Secret Agent **** (1936, John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, Robert Young) – Classic Movie Review 385

In 1936 Alfred Hitchcock shrewdly casts the youthful, dashing matinée idol John Gielgud as W Somerset Maugham’s reluctant English espionage hero Richard Ashenden in his 1936 thriller Secret Agent. During the First World War, the British Intelligence Service sends Ashenden on a mission from London over to Switzerland. But, once there, he accidentally kills an innocent tourist instead of assassinating the German enemy spy agent he is supposed to be targeting.

During the mission, he memorably meets two characters who make the movie – a fake general (Peter Lorre) and then the lovely femme fatale Elsa Carrington (Madeleine Carroll), who eventually helps him to carry out his task.

The witty, inventive script and lively, effective cast give Hitchcock’s smooth, clever and entertaining film a lot of quirky appeal. Gielgud brings a silky, menacing edge to his offbeat hero role, Robert Young is a fine, slick bad guy as Robert Marvin, and Madeleine Carroll is sensational as a perfect blonde temptress, Elsa Carrington.

But the real acting triumph comes from the plump and purring Peter Lorre, who effortlessly steals all his scenes as Ashenden’s deranged accomplice, The General, even from arch screen-hogger Gielgud himself, so all the acting laurels went to Lorre. Maybe this is why Gielgud and Lorre disliked each other during filming. Also Hitchcock’s insensitivity to actors made Gielgud nervous and, when the film came out, some critics suggested he was struggling with a one-dimensional role, increasing stage star Gielgud’s distaste for filming. It was his last pre-war film.

John Gielgud in a publicity photograph for Secret Agent (1936).

Percy Marmont as Caypor, Lilli Palmer as Lilli, Florence Kahn as Mrs Caypor, Charles Carson as “R”, Michel Saint-Denis as Coachman (uncredited), Michael Redgrave (uncredited) as Army Officer, Tom Helmore as Colonel Anderson (uncredited), Andreas Malandrinos as Manager (uncredited), Rene Ray as Maid (uncredited), Howard Marion-Crawford (uncredited) as Karl and Michael Rennie (uncredited) as Army Captain are also in the fine cast.

It features uncredited appearances by Michael Redgrave, future star of Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Michael Rennie in his film debut.

Some ugly back projections and tatty-looking sets are disappointingly careless work from Hitchcock, but he is at full throttle with beautifully realised, deliciously tense classic sequences in a church and a chocolate factory, while taking evident joy in high-spiritedly playing with all the daft old clichés about Switzerland and the Swiss.

Hitchcock’s collaborators Charles Bennett and his own wife Alma Reville (continuity) based the screenplay on two of W Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden short stories (Triton, The Hairless Mexican) and Campbell Dixon’s play from the series. Confusingly, Hitch then went on to film Joseph Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent, which he of course then had to find a new title for – Sabotage (also 1936).

It is shot at Gainsborough Studios, Shepherd’s Bush, London, England, and on location at Frutigen, Kanton Bern, Switzerland.

Hitchcock apparently makes a cameo appearance, sporting a bowler hat and a moustache, coming down a ship’s gangplank.

Secret Agent is directed by Alfred Hitchcock, runs 86 minutes, is made by Gaumont British Picture Corporation, is released by Gaumont British Distributors (1936) (UK) and Gaumont British Picture Corporation of America (1936) (US), is written by Charles Bennett (screenplay), Ian Hay (dialogue), Jesse Lasky Jr (additional dialogue) and Alma Reville (continuity), adapted from the play by Campbell Dixon, based on two stories in the 1927 collection Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W Somerset Maugham, is shot in black and white by Bernard Knowles, produced by Michael Balcon and Ivor Montagu (associate producer), scored by John Greenwood and Louis Levy (musical director) and designed by Oscar Friedrich Werndorff.

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