Laugh Track: Secret Agent

Starring:John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, Robert Young, Percy Marmont, Florence Kahn, Charles Carson, Lilli Palmer, Michael Rennie, Howard Marion-Crawford, Michel Saint-Denis, Tom Helmore, Andreas Malandrinos, Michael Redgrave, Sebastian Cabot
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Studio: York Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Interesting, "But".
Hitch's Mix....Suspense and Humor With Great Style
How a Spy Helped to Win the War
Done as light comedy.
A Stellar Performance by Gielgud and Lorre

Laugh Track: Secret Agent
Starring: John Gielgud , Peter Lorre , Madeleine Carroll , Robert Young , and Percy Marmont
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Manufacturer: York Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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The Man Who Knew Too Much
Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn
The Lady Vanishes - Criterion Collection
The 39 Steps - Criterion Collection
Sabotage and The Lodger

ASIN: B0000CDL95
Release Date: 2003-11-18

Customer Reviews:

Interesting, "But". .......2007-01-09

Interesting story, Hitchcock touch is evented. Madeleine Carroll is a standout, but did not buy into John Gielgud as the lead.

Hitch's Mix....Suspense and Humor With Great Style.......2006-12-20

From 1936..."The Secret Agent". You'll find Hitch's unique sense of humor well integrated with the suspense and his definitive style, in this terrific film about espionage at the onset of WWI. A reluctant spy is recruited to kill an enemy spy. He is given a false name and a fake wife to keep up appearances. He goes after the target, but does he have the right man? Could there be another who is the real culprit? And what a cast.. John Gielgud stars with Madeline Carroll,Robert Young and Peter Lorre(fabulous as always) as his very strange accomplice.Other notables to look for include Lilli Palmer and Michael Redgrave.

There are several studio editions to chose from. Sometimes the reviews for the different editions are lumped together. I am reviewing the edition put out by Platinum Disc(It has the ASIN B00005A0QH in the product info, or enter in search to find it). The transfer of this 70 year old film by Platinum is decent, but probably not as good as some of the more expensive editions. The picture is nice and clear but there are quite a few scratches.The sound in Dolby Dig is clear and distinguishable. I did find it to be very viewable and perfectly enjoyable.It includes a short trivia quiz of the film, a bio of Sir John Gielgud and a few chapter stops.It comes in a nice jewel case, with an insert that also includes the same extras that are on the disc. It is available from the outside sellers at a reasonable price at this time.

Where's Hitch.....alas, there seems to be no appearance by Sir Alfred here.

I would recommend this edition of "Secret Agent" to Hitch fans who want to build up their collection without spending too much.

enjoy...Laurie

How a Spy Helped to Win the War.......2006-12-10

This is based on a play taken from the book "Ashenden" by Somerset Maugham. Maugham's book was a fictionalized story of his work as a British agent during the Great War; it was first censored and banned from publication. A British officer is sent to Switzerland to prevent a German agent from traveling to Arabia and getting them to revolt against British rule. We hear bombs from the German air force over London. Ashenden will take the place of the last British agent who died suddenly. His job is to find that German agent and stop his mission. Ashenden will be helped by the "hairless Mexican" (who has curly hair and isn't a Mexican), a mercenary called The General. Ashenden was given a wife to better hide his status in Switzerland.

An old man visits a store to buy chocolate. Outside he discards the candy to read a secret message telling him the British agent has arrived. Ashenden finds the contact has been silenced. We see scenes at the casino, where a man claims a lost button found by the dead organist. Ashenden figures him for the German agent, as this Englishman has a German wife. They arrange to go on a mountain climb. Back at the hotel Mrs. Ashenden spends time with the suspect's wife. Their dog senses something is wrong. Later they find they eliminated the wrong man. (Was it too easy?)

The General has discovered a secret German spy post, and they can now discover the German agent by visiting this chocolate factory. Their presence is reported to the police, but a fire alarm allows an escape. Their payoff allows them to get the name of the German agent. Now they must intercept Robert Marvin at the railroad station, or get on the train going to enemy territory. There is a dramatic confrontation, then an explosive ending to the train trip. The happy ending follows the moral conventions. [Was this echoed in "From Russia With Love"?] This story illustrates why a secret agent needs a cover name and a low profile. A real spy would never be as well known as "James Bond".

Done as light comedy........2006-11-01

Once they meet, Edgar (John Gielgud) & Elsa (Madeleine Carroll) kind of reminded me of a British version of Nick & Nora Charles of Thin Man fame playing in the U.S. about this time. They are spies. They don't know each other at first & being married is their cover. Edgar has been declared dead in the trenches of World WarI. They are to kill a German agent in Switzerland. They have very few clues & they don't even know what he looks like. Edgar's assitant is a professional assassin known as "The General" played for laughs by a very funny Peter Lorre. He lusts after Elsa as does her boyfriend, Robert (Robert Young). Black comedy touches always by Hitchcock as they push the wrong man off a mountain. Another Hitchcock trademark: the violence & unpleasantness that is done off screen. Not terribly suspenseful as the viewer can figure out who the enemy agent is pretty early on. But no manner, it's still a entertaining movie albeit one of Hitchcock's lesser efforts.. Not as good as Foreign Correspondent from 1940 which is simularly themed which I also reviewed. Elsa is patriotic & the carnage going on at the front does not bother her. But she has a problem with killing one person face to face as they must do. To Edgar it is a job to be done & the general is eager to do it. It all plays out in a well done train scene as they are speeding towards Germany in the middle of the night. There was a intoduction by Tony Curtis & a trailer for The Man who Knew Too Much at the beginning of the tape.

A Stellar Performance by Gielgud and Lorre.......2006-05-12

The time is 1916, just home from the trenches, writer John Brodie finds out that he has died for King and country. 'R' who is the head of the english secret service, is sending him to Switzerland to intercept a German agent before he can bring plans/info to Constantinople. The problem...he doesn't know what the agent looks like. Helping him out is The General (Peter Lorre), a spanish(?) speaking womanizer with a earing and an accent from Gd knows where.

When Ashendon (the alias for Brodie) arrives in Switzerland, he finds that 'R' has supplied him with a wife (Madeline Carroll). His new Mrs. has found herself a suitor, American Robert Young (who is not there with good intentions). Needless to say, much of the dialogue is stilted (as is the acting), but Lorre steals the film with his odd character (who reminds me of the man he later plays in "Maltese Falcon").

You can see many of the film techniques that later make Hitchcock famous and there are shadows of "The 39 Steps" in some of the crowd scenes. Though it's supposed to be 1916, everyone is dressed for the 1930's, and of course everyone smokes like fiends. Gielgud, is the dashing, stoic englishman, good looks and a phenomenal profile. If you look closely, you can see how everyone has the same eye-shadow and highlighted cheek-bones, making it look like a 'Calvin Klein' ad.

Average customer rating:

Interesting, "But".
Hitch's Mix....Suspense and Humor With Great Style
How a Spy Helped to Win the War
Done as light comedy.
A Stellar Performance by Gielgud and Lorre

Laugh Track: Secret Agent [Region 2]
Starring: John Gielgud , Peter Lorre , Madeleine Carroll , Robert Young , and Percy Marmont
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Similar Items:

The Man Who Knew Too Much
Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn
The Lady Vanishes - Criterion Collection
The 39 Steps - Criterion Collection
Sabotage and The Lodger

ASIN: B00009QNU5

Customer Reviews:

Interesting, "But". .......2007-01-09

Interesting story, Hitchcock touch is evented. Madeleine Carroll is a standout, but did not buy into John Gielgud as the lead.

Hitch's Mix....Suspense and Humor With Great Style.......2006-12-20

How a Spy Helped to Win the War.......2006-12-10

Done as light comedy........2006-11-01

A Stellar Performance by Gielgud and Lorre.......2006-05-12

Average customer rating:

Spies and spies
Hitchcock's Secret Not Victoria's
Hitch's Mix....Suspense and Humor...
Often-overlooked Hitchcock is worth several viewings!
An Odd Little British Curio From The Master Of Suspense!

Laugh Track: Secret Agent
Starring: John Gielgud , Peter Lorre , Madeleine Carroll , Robert Young , and Percy Marmont
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Manufacturer: Platinum Disc Corportation
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Suspense | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

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Similar Items:

The Man Who Knew Too Much
Alfred Hitchcock Collection, Vol. 1: Sabotage
The Lady Vanishes - Criterion Collection
Foreign Correspondent
The 39 Steps - Criterion Collection

ASIN: B00005A0QH
Release Date: 2000-11-09

Amazon.com essential video

One of Alfred Hitchcock's finest pre-Hollywood films, the 1936 Secret Agent stars a young John Gielgud as a British spy whose death is faked by his intelligence superiors. Reinvented with another identity and outfitted with a wife (Madeleine Carroll), Gielgud's character is sent on assignment with a cold-blooded accomplice (Peter Lorre) to assassinate a German agent. En route, the counterfeit couple keeps company with an affable American (Robert Young), who turns out to be more than he seems after the wrong man is murdered by Gielgud and Lorre. Dense with interwoven ideas about false names and real identities, about appearances as lies and the brutality of the hidden, and about the complicity of those who watch the anarchy that others do, Secret Agent declared that Alfred Hitchcock was well along the road to mastery as a filmmaker and, more importantly, knew what it was he wanted to say for the rest of his career. The print of the film used in the DVD release is serviceable and probably comparable to an average 16mm classroom or museum presentation. The DVD also includes a Hitchcock filmography, trivia questions, a director biography, and scene access. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews:

Spies and spies.......2005-12-27

I quite enjoyed this old movie from 1936. It must have been one of the finest movies of the day. But what exactly would Marvin do in Constantinople. I guess we must look that up in Maugham's novel.

Hitchcock's Secret Not Victoria's.......2005-06-30

For some reason I just don't enjoy the British Hitchcock films as much as I enjoy the American ones. I find the British films a bit smug, I don't think the humor and suspense jells correctly. It wasn't until his American films that he started to get it right. Movies such as "The Lady Vanishes", "The 39 Steps" and this one are entertaining but lack something that Hitchcock's later films would offer.

John Gielgud plays Edgar Brodie a novelist who has been reported dead by the government so he can go undercover to track down a German spy during WW1 in Switzerland. He he arrives there he finds out that a partner has been sent to help him; a woman (Madeleine Carroll) who is posing as his wife.

All of this sounds quite good. There is a lot of promise in the plot. But I felt the movie never really knows what to do with it. The tone of the movie is at time boring. There is no real suspense.

While at the hotel Elsa Carrington (Carroll) meets a man, Robert Marvin (Robert Young, of TV's "Father Knows Best"). Marvin is attracted to Elsa even after he finds out that she is married.

As the two try to find the unknown spy they are lead on the wrong trail and kill an innocent man. After this Elsa doesn't want to continue their work and demand to go back home. She can not live with these actions on her conscious. At this point in the movie one wonders what is Hitchcock trying to tell us? Is he making a passivist war movie? Is he trying to say that even if you kill a person in a time of war, murder is still murder?

Some could argue this is the movie the recent "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" should have been. Both movies deal with a phony marriage, murder, and spies. But the different with this movie is these characters are smart.

Peter Lorre co-stars, in believe it or not, a comic relief role. He brought the movie down in my opinion. First of all I've never thought of Lorre as a great actor, secondly I never thought of him as a comic actor. When Lorre is on screen the movie struggles with the correct tone. When we see him we are getting comedy, but the movie seems too serious for that so it balances both. This hurts the movie. And what about that accent Lorre uses? It sounds awful.

Also the Robert Young character gives the movie a screwball comedy appeal along the lines of "The Awful Truth" or "My Favorite Wife". With Young we are getting a love triangle that is played for comedy.

"Secret Agent" is quite predictable but I suppose it doesn't matter, Hitchcock fans are going to watch this movie anyway. It is a harmless movie that shows how much he imroved when he came to America. Some of the performances are good, especially Gielgud, who always has a straight face on. Many may remember him in his Oscar winning role as the butler in "Arthur". And Madeleine Carroll appeared in Hitchcock's better film "The 39 Steps" and co-starred with Bob Hope (is there any woman he didn't act with?) in "My Favorite Blonde".

Bottom-line: Enjoyable if slight early Hitchcock film that touches on some big topics like war. Not very suspenseful but the acting is good and in Robert Young's case the movie can be funny. Has of the master will want to see it and will probably enjoy it.

Hitch's Mix....Suspense and Humor..........2004-03-11

This review refers to the Platinum Disc Corp DVD edition...

From 1936..."The Secret Agent". You'll find Hitch's unique sense of humor well intergrated with the suspense in this terrific film about espinoge at the onset of WWI. A recluctant spy is recruited to kill an enemy spy. He is given a false name and a fake wife to keep up appearances. He goes after the target, but does he have the right man? Could there be another who is the real culprit? And what a cast.. John Gielgud stars with Madeline Carroll,Robert Young and Peter Lorre(fabulous as always) as his very strange accomplice.Other notables to look for include Lilli Palmer and Michael Redgrave.

The transfer of this nearly 70 year old film by Platinum is decent, but probably not as good as some of the more expensive editons. The picture is nice and clear but there are quite a few scratches.The sound in Dolby Dig is clear and distinguishable. I did find it to be very viewable and perfectly enjoyable.It includes a short trivia quiz of the film, a bio of Sir John Gielgud and a few chapter stops.It comes in a nice jewel case, with an insert that also includes the same extras that are on the disc.

Where's Hitch.....alas, there seems to be no appearance by Sir Alfred here.

I would recommend this editon of "Secret Agent" to Hitch fans who want to build up their collection without spending too much.

enjoy...Laurie

Often-overlooked Hitchcock is worth several viewings!.......2001-03-31

SECRET AGENT was Hitchcock's follow-up to the hugely successful THE 39 STEPS, and continues that film's explorations of moral ambiguity and instability of identity. A very young John Gielgud portrays Edgar Brodie, an English soldier whose identity is deliberately eliminated by the government so his talents may be put to use as a professional spy under the name of Richard Ashenden. His mission: travel to Switzerland and execute a German spy before he crosses the Swiss border. Ashenden's accomplices in this state-sanctioned murder are the bizarre and campy bisexual "General" (Peter Lorre), who claims to be Spanish but is obviously nothing of the sort, and Elsa (Madeleine Carroll) a rather bloodthirsty woman assigned to play Mrs. Ashenden, who seems to have become an agent just to get a few thrills. Elsa's gung-ho mindset changes rapidly when the little group deceives and assassinates the wrong man. Elsa distracts the man's wife by asking for German lessons while Ashenden and the General take him on a mountain trek from which he will not return. Although the General actually does the killing, Ashenden is complicit in the unwitting crime, and seems to accept it as a matter of course. This murder sequence is extremely suspenseful, cross-cutting the male plot with the gradual realization of the doomed man's wife that something has happened to her husband because of the increasing agitation of the man's faithful dog. At the moment of the killing, the dog breaks out into eerie, unforgettable howls. After this event, Elsa realizes that what she thought was a game was actually in deadly earnest, and she tries to stop Ashenden from going through with the actual muder of the real agent, whose identity is uncovered almost by accident. The final sequences, including a fire alarm in a chocolate factory and a stunning train wreck, result in the deaths of the German agent and the General, leaving Elsa and Ashenden free to marry and quit the spy business. As another reviewer has noted, there is a strange and disquieting undercurrent of homosexuality among all the major male characters, who seem to be more interested in each other than any of them is in Elsa. Indeed, Madeleine Carroll has almost nothing to do in the last half of the film, and the usual sexualized banter between Hollywood lovers is actually given to Ashenden and the General! Indeed, Ashenden seems oddly reluctant to touch Elsa throughout the film and their love scenes are awkward at best. I can't say whether any of this was deliberate on Hitchcock's part, or whether was simply the result of casting a trio of homosexual or bisexual actors as the male leads, but the function of this choice undercuts the usual romance angle that we find in this type of story and renders the conclusion quite unbelievable, which perhaps makese sense, considering that no one in the world of this film is what he or she seems to be on the surface. Still, this is a surprisingly accomplished film which, despite some jarring shifts in tone, is watchable throughout. By the way, the film is supposedly set in 1916 and the events it chronicles deal with WW I, but don't you believe it for a second! The costumes and decors are strictly mid-30's, as is the language! Hitchcock obviously wished to comment on the moral choices forced on people by the deteriorating international situation of the times, and it isn't much of a stretch to relate these people to choices present only in the 1930's!

An Odd Little British Curio From The Master Of Suspense!.......2000-08-01

Another one of Hitchcock's early British films. Made just one year after Hitchcock's classic 'The 39 Steps'. Hitchcock's trademarks and usual suspense are greatly tampered making a more comic (?) film with some tense sexual undercurrents. John Gielgud, who is a master in stage acting and one of the most respected performers since Olivier stars as the secret agent who is sent to knock off an assassin. There are some surprising homosexual undercurrents to his character, he has the opportunity with Madeline Carroll but never does anything about it. Peter Lorre is also memorable as the Spanish (?) assassin, a bit too over the top at times but still delivers. The accents are extremely thick and lots of close-ups of letters and messages make the plot hard to follow at times. Madeleine Carroll also stars, Hitchcock had used her as the icy blonde who charms Robert Donat in 'The 39 Steps' just one year earlier. Less suspenseful than most of Hitchcock's other films and has a lot less to offer. One of the master of suspense's lesser efforts. From a scale of 1-10 I give this film a 5!

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