Secret Agent

Secret Agent

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Madeleine Carroll and John Gielgud as the Ashendens

Anyone for the fifth best British film of 1936, as voted for by the readers of the defunct Film Weekly? Secret Agent is one of a run of spy thrillers Alfred Hitchcock made in the 1930s. Sandwiched between The 39 Steps and Sabotage it’s the least compelling of the three, a misfire in many ways. There are two reasons for that, both Hitchcock’s fault. But let’s get to that later. First, you need to know that it stars John Gielgud as Edgar Brodie, a successful novelist recruited by the British secret service, given the spy moniker Ashenden (the title of the Somerset Maugham book on which the film’s based) and sent to Switzerland. … Read more

Danger Man aka Secret Agent

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Still from Season 1 episode 1

Is Danger Man one TV series or two? It has two entries on the IMDb. There’s this one, for the original series, which ran 1960-1962, and this one for its second coming, 1964-1967, when the show in some places (the USA for example) went by the name Secret Agent and had a snappier theme tune (High Wire, played on a muscular harpsichord). In its native UK it was always Danger Man. There is an argument for treating them as different entitities but in essence they are the same thing, united by the presence of Patrick McGoohan as John Drake, dry spy extraordinaire – no guns, no girls, no gadgets, initially at least. Along … Read more