Alfred Hitchcock Collectors Guide: Secret Agent (1936)

• Not quite top drawer Hitchcock, but still twisted thrills, drama, romance and comedy aplenty
• It has spies galore and even a unique and tragic spin on his favourite Wrong Man theme
• Originally planned to reteam winning leads from The 39 Steps, but sadly it wasn’t to be

Note: this is part of an ongoing series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles; any dead links are to those not yet published. Subscribe to the email list to be notified when new ones appear.

Secret Agent Collectors guide, Pt 2: Home video and others

US one sheet poster (alt)

One of the Year’s Ten Best Foreign Films, National Board of Review

“Bursts with not-so-hidden sexual innuendos and a heavy dose of comic dialogue as well as Lorre’s unrestrained lunatic comic performance.” – James Monaco, The Movie Guide (1992/1995/1998)

The innocent man who is presumed guilty, the charming villain who veils his treachery, the journey to a foreign land—these trademark Hitchcock touches make for a deliciously offbeat thriller. Based on stories by W. Somerset Maugham, The Secret Agent stars John Gielgud as a British novelist, Edgar Brodie, who is drawn into the dangerous world of espionage during World War I. Sent to Switzerland to eliminate an enemy agent, he teams up with a lovely novice spy (Madeleine Carroll) and an eccentric assassin (Peter Lorre). By a tragic error, the wrong man is killed, and Brodie determines to uncover the real spy, a rogue cleverly disguised as an American tourist. The shattering climax on a train carrying them into enemy territory proves that when it comes to suspense, Hitchcock has no rival. – US Home Vision VHS (1995)

Madeleine Carroll smoulders in this publicity shot, which sadly isn’t a scene from the actual film, but drawings of it adorn the cover of a US tie-in reprint of Maugham’s book, and trade ads in Motion Picture Daily, Herald and Film Daily.

“The film has a fine cast and a fine look – shot in the Swiss Alps, much of it makes use of unusual white-on-white compositions.” – Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
“Good British spy thriller.” – Ann Ross, Maclean’s Magazine
“John Gielgud might not be everyone’s ideal Hitchcock hero, and contemporary critics were quick to point out his lack of derring-do, but, in fact, he acquits himself admirably in this engaging thriller.” – David Parkinson, Radio Times

An early film role for John Gielgud, playing the British soldier sent to kill an enemy spy and grappling with the moral dilemmas he faces. Peter Lorre is his over-enthusiastic assistant, Madeleine Carroll his new wife, and Switzerland the location for messages hidden in chocolate bars and exhilarating chases. Adapted from Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden spy stories, it looks forward to later adventures: “You can call me R,” says Ashenden’s boss as he explains his mission, the precursor to James Bond’s alphabetical minders. – Cambridge Film Festival 2009 brochure, p. 54

Richard has just returned from World War I. A brave war hero, he is reported as dead so the government can utilise his talents as a spy. Traveling to Switzerland, his mission is to stop a rival spy from making it into Germany, with his cover including a wife, Elsa, and an attaché, The General, whose job is to execute the foreign agent. But after they accidentally kill the wrong man, Richard’s con­science catches up to him.

Another studio-only still (source)

“Good spy entertainment, suave storytelling… with deftly-fashioned humour.” – Variety
“Full of startling set pieces and quirky characterisation… a chase through a chocolate factory, murder atop a mountain, death in a quaint church.” – Time Out
“One of Hitchcock’s best – and most disturbing – British films.” – Scott Douglas, Mountain Xpress
“With its mix of adventure, romance and sardonic humour, it presages the big action thrillers that Hitchcock would later make during his time in Hollywood.” – James Travers, French Films

Adapted from the Ashenden stories by Somerset Maugham, Secret Agent is one of Hitchcock’s few comedy-thrillers. [sic: almost all of his films are comedy-thrillers!] Reunited with the talented team of screenwriter Charles Bennett and actress Madeleine Carroll from his earlier success, The 39 Steps , Hitchcock creates an espionage adventure imbued with laugh-out-loud humour and Hitch’s trademark thrills. Celebrated writer and war hero Edgar Brodie, is approached by British Intelligence to go undercover as a spy with the mission of tracking down and killing an enemy agent in Switzerland. His death falsified, Brodie is provided with a wife, Elsa, and a bizarre accomplice known as The General. Whilst Brodie and The General busily uncover the identity of their target, Elsa draws the attention of a suave American, Marvin. But when Brodie mistakes an innocent man for the enemy agent, he begins to question whether he is suitable for the mission. – Australian Madman DVD (2011)

US lobby card, with Madeleine fending off the the unremitting and unwelcome attentions of satyric Taylor.

World War I hero Richard Ashenden (John Gielgud) is co-opted by the Secret Service to hunt down and kill a German spy. In Switzerland he is assigned “a wife” Elsa (Madeleine Carroll) as a cover, and an assassin, “The General” (Peter Lorre). Believing they have found their man, they kill an innocent tourist instead. Fraught with guilt Elsa flees with affable American businessman Robert Marvin (Robert Young) to Prague, whilst Ashenden and the General uncover the spy headquarters in a Geneva chocolate factory. Realising that Elsa may be in trouble the pair board the train and expose the real spy as the locomotive hurtles off the tracks.

Secret Agent was adapted from both the play by Campbell Dixon and the series of adventures by Somerset Maugham about World War I British operative “Ashenden”. Hitchcock cast distinguished British stage actor John Gielgud in the role of Ashenden. To this point in his career Gielgud had only four films to his credit dating back to 1924, and the most recent had been the 1932 version of J.B. Priestley’s The Good Companions. He was to remain predominantly a stage actor for most of the next two decades.

On this US lobby card, Lilli Palmer weighs up the prospect of a liaison with Peter Lorre and just how much longer he’ll spend in the bathroom in the mornings than her.

Following Secret Agent he played Disraeli in The Prime Minister (1940) and did not appear in another film until 1953 as Cassius in MGM’s star-studded version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Other films in the fifties were Olivier’s Richard III (1956) MGM’s remake of The Barretts of Wimpole Street and Otto Preminger’s Saint Joan, both in 1957. But after Beckett in 1964, Gielgud’s movie appearances increased greatly in films as diverse as The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), Murder on the Orient Express (1974) Caligula (1979) and his Academy Award winning role in Arthur (1981). Born in 1904, Sir John Gielgud continues to act although well into his nineties.

Also making early appearances in their film careers were Madeleine Carroll, fresh from The 39 Steps; American actor Robert Young, better known for his TV series Father Knows Best and Marcus Welby, M.D., in one of the only two British films in which he ever appeared; Hungary’s Peter Lorre, who had made his first British film appearance in Hitchcock’s 1934 The Man Who Knew Too Much, Austrian Lilli Palmer in only her third movie; and in a very small role Michael Redgrave who was to star for Hitchcock just two years later in The Lady Vanishes. – Australian Roadshow Entertainment VHS (1998)

A seven-page novelisation of the film appears in this interwar British magazine

Hitch’s talkies were really on a roll by this point, and Secret Agent is a continuation of many of the themes explored in his previous two films. Not only that, it features two of their leads in the shape of Madeleine Carroll, reprising her role as Hitch’s prototypical icy blonde, and Peter Lorre, this time hamming it up shamelessly and once again effortlessly channelling his inner psychopath. For its framework, he drew on “The Traitor” and “The Hairless Mexican”, two entries in W. Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1927), a collection of loosely connected short stories featuring his stoic spy. Additionally, according to Hitch, it’s based on an eponymous play about Ashenden by Campbell Dixon, an Australian-born playwright and journalist.

After they were paired so successfully in The 39 Steps, Hitch wanted to reunite Carroll and Robert Donat for Secret Agent, but the latter’s ongoing health issues prevented this, leading to John Gielgud’s casting instead. In between the two films, Carroll appeared in The Story of Papworth (1935), a fundraising short directed by Anthony Asquith. Robert Young completes the quartet of leads and though most often remembered for playing a variety of honourable types, (spoilers ahoy!) the relentless, remorseless sex pest he portrays here would have been annoying and unacceptable in any era. All of which makes his character’s ultimate demise all the more sweetly satisfying.

Speaking of which, as Hitch pointed out in interviews, the original version of the film’s train crash ending was quite different. There were flashes of colour (presumably red tinting, as per the climax of Spellbound), images of the film strip breaking and alternate death scenes, but these were jettisoned following unfavourable preview screenings. Perhaps this last-minute alteration is reflected in the somewhat illogical final confrontation between Young and Lorre. What it does reflect is the uncertainty three decades later over Topaz with its multiple endings, although in Secret Agent’s case the alternatives are not available to compare. But there’s a possibility they still exist, as the BFI Archive has numerous nitrate negatives and varying length dupes, both positive and negative, so perhaps that original ending is lurking among them?

Secret Agent – Mark Duguid, ScreenOnline

Crashed: Carroll and Gielgud contemplate a not-so happy ending

Declassified: A Neglected Early Hitchcock – Rhett Bartlett

Secret Agent is, in truth, a bit of a mixed bag and certainly the weakest of Hitch’s golden run of thrillers commencing with The Man Who Knew Too Much and ending with The Lady Vanishes, his penultimate British outing. The latter is also a thinly disguised yet more roundly realised attack on the Nazi regime in the period of appeasement prior to WWII. That’s not to say Agent is a bad film by any means, as Hitch on an off day still murders most of the competition. But it is an uneven one. Disparate themes which Hitch usually balances so deftly – drama, thrills, comedy, action, romance – sit together here in quite awkward juxtaposition and one is conscious of them never quite gelling as a whole.

Central to it failing to hit the (mountain) peaks is the unconvincing Gielgud, here sadly miscast as a supposedly romantic, yet oddly asexual leading man in Donat’s stead. Compounding that is the fact his character has little heart for the task thrust upon him, though the lives of thousands and perhaps the tide of the war itself depend upon it. Hitch himself, speaking to Truffaut, cited this as a major factor in the film’s relative lack of critical and commercial success. Relentlessly carnal and dynamic Robert Young would have made a much better lead; I can’t help but imagine how much better the film would be if he and Gielgud were switched.

US title lobby card (uncropped)

Then there’s Carroll’s abrupt, simplistic volte-face part way through and Lorre playing cod-Spanish-speaking “The Hairless Mexican” aka “The General”. It’s hardly a spoiler to say he’s none of those three, but he is surely one of the campest Lotharios in the history of cinema. On the upside, look out for Percy Marmont as the sympathetic Caypor, who once again gets a raw deal following his gentle character’s disappointment in Rich and Strange.

Though London born, Marmont became a huge star in Hollywood but chose to return home in the late 1920s. For a few years, he played leading men here too, but was eventually relegated to playing notable supporting roles in a long career on both stage and screen. All in all, if you’re willing to overlook the inconsistent character motivations, or even complete lack of them, some jarring shifts in tone and the less than seamlessly integrated set-pieces, there really is a lot in Secret Agent for Hitch aficionados to enjoy. Honestly!

• Expressionism at Its Height: Secret Agent – Elisabeth Weis, The Silent Scream: AH’s Soundtrack (1982) info

Tellingly, this poster depicts Hitch as he looked at the time it was printed, not as he did when making the film around three decades earlier. Despite being widely recognisable, especially due to his cameos, Hitch’s regular appearance in publicity materials largely commenced from the mid-1950s. But once Alfred Hitchcock Presents made him a household name – and face – it definitively marked the point when he became at least as famous as any of his actors or films.

Argentinian 1960s re-release poster

Secret Agent Collectors guide, Pt 2: Home video and others

Related articles

This is part of a unique, in-depth series of 150-odd Hitchcock articles.