Alfred Hitchcock was riding the crest of one of his early masterpieces, The Thirty Nine Steps, when he released this unusual spy thriller based on the "Ashenden" escapades by W. Somerset Maugham. Secret Agent is a very impressive film, though one inevitably experiences a mild feeling of anti-climax when Hitch isn't able to reacquire the sublime heights of his previous film. But, as we all know, it's hard to strike gold EVERY single time, so it is perhaps unfair and irrelevant to compare the two films. Secret Agent is a worthy movie in its own right, with many powerful sequences and some fascinating performances. Certain moments might seem cluttered or awkward, but the overall result is an effective and well-made film.
During World War 1, British Intelligence fakes the death of a popular novelist named Edgar Brodie (John Gielgud) and give him a new passport and identity. Posing under the name Ashenden, he is instructed to travel to Switzerland to locate and eliminate a German spy. It seems the spy in question is just about to head to Arabia to build sympathy and support for the German cause among the various Arab tribes. Ashenden's job is to stop this from happening. Joining Ashenden on his dangerous mission is a Mexican assassin known as the General (Peter Lorre) and a female spy called Elsa Carrington (Madeline Carroll) posing as Ashenden's wife. During their hunt for the enemy, Elsa finds herself pursued romantically by incorrigible American playboy Robert Marvin (Robert Young). Eventually the trio of agents think they've located their target in the shape of an elderly Englishman named Caypor (Percy Marmont). They lure him up a mountain on a climbing expedition and kill him, only to learn later that they've accidentally assassinated the wrong man. The real German spy is Marvin Elsa's charming admirer and in a desperate final chase into enemy territory they try to stop him from making his escape by train to Arabia.
The film is quite interesting in showing how Ashenden and Elsa grow to despise the dirty work they're involved in. In espionage, killing often takes place at close quarters and sometimes innocent lives are lost, or at least ruined, in the course of a day's work. While The General takes an obscene pleasure in his murderous trade, Ashenden and Elsa find it increasingly distasteful and devious. This kind of reaction is most unusual for a screen hero, and it makes the film rather different from the norm. Gielgud is OK in the lead role, but he is upstaged by the charismatic Lorre and the gorgeous Carroll. Some scenes in Secret Agent are slightly fudged, such as the chase in the chocolate factory which suffers from terribly fuzzy sound quality (it seems almost as if the sequence belongs in a silent movie). However, other scenes are tremendously powerful, especially the tense sequence in which Caypor is mistakenly killed during the climbing trip and the exciting train-set climax. Secret Agent is by no means the best film that Hitchcock made during his illustrious career, but it is proof once again that even when he was slightly off-form he was more than a match for other directors.
During World War 1, British Intelligence fakes the death of a popular novelist named Edgar Brodie (John Gielgud) and give him a new passport and identity. Posing under the name Ashenden, he is instructed to travel to Switzerland to locate and eliminate a German spy. It seems the spy in question is just about to head to Arabia to build sympathy and support for the German cause among the various Arab tribes. Ashenden's job is to stop this from happening. Joining Ashenden on his dangerous mission is a Mexican assassin known as the General (Peter Lorre) and a female spy called Elsa Carrington (Madeline Carroll) posing as Ashenden's wife. During their hunt for the enemy, Elsa finds herself pursued romantically by incorrigible American playboy Robert Marvin (Robert Young). Eventually the trio of agents think they've located their target in the shape of an elderly Englishman named Caypor (Percy Marmont). They lure him up a mountain on a climbing expedition and kill him, only to learn later that they've accidentally assassinated the wrong man. The real German spy is Marvin Elsa's charming admirer and in a desperate final chase into enemy territory they try to stop him from making his escape by train to Arabia.
The film is quite interesting in showing how Ashenden and Elsa grow to despise the dirty work they're involved in. In espionage, killing often takes place at close quarters and sometimes innocent lives are lost, or at least ruined, in the course of a day's work. While The General takes an obscene pleasure in his murderous trade, Ashenden and Elsa find it increasingly distasteful and devious. This kind of reaction is most unusual for a screen hero, and it makes the film rather different from the norm. Gielgud is OK in the lead role, but he is upstaged by the charismatic Lorre and the gorgeous Carroll. Some scenes in Secret Agent are slightly fudged, such as the chase in the chocolate factory which suffers from terribly fuzzy sound quality (it seems almost as if the sequence belongs in a silent movie). However, other scenes are tremendously powerful, especially the tense sequence in which Caypor is mistakenly killed during the climbing trip and the exciting train-set climax. Secret Agent is by no means the best film that Hitchcock made during his illustrious career, but it is proof once again that even when he was slightly off-form he was more than a match for other directors.