Secret Agent

When the little dog is scratching at the door, he is facing left and is in front of the right-side door.

When the elderly lady then (immediately) picks up the dog, he is facing right and is in front of the left-side door.

Ashenden's resignation letter changes between scenes.

The first time we see it, it reads"Now that I have resigned / if you want a successor for / me I can give you the / name of a good reliable butcher" When Carrington later looks at it and cuts it up, it reads"Now that I have resigned / if you want a successor / for me I can give you / the name of a good / reliable butcher" The General ('Peter Lorre (I)' (qv)) drops his hat in the church and then he runs upstairs together with Edgar Brodie ('John Gielgud' (qv)).

When they get there he has his hat on again.

Dates given in the story are out of sequence.

After starting "May 10, 1916" (title), a telegram received later appears to be dated "3/4/16".

A newspaper near the end of the film is dated "Tuesday, September 21, 1916," when that date actually occurred on a Thursday.

Afterwards a postcard bears the date of "April 2.

" Though the film is set in 1916, fashion, hairstyles and set decoration are contemporary of 1936.

When the man with one arm is trying to move the coffin, the flag is draped over his right shoulder but in the next close-up, it is only covering his forearm.

When you first see the hotel bathroom, the toilet roll is held on its holder with the end hanging at the back of the toilet roll hanger.

When 'The General', however, goes on a strop for not having a wife 'issued' to him, the toilet roll is hanging with the end on the front of the toilet roll holder.

RAF pilot Edgar Brodie fakes his death at the height of the Great War (as it was known then) and is recruited as a secret agent and given the identity of Ashenden, for assignment in Switzerland, to search for a spy, with an uncooperative woman pretending to be his wife.His contact in Switzerland, played by Peter Lorre, delivers his verbose lines appropriately stiffly and almost phonetically, especially as he so cheerfully (and repetitively) introduces himself throughout the film, as "General Pompellio Montezuma De La Vilia De Conde De La Rue!

In 1916, during the WWI novelist Edgar Brodie, whose death has been faked by the intelligence superiors, is sent to Switzerland where he has to assassinate a German agent.He's given a new name.

This is one of the worst if not the worst Alfred Hitchcock movie I have ever seen. The script was so terrible that it was almost non existent.

When this first aired on local TV I was somewhat intimidated by John Drake's persona, his stand over tough guy routine, frequent violence and abetting the killing of some of the corrupt villains he investigates, by far worse villains. I was only five years old back then.

"Secret Agent" tells the story of a two secret agents who pose as a couple as they attempt to capture and kill a German agent, "Secret Agent" was possibly an original Hitchcock story and one of the earlier spy films. However, an interesting premise, two great lead performances by Carrol and Gielgud is botched by poor storytelling, an overlong duration and the highly irritating character that Peter Lorre portrays.

John Gielgud charmingly portrays the novelist-cum-officer dragooned by the British spy service into travelling to Switzerland on the trail of a Nazi spy. He is assigned two assistants - a rather naive, but keen, Madeleine Carroll "Elsa" and a suitable sleazy, but lethal, Peter Lorre "as The General".

If you are a fan of Alfred Hitchcock or are a completest of his work Secret Agent is well worth a look at least once. Secret Agent is also a film that is much more than a film for completests only, it's not among the Master of Suspense's overall best- of his early pre-Rebecca films his best were The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, Sabotage and The Lodger- but it's still a good film.

To me, I just love watching Peter Lorre in anything. His unforgettable voice and his villainous demeanor just adds to delight in watching his performance.

One yearns to look backwards, owing to the batch of bad films coming on the market now...backwards to a time when the childhood of talking films experimented with literature.