Secret Agent (1936 film)

For other uses, see Secret Agent.

Secret Agent
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by	Michael Balcon Ivor Montagu
Screenplay by	Charles Bennett Alma Reville Ian Hay
Story by	W. Somerset Maugham
Starring	John Gielgud Peter Lorre Madeleine Carroll Robert Young Lilli Palmer
Cinematography	Bernard Knowles
Editing by	Charles Frend
Release date(s)	May 1936 (U.K.) June 15, 1936 (U.S.)
Running time	86 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Secret Agent (1936) is a British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, and Robert Young. Future star Michael Redgrave made a brief, uncredited appearance; he would play the male lead in Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes two years later. This was also Michael Rennie's film debut (uncredited).

Plot

Gielgud plays a British officer, a famous writer whose death is faked during World War I, and who is sent by the mysterious "R", head of British intelligence, to Switzerland on a secret mission. Carroll plays a female agent who poses as his wife. Lorre appears as a British agent working with them, a killer known variously as "the Hairless Mexican" and "the General".

Typical Hitchcockian themes used here include mistaken identity and murder.

Cast

• John Gielgud - Richard Ashenden
• Peter Lorre - The General
• Madeleine Carroll - Elsa Carrington
• Robert Young - Robert Marvin
• Percy Marmont - Caypor
• Florence Kahn - Mrs. Caypor
• Charles Carson - 'R'
• Lilli Palmer - Lilli

Reception

The film was voted the fifth best British movie of 1936.

External links

• Secret Agent at the Internet Movie Database
• Secret Agent is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• Elisabeth Weis, 1982, The Silent Scream — Alfred Hitchcock's Sound Track (1982), "Expressionism at its Height: Secret Agent" — a discussion of Hitchcoock's use of sound in the film.
• Movie Diva, 2001 review
• Secret Agent Eyegate Gallery