Secret Agent (1936)
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Reviews Counted: 11
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 1
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 0
liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 3,604
My Rating
Movie Info
Based on the novels of W. Somerset Maugham, The Secret Agent is the second in a trilogy of Alfred Hitchcock spy movies (along with The 39 Steps and Sabotage). Set during WWI, John Gielgud plays British novelist Edgar Brodie who discovers that a government agency has faked his own death. He is then given orders to go to Switzerland to kill a German agent. He goes by the name of Richard Ashenden and travels with secret agent Elsa Carrington (Madeleine Carroll), who poses as his wife. Richard joins
Drama, Action & Adventure, Romance, Mystery & Suspense, Classics
Campbell Dixon, W. Somerset Maugham, Charles Bennett, Ian Hay, Jesse Lasky
May 1, 1936 Wide
Jan 7, 2003
Scott Entertainment
Cast
-
Madeleine Carroll
Elsa Carrington -
Peter Lorre
The General -
John Gielgud
Richard Ashenden -
Robert Young
Robert Marvin -
Percy Marmont
Caypor -
Florence Kahn
Mrs. Caypor -
Lilli Palmer
Lilli -
Charles Carson
"R" -
Tom Helmore
Capt. Anderson -
Andrea Malandrinos
Manager -
-
Michael Saint-Denis
Coachman -
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All Critics (15) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (11) | Rotten (0) | DVD (3)
One of the weirdest movies Alfred Hitchcock ever made.
Top CriticEarly Hitchcock thriller with early Robert Young starring.
One of Hitchcock's best -- and most disturbing -- British films.
One of Hitchcock's fair thrillers made in Britain.
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Foreign Titles
- Geheimagent (DE)
- Secret Agent (1936) (CA)
Surprisingly as it turns out, this film is pretty bad. It's bland, dull, but worst of all boring. Gielgud looks bored and uninterested, Lorre feels out of place, and the plot (three agents join up to take out an undercover spy, but things get complicated when two of them suffer crises of conscience) should be awesome, but I just couldn't get involved or care about it. On top of that, the poicture and sound quality are both really pretty bad at times.
I know that not everything Hitch did was good (at least), but this is just alarmingly terrible. It's as if while making this he had overdosed on apathy pills and stopped trying.
The big train crash climax isn't great, mostly because of the silly and bad effects, but it at least got my attention since it was something happening, instead of lots of nothing taking place.
Even if you're a Hitch diehard, just spare yourself a mess and skip this.