Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

jacobs-greenwood One of director Alfred Hitchcock's weaker, early films loosely based on two of W. Somerset Maugham's Ashenden stories and a play by Campbell Dixon based on a third; Charles Bennett adapted them for the screen, Ian Hay and Jesse Lasky Jr. provided additional dialogue, and the director's wife Alma Reville also contributed.It's a mystery thriller with a romance drama angle between John Gielgud's and Madeleine Carroll's characters; Peter Lorre plays a typically unique character, a womanizing assassin. Robert Young plays a debonair American gentleman; his role is additionally against type for the actor (as is Gielgud's).Richard Ashenden is a British novelist who's just returned from World War I a hero. However, his death is reported by his country's government so that they can utilize his talents as a spy. He's to travel to Switzerland to stop a spy working for the opposition from making it into Germany. His cover includes a wife, Elsa (Carroll), and he's assigned an attache who's to do the dirty work (e.g. execute the foreign agent), the General (Lorre). In the process, they (actually, the General) accidentally kill the wrong man (Percy Marmont), a kindly old man. This so sickens Ashenden and Elsa, who'd only been looking for adventure, that they decide to quit the service and make a life together for themselves.But just as the couple's about to leave, the General informs Brodie, Ashenden's undercover name, that he's made a valuable contact (through Lilli Palmer's character) in a chocolate factory. While the two of them are chasing around those environs, flaky Elsa decides to run off with an American, Robert Marvin (Young), who'd been flirting with her.Brodie and the General discover that Marvin is the foreign spy and assume, when they Elsa boarding a train for Germany with him, that she's somehow figured it out too. They board the train as well, and the truth is revealed a short time before the train is attacked by the British, who weren't taking any chances in letting Marvin cross the border. A spectacular train crash kills the spy and his intended assassin, while Ashenden and Elsa survive to be together in the end.

TheLittleSongbird If you are a fan of Alfred Hitchcock or are a completest of his work Secret Agent is well worth a look at least once. Secret Agent is also a film that is much more than a film for completests only, it's not among the Master of Suspense's overall best- of his early pre-Rebecca films his best were The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, Sabotage and The Lodger- but it's still a good film. John Gielgud performs admirably if somewhat too reserved in the lead role, a couple of the deaths are silly and there are a couple of loose ends here and there. Hitchcock's direction however is great with some clever and fun touches, if not as inventive or experimental as it would become later. It's a polished-looking film, not audacious but it's well made and has good atmosphere and very attractive locations. The music does a good job at being jaunty and eerie when it's called for, the script has some great ironic humour with a real sense of danger and the story is engrossing and suspenseful. The standout scenes were the church, German lesson, Langen Alp and chocolate factory ones as well as the truly exciting climax. Peter Lorre's toilet-paper scene has to be seen to be believed. Madeleine Carroll is very alluring and believable and she works nicely with Gielgud, while Robert Young is smooth and quietly menacing. Peter Lorre steals the film though in a performance that is genuinely creepy as well as funny. Overall, not mind-blowing but a very good film that is worthy of more attention. Gielgud's performance will divide people- he has been better- but the direction, the many memorable scenes and Lorre are enough to make you stick with it. 8/10 Bethany Cox

drystyx This is the very sort of thriller that defines "Hitchcock", and what he can do.It's a spy thriller in which the hero must be an unwilling participant in an assassination of an enemy agent.That's the main story, which underlies the "thriller" part of the film.Even in 1936, audiences knew who the "spy" was, if only by the way the film was "billed", and the genial nature of the man we know will be the spy.We also know that the first "assassination victim" will be wrongly killed, an innocent man.Three agents are involved in the assassination. The hero and heroine are very guilt ridden, and question their ethics. The third, played by Lorre, is the ultimate assassin, a professional who has no qualms about his duty.The "assassination" scene, with the cutaways to the dog, is a landmark scene, one of the greatest directorial achievements ever. The emotion is unsurpassed in cinema, and it didn't take a huge budget. Just brilliance in directing.This is the "suspense", "wit", "drama", and "style" that Hitchcock was famous for. This was his ultimate achievement. Don't pay attention to those who lambaste it. There is still jealousy in this business, and they're lambasting is simply a cover up. This is a classic film.

TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews I have not read the novel, am I not even close to being old enough to have seen the play performed back then. Honestly, I didn't know anything about this going into it. The thing came in a box-set that was on sale, with The Lady Vanishes and Rich and Strange(that I didn't know before purchase, either). This is about as good as the former, and thus better than the latter. There is technically no scene selection on any of the three(at most, skipping ahead to the ending), so you're stuck with rewinding and fast-forwarding as if it were a VHS(ah, the good old days). The plot isn't bad, and this is genuinely exciting and tense(Alfred knew how to create suspense back then, too). It's interesting that such an early spy thriller would deal with the conscience of agents(and would do a pretty decent job at it, no less). Editing and cinematography show promise, and certainly are nice for the time. The mystery is fairly well-done. Chemistry is reasonable. The acting is satisfactory. Same goes for characters, although this has some stereotypes in that regard; Lorre is a walking parody of a foreigner, with his broken English(is NCIS' Ziva's habit of getting well-known sayings wrong inspired by that?). The traditional gender roles affect it a bit, as well. This can be over the top, but it is funny here and there; a lot of the material seems to be based on quirk. There is a little mild violence in this. I recommend this to big fans of Hitchcock and Gielgud. 7/10