'Secret Agent' is probably Hitchcock's most underrated film. It sets nice atmosphere, it is fairly thrilling and it is entertaining. The ending might be abrupt and unsatisfactory, but in general, it is good movie. The hero (John Gielgud) being little bit reluctant towards his mission, while allowing his sidekick to perform most of the heroics, is nice touch. Madeleine Carroll is sweet as Elsa Carrington, a female spy, and like usually in Hitchcock's movies, she is not just token woman for eyecandy. Robert Young is quite typical suave British playboy who can't stop flirting with gorgeous Elsa. John Gielgud is charming as British spies always. Some call his performance bit wooden, but I saw it part of the character's unwillingness to complete his mission. And then there was Peter Lorre's over the top General. It was very stereotypical portrayal of Mexican, but, oh boy how he must had fun.Some of the most fantastic moments were where the director played with the sound, like the scene in the bell tower when Ashenden and The General whispered into each other's ears. Besides the humor and fantastic 'cloak and dagger' games, Hitchcock managed to create one perfectly eerie moment with the dog in the hotel room. What a way to warn the viewer that something awful is about to happen. All in all, very good spy thriller, plus, how many times you can see the German actor portraying Mexican in British film. Oh the good old times.

Failure might not be the right word to describe "Secret Agent" but it would be a lie to say that the film stands among his best work, especially when you consider the masterpiece he's made one year before.Maybe Hitchcock peaked too soon with "The 39 Steps" and still needed to polish his style but the film contained all the ingredients of escapism and entertainment while "Secret Agent" can only count on a competent cast, Hitchcock's confident directing but rather forgettable material as far as the plot goes.The film is an adaption of a Sommerset Maugham's spy-themed novel with World War I as the backdrop but unlike its predecessor (and to some degree "The Man Who Knew Too Much") the film goes in too many directions for its own good, it tries to be a serious character study with a romantic subplot yet it was obviously conceived as a lighthearted spy thriller. At the end, we get many mood whiplashes between scenes meant to be serious and highlighting the hazardous job of 'secret agents' and moments you couldn't take seriously even as comedy. There are many thrilling parts of course, some of them are purely Hitchcockian but they actually work better than their set-ups. Hitchcock just forgets to warm up his audience like a coach would do to his players before a game. Or maybe did I feel that way because the main character Brodie aka Richard Ashenden, played by John Gielgud, left me cold?Gielgud plays a British soldier and novelist who finds out the news about his death, then learns from a man named "R" that he's assigned to find and kill a German spy trying to stir disorder in the Middle-East. The least that can be said is that he's not ecstatic about the mission, the only good news is that there is a "Mrs. Ashenden" assigned to help him, Elsa Carrington played by "39" star Madeleine Carroll. But Gielgud plays such a "colorful" fellow that he needed an extravagant foil, so he's seconded by the "Hairless Mexican" aka the "General" an elfin version of Gomez Addams with frizzy hair, not a general nor a Mexican, but for all I know, Peter Lorre could pass as red-haired Viking if it guaranteed genuine moments of nervous scares. Put together, his diminutive size and his instinct for killing make him quite uncomfortable to watch, reminding us how the actor of "M" was born to play sinister villains whose sad eyes could still inspire sympathy. Now, maybe Lorre meant well and needed to make up for Gielgud's wooden acting but sometimes he tries too hard and you might as well imagine Ralph Fiennes impersonating a constipated Christopher Plummer while pairing with Joe Pesci playing Leo-Getz while channeling Tommy De Vito. For once, the Hitchcockian sense of humor humor and the suspense that keeps you on the edge mix like oil and water. At the end, the most Hitchcockian of all characters is Robert Young, who plays the flirtatious and hammy Marvin, Brodie's "rival".So, this is an oddball but sympathetic "menage a trois" with a fourth wheel assigned to a mission on which rely the lives of millions of British men. A military man, a woman who became an agent "for kicks" and a little buffoon with an Harpo-like obsession. While we follow the unlikely trio throughout the mission, many moments stand out: the first murder where the lasting sound of an organ never stops, creating an ominous atmosphere in the church, only to reveal that the organist was dead all along head on the keyboard and the clue from that murder... leading to another murder, far more dramatic.The killing of the presumed spy intercut with the howling of his dachshund was pretty powerful and indicated an interesting shift of tone. But what could have been a pivotal moment of the film was handled in such a casual way I couldn't take it seriously anymore. Just when I accepted that they were too soft for the job, I couldn't believe they wouldn't literally breakdown at the thought of killing an innocent man. The General's reaction made sense at least, Brodie seemed as distraught as if had spilled broken his grandmother's china and Elsa thought it was the moment to open her heart to Brodie. Was I the only one who cared for Mr. Caypor?The rest of the film is good without being transcending, the chocolate factory scene with the covered noise is one of these Hitchcockian treats served in delicious packages and with a nice wrap, though it has a feeling of deja tasted. And the climactic sequence indicates Hitchcock's early predilection for memorable climactic settings or the clever uses of trains, if the film was one tenth the intensity of its last ten minutes, it might have been "one of these Hitchcock films".Maybe it's because Young and Lorre steal the show while Gielgud and Carroll gets over-carried by the romance. Young is the suave and not so dumb villain and Lorre is just a tad too psychopathic but of course the two die at the end and one of them in the dumbest possible way, I guess it had to end with the triumphing couple... although Elsa did nothing to make the mission help, and came close to ruining the whole plot. But all ends well that goes well, the British side is shown victorious and "R." gets a telegram where the Brodie and Elsa announce that they quit.And now there's a mistake Hitchcock would never have done in his prime, the director loved abrupt endings that wrapped things up. And the telegram said everything we needed to know so we didn't need that last close up on their happy faces, it looked corny and incongruous and Gielgud is not Stewart or Grant when it comes to display happiness. I guess "Secret Agent" was a forgotten Hitchcock because it's a forgettable Hitchcock movie or just a forgettable film, period.

Made during the second half of his British period Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent is a spy thriller about a reluctant hero (John Gielgud) during the First World War who botches a hit. Following two of Hitch's more polished works ( The Man who Knew too Much, The 39 Steps) it fails to live up to their pedigree but does contain more than its fair share of gripping moments.Richard Brodie (Gielgud) Elsa Carrington ( Madeline Carrol) and The General (Peter Lorre) have been assigned by British intelligence to waste a threat in Switzerland. It turns out to be the wrong man however leaving Brodie and Elsa drained, the General far from it. Brodie, now romantically involved with Elsa wants out but accedes to accompany the General on one more assignment.In the lead Gielgud is somewhat detached and passionless most of the way while Carrol offers some sparks leaving it up to the dark humored, callous Lorre character and the dubious all American Young to keep things interesting while Hitchcock injects some of his suspenseful editorial mastery in a factory, on a train and in particular during an assassination in the mountains. Not a classic but a good one.

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