Secret Agent

In honor of today being the anniversary of Peter Lorre's death I declared a 1-day Lorre Blogathon. I've linked my posts on Peter Lorre's films here.

Secret Agent is a 1936 Hitchcock film starring John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Young.

It can be viewed online at googlevideo or from the Internet Archive:


The New York Times doesn't like it. Films de France says, "Secret Agent is an entertaining example of its genre, shot through with occasional moments of artistic brilliance," while noting "Peter Lorre’s comical over-acting". Salon.com calls it "freakish" and "fascinating" and "the weirdest movie Hitchcock made". The Spinning Image calls it "a real curiosity" and says,

But if Secret Agent doesn't entirely work as a thriller – and not at all as a love story – it does have that strange, macabre edge that Hitchcock would in subsequent decades give full reign to.