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Secret Agent [DVD] [1936]
 
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Secret Agent [DVD] [1936]

DVD ~ John Gielgud
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Secret Agent [DVD] [1936]
71% buy the item featured on this page:
Secret Agent [DVD] [1936] 3.4 out of 5 stars (5)
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Product details

  • Actors: John Gielgud, Madeleine Carroll, Robert Young, Peter Lorre, Percy Marmont
  • Directors: Alfred Hitchcock
  • Writers: Alma Reville, Campbell Dixon, Charles Bennett, Ian Hay, Jesse Lasky Jr.
  • Producers: Ivor Montagu
  • Format: Black & White, PAL
  • Language English, German
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: U
  • Studio: ITV DVD
  • DVD Release Date: 7 Jul 2003
  • Run Time: 82 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00009QNU5
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 53,847 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review

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. --Tom Keogh


Amazon.co.uk Review

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 a new 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. --Tom Keogh
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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing cast, unexpectedly funny film., 24 Jul 2004
By Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)   
Ostensibly a spy thriller set during World War I, this 1936 Hitchcock film is filled with some over-the-top scenes which will bring smiles rather than chills to the modern audience. Edgar Brodie (John Gielgud), a novelist returning from the war, is declared dead by his own government, given a new identity (Richard Ashenden) and passport, and ultimately sent back to Europe to find an enemy spy. With the charming Madeleine Carroll as his "wife" Elsa, Peter Lorre as a foreign general (with a Latin accent), and Robert Young as Robert Marvin, an American who flirts with Elsa, he arrives in Switzerland to discover his contact, a Swiss organist, dead. As he, Elsa, and the General travel from the mountains to the casino, a chocolate factory, and eventually by train toward Constantinople, looking for the enemy agent, Hitchcock keeps the viewer entertained with snappy scenes and dialogue but little real suspense.

Gielgud is cold and elegant as Brodie/Ashenden but lacks the heart which makes spies intriguing to an audience. Madeleine Carroll is warm and funny, Robert Young is charming (and would have made a great leading man here), and Peter Lorre is hilarious (perhaps unintentionally), stealing scene after scene. Lorre plays his part with a Spanish accent, an earring, curly dark hair, and rolling eyes, and it's hard, if not impossible, to believe that he's an assassin. The outdoor scenes are obviously painted, especially in a mountain climbing scene, and the action is melodramatic. The best and most natural scenes are the scenes in which Young flirts with Carroll, while Gielgud stews or looks confused. These scenes provide contrast with those in which Lorre, in real life a German, looks like a chubby assassin trying to sound "Spanish."

Hitchcock balances his serious scenes with scenes which offer some dark comic relief--Brodie's "wake" contrasting with a scene in which the butler casually carts off his empty casket, Gielgud and Lorre discovering a church organist's body and then having the church bells ring while they are hiding beside them in the bell tower, and Madeleine Carroll visiting politely with the wife of a man being assassinated while the wife's psychic dog howls loudly at the door. In major scenes the major characters wear clothing with sharp black and white contrasts, while lesser characters wear grays, and a constant prop throughout the film is the cigarette--even inside a sauna. Not very suspenseful, the film nevertheless has a surprise ending, and modern viewers will enjoy seeing this cast at work in this early Hitchcock film. Mary Whipple

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Before Bond, 12 Dec 2006
By Trevor Willsmer (London, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)      
Hitchcock's Secret Agent is a film that's much better than its reputation, laying the foundation for the Bond films but including a surprising moral dimension (the two leads are genuinely shattered when they realise they've killed the wrong person). Peter Lorre is wildly over the top (Gielgud claimed he was off his head on drugs throughout the shoot and on one occasion had to be coaxed out of the lighting gantry) but strangely appropriate as the Hairless Mexican, so named because he is neither hairless nor Mexican. Gielgud isn't quite leading man material this early in his career despite his ease and assurance, but Madeline Carroll and Robert Young provide star quality to spare. Easily one of Hitch's most undervalued films, and Carlton's extras-free DVD boasts a superior transfer to the many public domain releases.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Failure, 21 Mar 2003
By J. Skade "joeskade" (London, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
This review is from: Secret Agent [VHS] [1936] (VHS Tape)
This film is something of a disappointment, following as it does Hitchcock's masterpiece 'The 39 Steps'. Yet it is one of Hitchcock's fascinating failures - a vision of the dirty business of spying which pulls no punches. As an innocent man is being murdered we see his dog scratching at the door and howling in one of Hitchcock's most intense and powerful scenes. There is no let up - the hero must committ a shabby murder or walk away from his patriotic duty. No wonder Hitch had trouble finding a suitable ending or that audiences find it difficult rooting for the hero.
Geilgud plays the lead with commendable finesse and with his clipped diction and matinee idol looks he certainly commands the screen. Yet perhaps this film belongs more to his co-stars Madeleine Carroll and even more Peter Lorre - the earringed womanchasing hitman - who moves effortlessly from comedy to horror.
In the end the film lacks cohesion - the love interest in particular seems tacked on - and is perhaps a little too unpleasant for most tastes, but for Hitchcock fans it is essential viewing, forshadowing in some ways 'Notorious' and 'Torn Curtain'.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Barely even worth watching if you're a Hitchcock obsessive
Few films in the Hitchcock cannon have less things to reccommend about themselves than this.

Madeleine Carroll and Peter Lorre's performances are not a patch on... Read more
Published 14 months ago by IWFIcon

5.0 out of 5 stars one of hitchcocks masterpieces
this film is one of hitchcocks finest masterpieces with unfogettable lines and scenes.Any great lover of hitchcock films or even just films must buy this great and classic film... Read more
Published on 20 Jan 2001

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