Secret Agent (1936 film)

Secret Agent 1936 is a British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred Madeleine Carroll, Peter Lorre, John Gielgud, and Robert Young. Future star Michael Redgrave made a brief, uncredited appearance he would play the male lead in Hitchcocks The Lady Vanishes 1938. This was also Michael Rennies film debut though an uncredited one.

British Captain and novelist Edgar Brodie Gielgud returns home on leave during the First World War, only to discover his obituary in the newspaper. He is brought to a man identifying himself only as R, who asks him to undertake a secret mission to identify and eliminate a German agent on his way to Arabia to stir up trouble in the Middle East. Upon agreeing, Brodie is given a new identity Richard Ashenden, a fake death, and the assistance of a killer known variously as the Hairless Mexican and the General Lorre, though he is neither bald, Mexican or a general.Brodies late predecessor thought that the enemy agent was staying at the Hotel Excelsior in neutral Switzerland. When Ashenden arrives there, he is surprised to find that R has also provided him with an attractive wife, Elsa Carrington Carroll. Entering their suite, he also encounters her new admirer, fellow hotel guest Robert Marvin Young, who is only slightly deterred by the arrival of her husband and continues to flirt with Elsa for much of the film. When they are alone, Ashenden is displeased when Elsa reveals she insisted upon the assignment for the thrill of it. ........

Source: Wikipedia