Hitchcock had reclaimed his prestige with the release of his last two films, The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps. Using the spy genre from the last film, Secret Agent would adapt the Campbell Dixon play which merged two Somerset Maugham short stories about his British Agent Ashenden.
The story, set during WWI, has Edward Brodie (John Gielgud) return home on leave only to read his obituary in the newspaper. He is then sent to a man known as R, who gives him a new identity (Peter Ashenden) an assignment to take over a recently departed agent. He goes to Switzerland to stop a German who plans to stir up the Arabs. He is teamed with an attractive blonde (Madeleine Carroll) and an assassin called the General (Peter Lorre).
Ashenden and the General go to a church to meet up with an organist who is a double agent, but he is found dead at his organ with a torn button as the only clue to the killer. At a casino later that night, the button is dropped on the roulette table and is identified by a tourist named Caypor. While on a mountain hike, the General pushes Caypor off a cliff (Ashenden doesn't want to do much with murder) only to find out that Caypor is not the man they're after. Elsa no longer wants anything to do with this line of work and runs off with an American tourist Robert Marvin (Robert Young). Ashenden and the General visit a chocolate factory to obtain a clue and then learn that Marvin is the man they're after. Can our heroes catch up with the train the spy is on before reaching enemy territory?
Secret Agent is good, its just not great. When The 39 Steps was released, some of the press focused on the film having a romantic angle between Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. I wonder with the release of this film, Hitchcock decided (or was told) to play up more of the romantic angle with Elsa being torn out of her love for Ashenden and the duty to her assignment, which I really felt slowed down the film. The movie does move at a good pace for the majority but I started to lose interest around that point in the film. Granted, Hitchcock was later informed that audience did not appreciate the wrong man being murdered.
John Gielgud was a great actor who had just come off runs of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, but his character just doesn't have the same interest or connection with the audience like Robert Donat had in The 39 Steps. Madeleine Carroll also gave me the same vibe with a good performance, but a character I don't think was well written. Peter Lorre probably steals the show again playing the General with enough buffoonery to laugh at, but when you come right down to it, he's a psychopath. Robert Young is the all-American boy character but the writing was predictable enough that anyone would have known he was the enemy spy.
Critics were mixed in their reviews. The New Yorker called it a good picture and a nice followup for Hitchcock after The 39 Steps. The Monthly Film Bulletin said the acting was good, as was the technical aspects but the ending seemed rushed and trying to convey a message which it didn't do so clearly. The New York Times liked Lorre's performance but thought Carroll's wasted her talent and the camerawork and sound recording were subpar. Graham Greene writing reviews for The Spectator, said the film was a series of melodramatic episodes that didn't seem to follow each other or lead to anything spectacular.
The film is available on several streaming sites being in the public domain, even though I haven't seen a version available that is superior to others.
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