Secret Agent

... itself based on W. Somerset Maugham's novel Ashenden. In 1916, British Army officer Edgar Brodie (John Gielgud) is conscripted into the intelligence bureau. He's given the name "Ashenden" and assigned to assassinate an unknown enemy agent. Ashenden is given a "wife" (Madeleine Carroll) as part of his cover, as well as the assistance of an oddball professional killer known as "the General" (Peter Lorre). While Ashenden and the General hunt for the enemy agent's identity, the "wife" makes time with American playboy Robert Marvin (Robert Young). With Percy Marmont, Florence Kahn, Charles Carson, and Lilli Palmer.

It's interesting to see Gielgud in a leading role, although it's quickly evident why it didn't happen more often. He lacks any romantic chemistry with Carroll, and he frequently seems bored by the proceedings. Carroll and Young both do well with under-thought characters, but Lorre easily steals the picture as the strange assassin with a morbid sense of humor and indeterminate ethnicity.

Despite the abject absurdity of Hitchcock's "Secret Agent", I adored it.

The film starts off as a farcical story following John Gielgud and Madeline Carroll - two novice British spies - hunting down a German agent with the help of a more experienced man - "The General" - a Mexican hilariously played by Peter Lorre. With these principal players, it should be no surprise that the performances are top-notch. However, given the fact that Lorre was, at the time, at one of the lowest points in his tumultuous but brilliant career, it is possible that his over-the-top and uncharacteristically comedic performance at least began unintentionally (and was exploited by the great director as a last-ditch effort to complete the film successfully).

The story is based rather loosely on a Somerset Maugham story translated for theater by Campbell Dixon then adapted by Hitchcock favorite Charles Bennett. Quite a bit, as you can well imagine, changes as a result of the translations from medium to medium.

The drama turns on a developing romance between Gielgud and Carroll's characters - and the burgeoning consciences which accompany it. Will they be able to carry out their patriotic duty if and when they finally track down their opponent, or will they fail? Furthermore, what will the zealous and perhaps a little psychotic General do if his co-conspirators drop out of the spy business at the last instant? Typical Hitchcock plot devices (i.e. trains, quirky romantic relationships, European ethnic stereotypes) make cameo appearances at appropriate points in the story, and enhance the experience for Hitchcock aficionados.

The script and general story-line is not one of the best Hitchcock would have access to throughout his career, but it is quite rich compared to some of the plots he worked with earlier in his career, and the director develops the comedy, suspense, and human drama economically and affectively, if not fully. The camera-work is, of course, good, but not nearly as experimental or interesting as many of Hitchcock's earlier and later films. This is generally true of most of Hitchcock's excellent efforts for Gaumont British Pictures of America during the 1930s (I.e. Sabotage, 39 Steps, etc) - very British films made with American/British casts and production for an international audience.

Though less suspenseful than many of Hitchcock's contemporaneous efforts, Secret Agent remains a good and entertaining example of Hitchcock in the 1930s.

This, in my opinion, is one of the master's best early films, so good, in fact, that it begs for repeat viewing. That is the only way I know to absorb the subtle verbal repartees (observe the fascinating expressions and body language of Madeleine Carroll as she repeatedly defends herself from the blandishments of the affable American played by Robert Young); the hilarious malapropisms and convoluted syntax courtesy of the unpredictably eccentric Peter Lorre (there is good reason to believe this was unfeigned because Mr. Lorre, a Hungarian by birth who had achieved a well-deserved reputation as a chilling screen presence in German cinema before leaving for England following the National Socialist take-over, had not yet mastered the nuances of the English language); the classic understatement by that most aristocratic of all British actors, John Gielgud; and for those of us who never tire gazing at the incomparably beautiful Madeleine (Elsa) Carroll, the camera angles finally do justice to her divinely-wrought features (she also delivers her usual elegantly controlled performance). And, of course, there is all of the excitement and suspense one comes to expect from the great Alfred Hitchcock... Needless to say, I highly recommend this film.

The series of espionage thrillers produced at British Gaumont Pictures in the mid-to-late 1930s, scripted by Charles Bennet and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, have a consistent quality to them. They don't repeat characters or plot elements, but they all follow a similar winning formula – not merely that of Hitchcockian suspense (of which there isn't really that much in Secret Agent), but of the notion that scrambling all over Europe bumping off spies and leaping off trains, constantly in fear of your own life, can be made to look rather good fun.

First we have the cast and characterisation. A relatively young John Gielgud takes the lead and, although the director reportedly didn't like his performance, he does here epitomise the classic British hero. Laid back, unassuming, with an air of effortlessness, he is in some ways reminiscent of a certain other fictional British spy popularised in the latter half of the twentieth century, although Gielgud's Ashendon is far more human than the somewhat mechanical Mr Bond. Paired with a bubbly and very believable Madeleine Carroll, and supported by bluff gentleman Percy Marmont, chirpy yank Robert Young and crazy generic foreigner Peter Lorre, the overall feel is like one of those "Brits on holiday" comedies. The only difference is, occasionally people kill each other or send out coded telegrams.

Then there is the Charles Bennet screenplay. Bennet was, after Elliot Stannard in the silent days, the second writer to really work well with The Master of Suspense™. Like Hitch, Bennet loves double meanings and secret knowledge. Take the scene where Gielgud arrives at the hotel finds out from the clerk that his new persona has a wife. He asks the clerk "Did she look well?" meaning of course "Is she attractive?" It is of course a little joke with no bearing on the plot, but it's moments like this that keep us engaging with the material and root us in the world of spying and bluffing. He also brings characters in with memorable bits of business to give us strong and meaningful impressions of them – for example Peter Lorre chasing a woman up the stairs or Percy Marmont being introduced when Gielgud trips over his dog.

And then there is the director, who is let's face it the only reason anyone pays attention to what would otherwise be obscure English films in the first place. Hitchcock has simplified and streamlined his technique, which a few years earlier had been little more than a needlessly showy display of camera tricks. He's still not subtle – he never would be – but at least he is now tasteful. We see here his regular method by which the camera leads the audience by the hand, dollying in on an object or throwing a close-up at us as if to shout "Look at this!" What's good about it is that it allows Hitchcock to move the audience at any rate he wants. At the end of the first scene there is a dolly in on a portrait of a soldier. No-one is looking at or gesturing at it, but Hitch forces us to take notice. Later, when Gielgud walks into his hotel room and finds both Carroll and Young inside, there is a quick montage of close-ups as he checks he has the right number, and we essentially ride with his thought process for a few seconds.

Secret Agent is by no means as good as The 39 Steps or The Lady Vanishes, not really having any major build-ups of suspense or danger. However, it does gently pull us along for a well-paced and slightly irreverent ride, and is ultimately watchable because it has very few bad bits. It is a good example what Hitchcock and co. were creating at Gaumont – pictures which were undemanding on the attention because they were smooth, unpretentious and yet continually gave us something to tickle the brain.

One of the more ignored early Hitchcock thrillers, and unjustly so. In 1916 Switzerland, Bookworm John Gielguld, Beautiful Maddeline Carroll and and Pesky, over sexed Peter Lorre are three very unlikely enlisted civilians made to assassinate an unknown foreign agent. One right after another fall superb Hitichcock scenes, high on visuals, in no need of dialog. Such scenes include Gielguld and Lorre discovering a murdered agent in a noisy Swiss church, an assassination seen through a telescope while the victim's dog howls mournfully, a chase through a chocolate factory. What hurts the film is Lorre's shameless overacting, and the too neat ending. It's as if Hitchcock decided "This is beginning to ramble, let's have an explosion here." Don't be put off by co-star Robert Young's comic relief, there's a reason for it. I could picture a 1950's remake, in Vistavision in color with Cary Grant, Grace Kelly and a more restrained Peter Lorre.