Secret Agent (1936 film)

Secret Agent
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by	Michael Balcon Ivor Montagu
Screenplay by	Charles Bennett Alma Reville Ian Hay
Story by	W. Somerset Maugham
Starring	Madeleine Carroll Peter Lorre John Gielgud Robert Young Lilli Palmer
Cinematography	Bernard Knowles
Edited by	Charles Frend
Release date	May 1936 (U.K.) 15 June 1936 (U.S.)
Running time	86 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Secret Agent is a 1936 British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred Madeleine Carroll, Peter Lorre, John Gielgud, and Robert Young. Future star Michael Redgrave made a brief, uncredited appearance; he would play the male lead in Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938). The work was also Michael Rennie's film debut (though an uncredited one).

Typical Hitchcockian themes used in Secret Agent include mistaken identity and murder.

On May 10, 1916, during the First World War, British Captain and novelist Edgar Brodie (Gielgud) returns home on leave, only to discover his obituary in the newspaper. He is brought to a man identifying himself only as "R", who asks him to undertake a secret mission: to identify and eliminate a German agent on his way to Arabia to stir up trouble in the Middle East. Upon agreeing, Brodie is given a new identity (Richard Ashenden), a fake death, and the assistance of a killer known variously as "the Hairless Mexican" and "the General" (Lorre), though he is neither bald, Mexican or a general.

Brodie's late "predecessor" thought that the enemy agent was staying at the Hotel Excelsior in neutral Switzerland. When "Ashenden" arrives there, he is surprised to find that "R" has also provided him with an attractive wife, Elsa Carrington (Carroll). Entering their suite, he also encounters her new admirer, fellow hotel guest Robert Marvin (Young), who is only slightly deterred by the arrival of her husband (and continues to flirt with Elsa for much of the film). When they are alone, Ashenden is displeased when Elsa reveals she insisted upon the assignment for the thrill of it.