Thursday, September 5, 2019

Secret Agent (1936)

In this Alfred Hitchcock film Edgar (John Gielgud) is plucked from the front lines in World War 1 to be recruited by the secret service and is reluctantly sent off to Switzerland with only the vaguest of instructions.

He isn't alone though as he has his "wife" Elsa (Madeleine Carroll) and his sidekick The General (Peter Lorre) who plays a rather bizarre crazy foreign type role. Edgar is tasked to find and kill a German agent, unfortunately the identity of the agent is unknown so Edgar and company begin their tricky search.

If we are to be honest this is quite an odd little film though very watchable, at times quite dark. When the first agent suspect is killed by The General we don't see the act but the unfortunate's little dog howls and shrieks. Some of the plot makes little, why for example is Edgar in Switzerland, doesn't a spy need a cover story?