- After three British Agents are assigned to assassinate a mysterious German spy during World War I, two of them become ambivalent when their duty to the mission conflicts with their consciences.
- World War 1. Novelist Edgar Brodie is shocked to discover that, according to the newspapers, he has died. This turns out to be a cover for a clandestine operation British Intelligence has for him. As Richard Ashenden he is to go to Switzerland to track down and eliminate a German agent who is undermining British operations in the Middle East. When he gets to his Swiss hotel he discovers that there's a Mrs Ashenden and she's in his room.—grantss
- 1916. On leave from military service on the continent, famed British novelist Edgar Brodie, without any previous notification or warning, returns to England to discover in the news that he has been declared dead. The reason is that the British Secret Service wants to recruit him for a special undercover assignment under the assumed name Richard Ashenden. That assignment: to locate an unknown German spy thought to be in Switzerland, he who is making plans to travel to the Middle East via Constantinople to aid the enemy forces in battle. "Ashenden" is to do whatever required to prevent the spy from boarding any such train. He is given some assistants, one a womanizing man nicknamed the Hairless Mexican or the General for being the farthest thing from either of those two things as possible, he assigned to kill the spy. The other, who Ashenden does not discover until he checks into his hotel in Switzerland, is a young woman, Elsa Carrington, who is to masquerade as his wife. Despite Elsa being "married", she is being wooed by an American tourist, Robert Marvin, his pursuit of her which she and Ashenden see as harmless fun. Not a trained agent herself, Elsa has embarked on this assignment to add a little excitement into her life. But things change, especially for Ashenden and particularly Elsa, when murder becomes reality, which threatens them being able to carry out the assignment and which may still jeopardize their own lives.—Huggo
- During the first world war, novelist Edgar Brodie is sent to Switzerland by the Intelligence Service. He has to kill a German agent. During the mission he meets a fake general first and then Elsa Carrington who helps him in his duty.—Claudio Sandrini <pulp99@geocities.com>
- Novelist-turned-soldier Edgar Brodie is recruited by British intelligence during World War I to ferret out a mysterious German spy and eliminate him. Brodie is given a new identity by his "handler," R, and teamed with two professional agents, an amoral, but amusingly deadly assassin known as The General and Elsa Carrington, a beautiful blonde who will pose as his wife and cover for his new identity. After they mistakenly target an innocent old man as the operative and The General cold-bloodily murders him, both Edgar and Elsa question the morality of the mission, especially when The General only finds amusement in the blunder. When they eventually discover the spy's true identity, Elsa is determined to stop her two fellow agents from fulfilling the mission.—Gabe Taverney (duke1029@aol.com)
- It is 1916 after the beginning of the First World War, in London. A somber group is filing past a casket surrounded by candles. The butler sees everyone out, locks the door, then takes down the casket, which is empty. Next we are at a British intelligence office in the middle of an air raid, and an officer in uniform comes in, holding a newspaper that seems to announce his own death. The officer, a writer by profession, (John Gielgud), is given false passports with the name Ashenden, introduced to an assistant (Peter Lorre) who goes by the nickname General, and told to proceed in disguise to Switzerland, Hotel Excelsior, and await further instructions. The instructions are to identify a German undercover agent who is at the hotel and about to leave Switzerland for Istanbul, then to prevent the German agent from reaching his destination by any means necessary. In Switzerland we see an old man buy a bar of chocolate, open it, and read a hidden message that a British spy is expected to arrive at the hotel Excelsior. Ashenden checks into the hotel and learns that Mrs. Ashenden (Madeleine Carroll) had arrived the day before. He goes to the rooms reserved for the couple and finds Mrs. Ashenden in conversation with an American, Mr. Marvin (Robert Young), who has been insinuating himself to her. The fake Ashenden couple have their initial conversations to get acquainted, and the General comes in also. Ashenden and the General go to the church to meet the organist, a supposed double agent, to get more information, but they find the organist dead at the organ, with a special type of button in his fist. Back at the hotel they strike up a conversation with a British tourist, they all go to the casino together, and are surprised when the torn button appears to come from the British tourist's coat sleeve, supposedly identifying the tourist as the killer of the organist. The group, including Marvin, have dinner at the same table, and meet the wife of the tourist, who is German and says this trip is the first time she has ever been out of Germany. Ashenden and the General make bets about which of them is a better mountain hiker. They convince the British tourist to go up a nearby mountain the next day, where they plan to murder him. Ashenden has misgivings in participating in a murder, and tries to turn back from the climb, but the General continues up the mountain and pushes the tourist off a cliff. Back at the hotel they receive word that they have identified the wrong man and thus murdered an innocent Briton. This causes consternation and conflict between the Ashendens, he taking the view that he was on an assignment in wartime, she that the murder of an innocent is too high a price to pay even in wartime. This moral conflict is a continuing source of much anguish for both of them, who are otherwise much attracted to each other.
Meantime, the General has snooped around and found that the chocolate factory is a center for spy messages, and talks Ashenden into going there to try to get more information from the boyfriend of one of the hotel maids, who has a job at the factory. Mrs. Ashenden decides she wants to resign from her spying assignment and separate herself from her fake husband, and, having no special place to go, she decides to go with Marvin on the next leg of his train trip. At the chocolate factory Ashenden and the General are fingered as British spies and the police is called. They stage an emergency and pull a fire alarm to create chaos, and succeed in evading the police and returning to the hotel, where they find Mrs. Ashenden gone (accompanying Marvin) and also get a coded telegram that identifies Marvin as the agent. They manage to get to the train station, warn Mrs. Ashenden that Marvin is their target, and she agrees to resume her spy duties by pretending to be romantically interested in Marvin. They get on a train that eventually crosses into neutral territory and then into another country at war against Britain. As they confront Marvin in a compartment and he admits being a German agent, British planes attack the train, producing a train wreck. Marvin is mortally wounded, the General is shot dead, and Mr. and Mrs. Ashenden, now in love with each other, are able to return to England without having had to physically murder anyone. A brief epilogue follows, showing the triumph of British forces in the Eastern (Turkish) front.
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