Film’s Title: Secret Agent Cast: John Gielgud (Ashenden), Elsa (Madeleine Carroll), Peter Lorre (The General), Robert Young (Marvin) Director: Alfred Hitchcock Genre: Spy Movie/Thriller From the play by Campbell Dixon, based on the novel Ashenden: The British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham I love movies. I love writing. And there isn’t any other writing genre that I can apply to movies but reviews. In 2021, within the framework of Old Film Review, I reviewed ten movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock—because ten is what I found uploaded on YouTube by other movie lovers:
Recently, I came across another movie directed by A. Hitchcock that was uploaded on YouTube: Secret Agent. As a great admirer of Hitchcock’s directing talent, I thought to watch it and make it a review to complete the 10-movie series I reviewed so far. No, I don’t think I would be a good ‘film critique’ because I cannot criticize movies—I can only appreciate, in a review, the artistic creation and the enormous work from the first idea to the final movie delivery. And I like to believe that with every review I write, I constantly improve my review writing skills.
This movie hooked viewers’ attention when starting with a funeral. The funeral was fake so that the deceased, novelist Edgar Brodie (John Gielgud), to be engaged in a spy mission for the United Kingdom in Switzerland under the name of Ashenden. For this mission, he paired up with another British spy, Elsa (Madeleine Carroll). And a so-called general (Peter Lorre) that makes an outstanding acting role helped them in this mission.
In order to tell us this spy story as a movie, Hitchcock used short and long shots taken indoors and outdoors and from different angles to point out certain things. For example, the scene of the train accident at the end of the movie is memorable because it seemed very real. Furthermore, Hitchcock was a great animal lover. Every movie he made pointed at that. The movie Secret Agent is no exception: a lovely dog appeared several times in the movie. From a cultural point of view, Hitchcock used the place where the plot took place (Switzerland) to point out several cultural elements: multi-lingualism, Swiss chocolate (I’m fond of myself, too), nature with beautiful landscapes, music, and dancing. It is not the first time Hitchcock combined in outstanding natural way cultural elements with spy and/or thriller topics. For example, in The Sabotage the movie starts showing a dictionary page explaining the word ‘sabotage’ – a cultural reference to dictionaries. One may say that cultural elements and spy or thrillers are an oxymoronic association. Still, Hitchcock successfully used the cinema art to tell stories visually that both educate and keep us in suspense. After 80-minute of suspense, the movie ends happily. Enjoy it!
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