Bending to a prevailing passion for spy films, G.W. Pabst made this curiosity in France--way station on his Nazi-year wanderings--well after his astounding silent successes (Pandora's Box, Diary of a Lost Girl) and fine early sound achievements (The Threepenny Opera, Kameradschaft). A sizeable budget invested in Salonique went to employ some of France's great actors, and the film proved a commercial success. Loosely based on the true story of German spy Anne Marie Lesser, Salonique, Nid d'Espions (also titled Mademoiselle Docteur) is set during World War I--first in Paris, then in Berlin, then in Salonica, where “Mademoiselle Docteur” (Dita Parlo) is sent as a liaison between Germany and her spies stationed in Greece. An intrigue ensues between characters alternately in love with and exposing one another's guises, with excellent performances by Pierre Fresnay (Grand Illusion) as a French captain, Pierre Blanchar as a Greek agent and Viviane Romance as his girlfriend. Louis Jouvet is unforgettable as a Greek grocer ever chewing on straw, whose interactions with Jean-Louis Barrault, the “melon man,” are delightfully mad parentheses in this film that otherwise beautifully, disquietingly evokes a seedy, sinister atmosphere.