The technical virtuosity of being without dialogues, in this particular case quite damages, rather than working in favour of the film. I say "in that particular case" because we know many examples of movies - in the silent film era - , that, apart from being, of course, without sound (except for the live music in the movie theatres), are also without intertitles: let's think of the German Kammerspielfilm style, and its best directors, like Lupu Pick, just to name one. And those films where, generally speaking, a lot better than The Thief.
Here we sense a sort of discordance between the plot chosen and the "mute" realization, as the two things couldn't go together. The consequences are far-reaching. First of all, the plot itself looks quite over-simplified, and you cannot say what the film is meant to say without constant repetition: a good first half of the film depicts two or three times the same chain of events, which is quite boring, considering that some lines of dialogue could have made the situation clear (he - professor Allan Fields - is a spy for a foreign country - curiously enough, Egypt!? -, that's all) without slowing down the pace. Another glitch deriving by the lack of dialogue, and recurring repeatedly, is the quite annoying ring of his telephone, and he never answering: the call is from a spectacled man that asks him (maybe blackmails him) to photograph secret documents and give them to him. How come that Professor Fields never answers but nonetheless meets regularly the spectacled man and obeys him?
Other weak points of the story are maybe not related with the lack of dialogue, and contribute to make the outline of the plot sometimes quite unclear and contradictory. He gets a telegram requiring an urgent payment, lacking which he will be sued. Is it from the spectacled man? (Why is he called, in many reviews, including IMDb, Mr. Bleek, if no one speaks his name in the movie?). So the spectacled man is really blackmailing him? But at the same time someone provides Allan Fields with a false passport with which he can live the country. But who provides the passport? Could only be Mr. Bleek, but in that case, who blackmails Allan? No answers.
The scenes in the New York apartment, with the beautiful girl, are unrelated to the plot, and those on top of the Empire State Building are quite confusing: a character (the woman of the spy-organization) mysteriously disappears all of a sudden, and another (the FBI man), after having being absent for a long time, likewise mysteriously reappears. At the end Allan gives himself up, and we have been knowing that since the professor's staying at the bottom of the stairs leading to the Egypt-bound ship...
Here we sense a sort of discordance between the plot chosen and the "mute" realization, as the two things couldn't go together. The consequences are far-reaching. First of all, the plot itself looks quite over-simplified, and you cannot say what the film is meant to say without constant repetition: a good first half of the film depicts two or three times the same chain of events, which is quite boring, considering that some lines of dialogue could have made the situation clear (he - professor Allan Fields - is a spy for a foreign country - curiously enough, Egypt!? -, that's all) without slowing down the pace. Another glitch deriving by the lack of dialogue, and recurring repeatedly, is the quite annoying ring of his telephone, and he never answering: the call is from a spectacled man that asks him (maybe blackmails him) to photograph secret documents and give them to him. How come that Professor Fields never answers but nonetheless meets regularly the spectacled man and obeys him?
Other weak points of the story are maybe not related with the lack of dialogue, and contribute to make the outline of the plot sometimes quite unclear and contradictory. He gets a telegram requiring an urgent payment, lacking which he will be sued. Is it from the spectacled man? (Why is he called, in many reviews, including IMDb, Mr. Bleek, if no one speaks his name in the movie?). So the spectacled man is really blackmailing him? But at the same time someone provides Allan Fields with a false passport with which he can live the country. But who provides the passport? Could only be Mr. Bleek, but in that case, who blackmails Allan? No answers.
The scenes in the New York apartment, with the beautiful girl, are unrelated to the plot, and those on top of the Empire State Building are quite confusing: a character (the woman of the spy-organization) mysteriously disappears all of a sudden, and another (the FBI man), after having being absent for a long time, likewise mysteriously reappears. At the end Allan gives himself up, and we have been knowing that since the professor's staying at the bottom of the stairs leading to the Egypt-bound ship...