Alfred Hitchcock is credit with directing 70 films. He did not make 70 good films. The Secret Agent is far from a bad film, but it's certainly one of the weaker Alfred Hitchcock movies I've seen. Which sure, is like saying 1930 was one of Babe Ruth's weaker years. (I'll save you the trouble. He had 7.8 WAR that year, which was his 12th highest WAR of his career) It's not his best, but it's still Alfred Hitchcock.
Once again, I am blessed to pick a movie with a pretty damn good cast. Madeleine Carroll is unquestionably the standout as Elsa Carrington. She's the first of the Hitchcock blondes and she belongs right up there with Grace Kelly and Kim Novak. It's a little sad to see how her career kind of just ended because she got involved with World War II and that's just the way Hollywood worked back then, particularly with women. (Though James Stewart did have some difficulty getting back into the public eye as well and Carroll sort of seemed to give up.)
Oddly, though perfectly competent, the weakest performance is probably John Gielgud. It's not so much that he's bad, but his chemistry with Carroll is nearly nonexistent, so much so that their romance halfway through the film is inexplicable. Robert Young, on the other hand, seems like a much more viable and realistic romance partner for Carroll. So you can imagine it's confusing when the "wrong" romance works better than the supposedly good one. Oh yeah and Peter Lorre plays a very enthusiastic assassin who's also a Mexican. Hello 1936 alert. He plays him so over-the-top that it kind of works.
The strongest part was the beginning. It was a very funny opening sequence with Ashenden (Gieglud) finding out he's actually dead. I honestly thought this was going to be a dark comedy in the vein of "One, Two Three" and I think this movie would have worked a lot better if they had committed to it. As it stands, the ending ends up completely rushed and sort of abrupt. Oddly, despite the fact that he's a master of suspense, I don't think it was very tense leading up to the end.
I'd probably still recommend this though, mostly for Hitchcock and Carroll. Interestingly, the New York Times review says "This picture as a whole is marred by inexpert camera technique, film editing.." It was written in 1936, which I found strange only because this movie does not stand out for having bad camera tecnique anymore than other 1930 movies. The version I watched wasn't the highest quality so it's almost impossible for me to notice it anyway. It could also mean that some people, even writers for the NYT, didn't know what the fuck they were talking about. I'm inclined towards the latter. (Also interestingly, Salon ran a piece saying 1936 may have been Hitchcock's best year, which is laughable to me. Needless to say, this movie has quite a few different reactions.)
2.5/4
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