Secret Agent

Synopsis

For Secret Agent, director Alfred Hitchcock combined two W. Somerset Maugham adventure yarns with a play by Campbell Dickson based on yet another spy series. The cast was well and truly all-star, and this film furthered their screen careers even more. This classic is one of the unbroken series of five true British masterpieces by the director for The 39 Steps through to The Lady Vanishes. Hitchcock at his best! Richard Ashenden (John Gielgud), a novelist turned secret agent, is sent to Switzerland to hunt down and kill a spy. He is aided by Elsa Carrington (Madeleine Carroll), who poses as his wife. Their accomplice, called The General (Peter Lorre), is an Eastern European who says he is a noble Mexican. When Ashenden and the General think they’ve found the German spy they’ve been sent to execute, they discover he was an innocent victim.