Secret Agent

(Alfred Hitchcock, UK 1936, 86 min., 16mm)

WWI. Coming immediately on the heels of Hitchcock’s early masterpiece The 39 Steps, this adaptation of two spy stories by W. Somerset Maugham is an unfairly overlooked entry in the master’s British filmography (that The Lady Vanishes comes soon after doesn’t help). Judged on its own merits, this film is a taut and twisty thriller about a WWI-era novelist turned secret agent (John Gielgud) who is given a new identity, a deadly assistant (Peter Lorre), and a beautiful, thrill-seeking “wife” (Madeleine Carroll, arguably the coolest of Hitch’s cool, elegant blondes).