha's shadowy Spiders are after the Buddha-head Diamond.  Legend tells that the diamond can restore power throughout Asia to... it doesn't matter really.  The jewel is a MacGuffin to get our players moving.

After raiding Sha's house (she escapes), Hoog discovers her plan and traces the Spiders to an opium den in a secret Chinese city under San Francisco.  He pretends to smoke the wacky tobacky and pass out, but is pretty quickly captured anyway.  The Spiders trap him in a chamber that fills with water.  He escapes.  How?  Well... The movie is never clear on that.

The walls are closing in on our hero.

Hoog does however stow away in a crate aboard Sha's ship The Storm Bird.  His crate has a well-appointed library with a reading light and ninja gear.  He may as well be sitting in his study at home.  He sneaks out of the crate in his ninja garb to intercept messages between the Spiders.

Ultimately, the search for the diamond leads them to a London diamond magnate and his daughter Ellen.  You immediately know Ellen is destined to fall for Hoog.  You also know she's got to be kidnapped by the Spiders.

Hoog is now on a mission to retrieve the diamond AND save Ellen.  It's a race to the Falklands with our hero one step ahead of the villains.

Fritz Lang is still clearly developing as a director.  There are parts of this film that are incomprehensible.  The pieces are there but the transitions could be clearer.  At times, the story seems to meander listlessly.  Still, it has an energy and story unlike anything I've seen in the 1910s.

My two regrets about Spiders are that a) Lang never made the third and fourth chapters, and b) Hollywood has never revisited this material.  There are some fun ideas here.  Secret cities guarded by tigers under San Francisco.  Wifi across the ocean 100 years ago.  Booby-trapped evil lairs where the walls threaten to crush you (see the trash compactor scene in Star Wars).

If you are looking for a fun, throw-back, popcorn flick, it is hard to go wrong with the Spiders series.  Because Kay Hoog is the originial Dr. Jones.

**** out of *****

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly

Photo from Silent Volume