Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Claudio Carvalho In San Francisco, the sportsman Kay Hoog (Carl de Vogt) tells to the members of a club that he has found a message in a bottle with a map from a Harvard's professor telling about a treasure of an Inca lost civilization still alive. He decides to go to Peru to seek the gold. However, members of the secret criminal organization "The Spiders" leaded by Lio Sha (Ressel Orla) break in Kay's mansion during the night and steal the map. Kay Hoog travels to Peru, where he retrieves his map and a document about the Diamond Ship from The Spiders. Later he saves the Priestess of the Sun Naela (Lil Dagover) and brings her to San Francisco. However, The Spiders kill Naela and Kay Hoog promises revenge for the death of his love."Die Spinnen,1. Teil - Der Goldene See" is so far the weakest movie of the Master Fritz Lang that I have seen. The silly adventure is messy and pointless, with the (weak) hero going to the Inca civilization without supplies and returning engaged of their priestess that falls in love with him without any explanation. The Incas are destroyed by the criminals, and in the end I really did not like the story of this film. Anyway, Kay Hoog seems to be the source of inspiration of Indiana Jones. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "As Aranhas Parte 1 – O Lago Dourado" ("The Spiders Part 1 – The Golden Lake")

poe426 Whoever likened this one to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK certainly knew whereof he spoke. He might, as well, have likened it to some of the adventures of the pulp heroes that followed. "Kay Hoog" reminds one more than a little of both Lamont Cranston (The Shadow) and Clark Savage (Doc Savage). (The Shadow, quintessential man of mystery- and the very first "Dark Knight"- was also thought to be one Kent Allard. If one were to take Savage's first name first and add to it the Kent, you end up with- voila- Clark Kent. Funny, innit?) Like Indiana Jones, Hoog isn't above pilfering the artifacts of an ancient civilization (though his thefts are often more blatant and less "charmingly roguish" than Jones's). Unfortunately, this two-parter is a far cry from subsequent serials (from any era) in terms of overall quality. One of the first indications that something is amiss vis a vis the cinematic storytelling is a scene where desperados on horseback, quite literally breathing down his neck, simply watch as Hoog escapes their clutches in a hot air balloon. Why they don't bother to shoot down the balloon is just one of the many movie-making mysteries that plague these two films.The second half of this two-parter is even worse than the first. Granted, this was one of the first ever serials and, as such, should be cut a bit of slack- but there are limits, even, to tolerance. (At one point, the capture of the hero is effected not on screen, but in the narration itself! Talk about cutting corners...) Fritz Lang happens to be one of the greatest filmmakers to ever make films; unfortunately for those of us who admire most of what he did, THE SPIDERS is a bitter pill indeed to swallow...

Tequila-18 This film has an enormous amount of action and adventure in it. Characters are jumping from one country to the next in the matter of minutes. There is hardly a dull moment. My only problem with this film is that it seems to jump around too fast. One episode is barely finished, and boom, you're zapped to another location. If this movie had not been made in 1919, I would swear it had copied MTV's jump cut style. All in all, The Spiders, is a good introduction in the silent film adventure genre.

Athanatos A surprisingly weak film. The pacing is haphazard. The special effects are ineffectual. It's hard to believe that these pitiful sets were from the set designer for The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. The actors use guns the way that inexperienced toddlers might. And the Americans, Peruvians, and Inca all look very, very German. This film is only for the compleatist, desiring to view all of the films of Fritz Lang or of this genre. Don't come here for entertainment.