This Flash movie requires a newer version of the Flash plug-in. Please upgrade your Flash plug-in by visiting www.macromedia.com
Brief Synopsis
Romantic biography of World War I's notorious lady spy.
[+]
Read full synopsis
[x]
Close full synopsis
Synopsis
In 1917 during World War I, France deals summarily with traitors and spies. After presiding over the execution of the latest group of convicted spies, Dubois, chief of the French Spy Bureau, vows that he will someday find enough evidence to prosecute France's greatest enemy, Mata Hari, a German spy posing as a dancer. Mata, a resident of Paris, receives her assignments from a man named Andriani, who instructs the beautiful agent to use her charms to procure messages and maps detailing Russian troop movements. Soon after meeting the handsome Lieutenant Alexis Rosanoff of the Russian Imperial Air Force, a flier who was celebrated for his successful flight over German lines to bring back a secret message, Mata begins an affair with him. Mata, who initially does not know that Alexis possesses the very documents she has been ordered to steal, falls in love with him. Later, when Mata learns that Alexis is carrying the secret documents, she sleeps with him and darkens the apartment so that her fellow agents can take the papers, copy them and return them without notice. The ruthless Andriani, who believes that a spy is permitted no friends, emotions or personal life, has Carlotta, one of his spies, killed for falling in love on the job. After this, he tells Mata that she must continue her relationship with Alexis without becoming attached to him. Using a different tactic to get the evidence he needs to snare Mata, Dubois tells General Shubin, Mata's ex-lover and former accomplice, that Mata has been having an affair with Alexis, hoping that his jealous rage will result in him exposing her treachery. As predicted, Shubin angrily confronts Mata, and Mata tries to prove that she does not love Alexis by showing Shubin the secret photographs she stole from the young lieutenant. Not convinced, Shubin places a call to the embassy in order to have Mata arrested, but Mata shoots him before he can reveal her. After begging Alexis to leave and forget that he ever knew her, Mata flees from the murder scene. Fearful of what might happen to his espionage operation now that Mata has murdered Shubin, Andriani tells her that her Paris assignment is over and that she must now go to Amsterdam to avoid harm. Before Mata leaves, however, Andriani informs her that Alexis has been injured in an airplane crash and has been hospitalized. When Andriani forbids her to visit Alexis, Mata resigns from the spy ring and goes to her lover. At his bedside, Mata promises the blinded Alexis that she will never leave him again. As soon as Mata leaves the hospital, though, she is arrested by Dubois and put on trial for murder and espionage. In order to prevent Alexis from ever knowing about her crimes, Mata pleads guilty before the prosecution can call him to the witness stand. Though Mata's execution has been set, she anxiously waits for a reprieve. The reprieve never comes, and just prior to her execution, Alexis, having been told that she is in a sanitarium awaiting an operation, visits her and is fooled into thinking that the prison is a hospital. Mata asks Alexis to promise not to grieve too much if her operation fails and she dies, and she is then led outdoors, where the firing squad is prepared to execute her.
Jay Higgins
Mata Hari (1931)
A bit hokey and melodramatic. The presence of Greta Garbo is very welcome, she makes the film. Very nicely photographed. ...
More>>
TCM UK
| 
TCM Spain
| 
TCM France
| TCM Latin America
| TCM Asia
| TCM Germany
Tcm.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network.
