User reviews

I highly recommend this film! It's like a cross between early Hitchcock and "The Blue Angel." This is Hanka "Ordonka" Ordonowna's great film role, and she is stunning. She plays Rita, a cabaret singer and seductive spy (in the vein of Garbo in "Mata Hari" and Dietrich in "Dishonored") and is your typical scene-stealer. Her songs "Love Can Take Everything" (her signature piece) and "At the First Sign" are excellent. You will be amazed at this woman's voice! Not to mention her beauty. A Polish version of Jean Harlow or Marlene Dietrich! As the story goes, Rita uses her talent and charm to seduce a handsome pilot who works for an important scientist. She steals information about his top secret machine, but herself falls deeply in love and unhappy being a spy. The pilot and the scientist suspect her, but feel she is a pawn of her boss. Much romance, action, and drama fill the picture. Plus very pretty Art Deco costumes and sets. Ordonka is the main reason to watch this film. Her own life was even more dramatic. In the 1930's she was the most popular singer and actress in Poland and nearby countries, rivaling Edith Piaf. She had a torrid love life (documented in the bio-pic of her, "Love Can Take Everything") and was doomed with tuberculosis. After a successful tour of Europe, she was about to try her hand at Hollywood, but then history stepped in. After Hitler invaded her hometown of Warsaw, she retired except for concerts for Polish troops and other Allies. While her husband became a soldier, she joined the Polish Underground with whom she rescued and cared for war orphans and Jewish children. Helping many escape the country, she was eventually arrested by the Nazis. After the war, she went to Lebanon for her health, but died anyway at only 47, Poland's greatest heroine of WWII. This film will be difficult to find outside of Poland, but Polart (a Polish import seller here in the USA) sells it via catalog and website. Well worth it to fans of classic &/or foreign films. If you're a fan of Dietrich, etc. you will enjoy "Spieg w masce."