The year 1917. Helene Von Lorbeer, a British secret agent infiltrating German intelligence & posing as one of their spies, is given the task of supporting one of their top agents, the shadowy Franz Steindler, who is working in British territory. Steindler has been responsible for the death of a British spy & has been highly successful in spilling British military secrets to the Germans. Going under the name of Frances Hautry, Helene arrives in Britain as a French refugee from German territory. Settling into the household of Arthur Bennett, a lawyer working with the British war cabinet, Hautry is contacted by Bennett's butler Valdar, who is actually a German agent posing as a British spy, although what nobody in the house knows is actually Steindler himself. Valdar & Hautry team up to attempt to assassinate the entire British cabinet but the local police, under the command of Colonel Yeats, are closing in on them fast.British Intelligence (known in some places as Enemy Agent) is a British wartime spy thriller made in 1940 – in the midst of World War II – but actually set in World War I. It is a remake of a 1930 film, which in turn was based on a play named Three Faces East.Not much of a fan of WWII-era spy thrillers, I was expecting this to be an average affair. But the film surprised me. It is taut, very suspenseful & had more twists than a bag of pretzels. The film is also filled with good acting, particularly from Boris Karloff, who plays a triple agent working for the Germans. The film might have been set in WWI but there are tell-tale signs of its era – at the end Leonard Mudie delivers a monologue claiming to hate war but saying that it is necessary in case any tyrant arises who threatens world peace – a clear reference to Nazi Germany & its evil tyrant Hitler.The film is quite unusual in that its pace is quite fast for a spy thriller – at little over an hour long it doesn't overstay its welcome & the climax with Karloff caught & trying to escape, only to become a victim of his own side's Zeppelin bombs, is exciting enough to make this a good example of the 1940s wartime spy thrillers. It might not be a masterpiece but it is definitely better than something like Submarine Alert, which came out around the same time.

"British Intelligence" from 1940 is a quick film starring Boris Karloff, Margaret Lindsay, Holmes Herbert, and Bruce Lester.Though it's supposed to take place in World War I, it's really a World War II film about espionage, spies of unknown loyalty, and the German urge to take over the world which surfaces from time to time.Lindsay and Karloff both play secret agents placed in the home of a Mr. Bennett, a British official who has campaign secrets and troop placements worth investigating. Spies are everywhere, and everyone seems to be looking for a German spy named Stedler. And we're not sure what side anyone is on.Very entertaining. A combination of spy and mystery story, two of my favorite genres.

As one spy to another, Boris Karloff offers some advice: "The only way to be someone you are not is to be that person always, even in the presence of friends." This is a picture that keeps us guessing—just who is each person? It's a clever and very entertaining wartime thriller in which no one's identity is clear.Set in 1917, the action is presented as directly relevant to the current events of 1940; more than one speech steps aside from the actual plot and appeals to an audience who would know exactly what was meant by references to future wars and to future lunatics who would again want to take over the world. The film's final speaker actually turns straight on to the camera for his inspirational closing sentences—the kind of exhortation that was frequent in WWII era films, that we rarely if ever see in pictures from any other era, and that can be strangely stirring even at this great distance.Boris Karloff and Margaret Lindsay are both excellent, especially in their scenes together: their eyes are wonderfully expressive as they watch each other, play their roles, calculate loyalties and next moves.Favorite moment: the late scene at the center of which Karloff purrs, "Excellent. But I'm afraid it won't quite do." Definitely a spy vs. spy quickie worth watching.

This World War II flag waver with obligatory references to the World War II situation which was wholly unlike what brought us to World War twenty five or so years earlier, concerns British Intelligence and their effort to trap a master spy. Given who's in the cast you kind of know what the result will be in the end.Margaret Lindsay is a German agent, planted in the home of a cabinet minister during World War I with one objective, make contact with the guy who's the chief German spy in Great Britain. Her immediate contact is Boris Karloff who is a French refugee employed by the minister, Holmes Herbert as a butler.The one thing that comes through in this film is that our friends across the pond want this guy bad. They're willing to let all kinds of information go which result in the sinking of ships, losses of factories, men on the western front, all that to make sure their cover is not blown. Of course it all works out in the end.With casting that's not so obvious and with elimination of all the flag waving which is overblown because it is attributing things to Wilhelmine Germany that are true for Nazi Germany, it could have been a much better film.