Reviews and notes

Hitchcock thought that he erred on this one, and that explains why the picture wasn't a hit. But he was wrong: this adaptation of Conrad's The Secret Agent may be just about the best of his English thrillers, and if the public didn't respond it wasn't his fault. Sylvia Sidney and Oscar Homolka are a married pair, the Verlocs, who manage a small movie house; Desmond Tester plays Mrs Verloc's younger brother, who, unknowlingly, carries a bomb in the package her husband has given him to deliver. There's a breathtaking sequence when Mrs Verloc, who has just learned of her brother's death, watches the cartoon Who Killed Cock Robin?
-Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies.

Weblink: Review by John Haywood

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