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Please don't spend money on this.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I found the film is a bit uneven but worth watching for at least four reasons. One of them is the performance of Madeleine Carroll who is perhaps the best of all the Hitchcock blondes. She was stunningly beautiful and a supremely talented actress. Her performance stands the test of time and of changing screen acting techniques. Carroll as Elsa is called upon to run a great range of emotions and never misses a beat. Her face is surely one of the most beautifully expressive faces in screen history.Peter Lorre is always worth watching. He is at once comical and cunning. He can be obsequious and yet ready to take the offensive the moment the opportunity arises.The third thing that strikes me in this film is how uninteresting John Gielgud was as a younger man. His face was rather non-descript and he had not developed the distinctively deep, resonant tone that was Gielgud's trademark. I know that he is playing the part of a relatively young man and not an old, wise professor but his lack of diction makes some of his lines completely lacking in emotion and is sometimes difficult to understand. Age certainly improved Gielgud as a screen presence.Robert Young's scenes with Madeleine Carroll are the highlight of the film. Witty, sophisticated dialogue and great charm. Both know what the other is thinking as they playfully counter each others moves.

To me, I just love watching Peter Lorre in anything. His unforgettable voice and his villainous demeanor just adds to delight in watching his performance. Sure the film starred the legendary Shakespearean actor Sir John Gielgud who is fine but not a true standout. Madeleine Carroll also acts in the film as the leading lady. The movie is based on a novel and is set during World War I about espionage and intrigue. I really didn't find this film as one of my favorites. Peter Lorre was one of the director's favorites. It is clear to see why he was unique in voice and talent. Lorre always stole the spotlight. The film's story isn't so clear to me even until the ending.

This is the very sort of thriller that defines "Hitchcock", and what he can do.It's a spy thriller in which the hero must be an unwilling participant in an assassination of an enemy agent.That's the main story, which underlies the "thriller" part of the film.Even in 1936, audiences knew who the "spy" was, if only by the way the film was "billed", and the genial nature of the man we know will be the spy.We also know that the first "assassination victim" will be wrongly killed, an innocent man.Three agents are involved in the assassination. The hero and heroine are very guilt ridden, and question their ethics. The third, played by Lorre, is the ultimate assassin, a professional who has no qualms about his duty.The "assassination" scene, with the cutaways to the dog, is a landmark scene, one of the greatest directorial achievements ever. The emotion is unsurpassed in cinema, and it didn't take a huge budget. Just brilliance in directing.This is the "suspense", "wit", "drama", and "style" that Hitchcock was famous for. This was his ultimate achievement. Don't pay attention to those who lambaste it. There is still jealousy in this business, and they're lambasting is simply a cover up. This is a classic film.

***SPOILERS*** Having been reported killed in the fighting on the western front British Army officer Edger Brodie, John Gielgud, is brought back to life not by a Doctor Frankenstein but by the top British intelligence officer known only as "N" played by Charles Carson.Given a new identity as Richard Ashenden Brodie is told to travel to neutral Switzerland and with the help of his fellow British Agents The General, Peter Lorre, and his now new wife Elsa Carrington, Medeleine Carroll, to assassinate a German undercover agent. The German Secret Agent is trying to start up trouble in the Middle-East against the British troops fighting the Turks, Germany's ally, in Palestine.In Switzerland both Asherden and the General contact the third member of the British assassination team Elas Carrington who's masquerading around as Mrs. Asherden. To both Asherden and the Generals surprise Elsa is having an affair with this American tourist playboy Robert Marvin, Robert Young, which greatly complicates matters. Not only don't Asherden and the General know who this German Secret Agent is but their fellow British Agent Elsa is now, by being in love with Marvin, not at all interested in finding and terminating him!The attempt in tracking down and offing the shadowy German Agent falls completely apart when British mountain climbing tourist Caypor, Prcy Marmont, is mistaken for him and murdered by the General pushing Caypor off a snowy cliff in the Alps. This has both Asherden and his "wife" Elsa totally lose interest in finding and killing the German Agent even if letting him stay alive and get to German's ally Turkey, with his secret plans or a full scale Arab revolt, will cost thousand of British lives! That's by causing the neutral, at the time, Arabs to rise up against the British in Palestine in support of the Turks and Germans.***SPOILERS*** Very contrive and unbelievable ending with the RAF, if that's what it was called back then in WWI, doing the job that both Ashenden and Elsa didn't have the heart to do. As for the General he did the best he could to knock off the German Agent but his best wasn't good enough. It's later that both Ashenden and Elsa did in fact tie the knot after all this, spying running shooting and killing, was over and quit the British Secret Service finding that they just weren't quite cut out, in the assassination business, for it.