# Roger Thornhill Presents: Hitchcock's Secret Agent **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 11, 2005, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-thornhill-presents-hitchcocks-secret-agent/303333 "2005-05-11T02:38:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-thornhill-presents-hitchcocks-secret-agent/303333/1 "2005-05-11T02:38:14Z")
Back by popular demand, the latest in my occasional series of film reviews focuses on one of the master’s British efforts, the distinctly unmasterful _Secret Agent_, released in 1936. > [@SPOILER ALERT](#): > > This review may inadvertently reveal plot details. However, it won’t reveal many, because there isn’t much plot. It also won’t reveal much about the characters, because they make a boardwalk look animated. The film was made in the period between the two world wars and contains footage (dodgy-looking footage, so I can’t vouch for its authenticity) of men fighting and dying in the Great War. Please read no further if you are easily upset by images of men fighting and dying for pretty stupid reasons. One final word of warning: this film contains one of the most campy performances ever committed to celluloid. Oh, and lots of smoke, and not only on the fields of Flanders. Not recommended for those who are trying to quit. Johnny Gielgud heads an all-star cast including Madeleine Carroll (tasty), Peter Lorre (imagine Inigo Montoya on speed), and a bloke called Robert Young who I’ve never heard of, though it’s always nice to see a film where the villain is not the twee Englishman (in tweeds with a pipe) but the raunchy Yank. The first thing to say about this film is that it’s not a patch on _The 39 Steps_, which was released the previous year. Madeleine Carroll’s character is required to do a transformation from gung-ho Lara Croft type (“Let’s assassinate some spies!”) to self-reflective pacifist (“Oh, the futility of war!”) that is not meant to be funny, but ends up generating far more laughs than Lorre’s ridiculous posturing. One of the main problems is the story: John Buchan’s buccaneering spy novels provide better fodder for the Hitchcock treatment (especially by the time he’s changed them beyond recognition) than W. Somerset Maugham’s (never trust an Englishman who sticks an initial before a county name) dark musings on cuckoldry on the verandahs of Asia. Especially when he transfers them to the trenches of Europe. The other major problem is Johnny Gielgud, who Hitch wisely dumped after this film. Not only has he a nose big enough to park a double-decker bus under, but he’s not Robert Donat. Whereas, in _The 39 Steps_, Robert Donat was. Johnny attempts to make up for his deficiencies by chain-smoking his way through the movie. Madeleine takes up the habit, while the German spy/Yank takes things a step further by taking a lit cigarette out of the blonde’s mouth and sticking it in his. No wonder the canine star of the show, a dachshund whose name I didn’t catch (Colin, perhaps?), tries to claw his way under the double-doors of his swanky Swiss apartment. Hitchcock and co. might not give a monkey’s about exposure to Class A Carcinogens, but this little fellow’s not going to let his chance of a starring role in _Lassie Come Home_ go up in environmental tobacco smoke because a bunch of luvvies are making a bomb. Not that Johnny isn’t a class act in his own metier, the stage. But his presence in this swashbuckler is about as welcome as Errol Flynn’s in a Pinter play. Which, funnily enough, is where I first saw Johnny: in a Pinter premiere back in 1976. Ralph Richardson was also in this play (at the National Theatre, which should tell you all you need to know about its bankability), and all I can recall is dialogue like this being repeated for two and a half hours: “Johhny.” “Yes, Raiph.” “Seen Harold?” “I believe he’s with Antonia.” “Antonia? Again.” “Yes, Raiph.” Back to _Secret Agent_. Inigo Montoya pushes the wrong man down a mountain (thus the seeds are sown for Hitch’s Hollywood classic of the same name with Joseph Cotten), he contracts tinnitus as a result of being silly enough to be in the bell-tower (what’s with Hitchcock and bell-towers, anyway?) when campanology class starts, he has what appears to be an epileptic fit in Madeleine’s smoke-filled bathroom, and he mangles the English language in a way that will surely never be equalled. He also provides the inspiration for a whole host of stage Spaniards down the years, from Sancho Panza through Manuel in _Fawlty Towers_ to the one who has a compulsion to remind us that his father is dead. A thought for the poor fellow who had to put the English subtitles on the Hong Kong DVD. The sound quality of the print wasn’t much to write home about in the first place, but Lorre’s theatricals made his job well nigh impossible. Still, he tried bloody hard to make sense of what he was hearing, and his renderings threw up some gems: Original: “Do not insult me please” Subtitle: “Do not incite the peace” Original: “I shan’t be more than a few minutes” Subtitle: “I shunt over it in a few minutes” But the last word belongs to John Gielgud, whose character has been subjected to that old movie stand-by of having had his obituary posted in _The Times_. He is talking to R’s sidekick (I kid not, R is the head of MI6, or whatever they had in those days – yes, Ian Fleming plagiarised Maugham), who is trying to recruit him: R’s sidekick: “Do you love your country?” Johnny: “Well, I’ve just died for it, haven’t I?” ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-thornhill-presents-hitchcocks-secret-agent/303333/2 "2005-05-11T03:07:52Z")
A can of aerosol and a packet of patches for the first person to spot the deliberate mistake in my review. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-thornhill-presents-hitchcocks-secret-agent/303333/3 "2005-05-11T03:31:42Z")
Hitchcock’s _The Wrong Man_ starred Henry Fonda, not Joseph Cotten. Is that your MacGuffin… er… deliberate error? ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-thornhill-presents-hitchcocks-secret-agent/303333/4 "2005-05-11T03:42:51Z")
Congrats to **pinkfreud**. Have you seen _Secret Agent_, by any chance? ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-thornhill-presents-hitchcocks-secret-agent/303333/5 "2005-05-11T05:24:54Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > Congrats to **pinkfreud**. Have you seen _Secret Agent_, by any chance? I saw it in the late 1960s when it was part of a ten-hour Hitchcock film festival at the University of Tulsa. I was an extremely young person in the 1960s, of course. Practically unborn. Although I am a rabid Gielgud fan, I agree that he was no Robert Donat. Gielgud’s looks were never his strong suit. But ah, what a voice. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-thornhill-presents-hitchcocks-secret-agent/303333/6 "2005-05-11T06:34:24Z")
> [@pinkfreud](#): > > Gielgud’s looks were never his strong suit. Neither, it might be said, was his sexuality a help in the love scenes. Some of the least convincing ever filmed, it was actually a relief when that annoying twerp played by Lorre popped up and interrupted them. > [@](#): > > But ah, what a voice. All those cigarettes, you see. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-thornhill-presents-hitchcocks-secret-agent/303333/7 "2005-05-11T13:22:32Z")
One big problem with **Secret Agent** is the Robert Young character. He almost seems to come out of a different movie, and his constant breeziness really clashes with the tone of the rest of the film. Oddly enough, despite that, he is the most memorable character. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2005, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roger-thornhill-presents-hitchcocks-secret-agent/303333/8 "2005-05-11T16:01:33Z")
What else was Young in? Never seen him or heard of him before. My wife reminded me of another beautiful mistranslation: Spoken: 'I don’t like murder at close quarters as much as I expected." Subtitle: “I don’t like murderer who’s more vicious than I expected.”