Secret Agent: Sweaty palms and stiff upper lips

So, Secret Agent. You know, when you’re staring at the old Göteborg rain hammering against your window, there’s something comforting about watching a Hitchcock (the bloke who could make even a cheese sandwich feel like a murder weapon). 1936, black and white, all stiff collars and thick fog – you can almost smell the Brylcreem.

The cast alone! John Gielgud, Madeleine Carroll, and man… Peter Lorre. Lorre always looks like he just woke up from a nightmare and stepped into another one. Guy’s twitchy as a junibacke in April. I could listen to his weird accent all day. Gielgud tries his best Bond-before-Bond bit – loads of charm, but sometimes you wanna shake him and say “mate, wake up, there’s a war on.”

Hitchcock’s direction is, as usual, sneaky as a fox in a henhouse. Sudden moods, odd little jokes, jumpy cuts, even the music by Louis Levy stabs you now and then. There’s great tension, but now and again it lags, like when you’ve microwaved pyttipanna a bit too long and it just sits there, bland and sticky.

I remember watching it for the first time on SVT2, my gamle morfar snoring next to me. He woke up just in time for one of those chase scenes and started muttering about the 40s and “proper coats.” Honestly, the mood in this film is thick. You feel a bit like stumbling drunk in a British train station after closing time.

Not all the story holds up these days. Some bits feel creaky as an old volvo 240 in February. But there’s a kind of charm to its earnestness, glamour, and, of course, awkward romance. If you like your thrillers a bit old-fashioned and smelling faintly of pipe tobacco and rain, this is for you.

Maybe grab a cup of strong bryggkaffe and imagine you’re a spy for a night, yeah? Life’s short.

watch the full movie on Mavshack Movies on YouTube

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