Secret Agent (1936) Film Review

Secret Agent (1936) Director: Alfred Hitchcock

“We aren’t hunting a fox, we’re hunting a man.”

An espionage thriller-comedy set during World War I, Secret Agent was Hitchcock’s immediate follow-up to his seminal picture, The 39 Steps. The script for Secret Agent was based on two stories by Somerset Maugham (“The Traitor” and “The Hairless Mexican”) –Maugham was himself once worked as a secret agent and his stories unsurprisingly served as a source of inspiration for Ian Fleming. And despite bearing a title similar to Joseph Conrad’s famous novel entitled “The Secret Agent“, Hitchcock’s Secret Agent shares little in common with Conrad’s book (Hitchcock would actually later borrow from Conrad’s novel for his 1936 film Sabotage). Today, Hitchcock’s Secret Agent typically ranks among his better British Gaumont films. It features Hitchcock’s classic motif –an ordinary man accidentally caught up in an extraordinary situation (see Blackmail, The 39 Steps, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Notorious, Rear Window, North by Northwest and so on).

May 10, 1916
84 Curzon St. W.

British stage actor John Gielgud stars in Secret Agent as the austere Edgar Brodie, a British novelist and Captain in the Army whose death has been mysteriously staged –he is shocked to return home only to discover that his obituary has been published in the paper! A confused Brodie is then confronted by a mysterious man known only as “R” who sends him on a dangerous mission, under the alias of Richard Ashenden, to locate and murder an elusive German spy who is currently en route to Arabia via Constantinople. Ashenden is given an assistant on this mission –a quirky, flamboyant philanderer known as “The General” or “The Hairless Mexican” or even “General Pompeliu Moctezuma de la Bella del Conde y de Lonbus” (Peter Lorre). Upon arrival in Switzerland at the Excelsior Hotel, Ashenden finds he also has been given a “wife” who is waiting for him in his room. Her name is Elsa Carrington (Madeleine Carroll). She has apparently also been dispatched by “R” for the mission, however she is also being amusingly pursued by charmingly aloof character named Robert Marvin (Robert Young).

In Switzerland, the trio meets a suspicious man with a dachshund whom we are led to believe is the German spy, however, despite a staged mountaintop murder, the true spy is later revealed to be someone entirely different. The mystery leads them on a tour through various landmarks in Switzerland, from vast lakes and green hills, to an old church (where the organist is found to have been strangled over his keys) as well as a busy chocolate factory –but spoiler alert, and one which is fairly predictable– in the end, the enemy agent turns out to be none other than Marvin. In this case, the villain is hiding in plain sight as a kindly, good-natured character –the person we least suspect. Secret Agent ends in a classic confrontation aboard a moving train while the trio of protagonists argue over the ethics of murdering Marvin, when suddenly an aerial strike from the Royal Flying Corps arrives and attacks the train leading to a crash, and after “The General” is foolishly shot, only Ashenden and Elsa remain alive (they have fallen in love on this adventure together).   

An all-around delightful Hitchcock film, Secret Agent admittedly does drag a bit in the middle with a few wandering scenes as Ashenden evidently does not even relish his own mission. However, the film does present wonderful flashes of early spy movies. In fact, it is uncanny how much Secret Agent sets the mold for James Bond, even before Ian Fleming began writing his novels, right down to the “R” and “M” comparisons. In many respects, Hitchcock invented both the modern spy genre as well as the modern horror genres. Unfortunately, Hitchcock never really seemed to hold Secret Agent in particularly high regard. In his famous 1962 interview with Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock confessed that Secret Agent “did not succeed” because the audience is not granted permission to root for the film’s protagonist, since Ashenden himself does not either. Hitchcock would later correct this deficiency in his future films (for reference see Hitchcock’s films starring Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant). Nevertheless, as with all Hitchcock films, a signature touch and remarkable prescience makes Secret Agent a highly memorable outing. And this was actually the second of two British films he made with Peter Lorre, following The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), though in Secret Agent Lorre’s ostentatious performance certainly stands out as an outrageously funny role for this legend of the silver screen –he spends the film prancing around like a bisexual pirate, one minute breaking furniture in a tempestuous flurry of anger, the next chasing after young lovers while pronouncing his absurdly long name. Lorre officially left England after filming Secret Agent (he had already filmed two American movies) and then headed for Hollywood. Hitchcock would soon to join him in a few short years.

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Credits:

• Director: Alfred Hitchcock
• Screenplay by: Charles Bennett, Alma Reville, Ian Hay, and Jesse Lasky Jr.
• Based on: W. Somerset Maugham (story) and Campbell Dixon (play)
• Produced by: Michael Balcon and Ivor Montagu
• Starring:
  • Madeleine Carroll…..Elsa Carrington/Mrs. Ashenden
  • Peter Lorre…..The General
  • John Gielgud…..Captain Edgar Brodie/Richard Ashenden
  • Robert Young…..Robert Marvin
• Cinematography: Bernard Knowles
• Edited by: Charles Frend
• Music by: John Greenwood and Louis Levy (director)
• Production Company: British International Pictures
• Distribution Company: British International Pictures

Other Notes:

• Secret Agent was one of the few Alfred Hitchcock films wherein he did not have a cameo.