Espionage Agent (1939)

Waste of time

Better Late Then Never

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Producer: Hal B. Wallis. Executive producer: Jack L. Warner. Copyright 30 September 1939 by Warner Bros Pictures, Inc. A First National picture. New York opening at the Strand: 22 September 1939. U.S. release: 30 September 1939. Australian release: October-December 1939. 83 minutes. NOTES: Thanks to her co-starring roles with super-star Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawk and Footsteps in the Dark, Brenda Marshall was extremely popular with Australian audiences. This seems to be her film debut. COMMENT: Politically dated but it still has some interest. There's a bit of excitement, though the climactic action finishes just as it is warming up. What makes the film interesting is that it is given the full Warner Bros "A" treatment: brisk, slick direction by Lloyd Bacon, attention-getting montage routines, lavish sets and a spectacular support cast. Brenda Marshall, although not as stunningly beautiful as the scriptwriters specify, makes a good fist of the title role.One thing we like about the script is that it doesn't follow conventional melodramatic plot lines but has some unexpected, if politically motivated, twists. Joel McCrea fills the hero part with his usual likableness, while Jeffrey Lynn holds up a small and unimportant part as the hero's buddy. It's wonderful to see Martin Kosleck looking so neat and villainously smooth. Our old friends Robert O. Davis and Hans Schumm are also along to fill out the Nazi ranks. Sarah Edwards and Vera Lewis are disgruntled enquirers at the consulate and there is a large round of familiar cameo players on the State Department staff.Bacon's direction is brisk and assured, if inclined to use too many close-ups. Rosher's lighting photography treats his players kindly, even if it is a minor factor in the creation of atmosphere. But the sets are impressive and the music score has that familiar Warners' sound.

Want to know how much difference a director can make? Watch this film, with Joel McCrea as a blundering American naïf in Europe on the eve of World War II exposing an Axis spy plot under the hacky direction of Lloyd Bacon, and then watch "Foreign Correspondent," which McCrea made the next year in a similar role, similar plot, at least one supporting cast member (Martin Kosleck) in common and even another sequence set during a rainstorm -- but under the direction of Alfred Hitchcock. "Espionage Agent" isn't a bad movie and it probably would be a lot more likable if McCrea hadn't made "Foreign Correspondent" (albeit playing a terminally naïve journalist instead of a terminally naïve diplomat) a year later.Incidentally, the comment by "bkoganbing" is wrong. Though the film begins in 1915, it quickly leaps forward to 1936 (the year the Spanish Civil War broke out) and the bulk of it takes place in the late 1930's -- though, even so, the German uniforms are otherwise correct but their armbands are missing the swastika. Even after making "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" (which was about Nazi abuses in the U.S., not in their homeland), Warners was still being skittish about directly taking on the German government.

In these days, when many are more concerned about the rights of terrorists than the security of our country, a simple old movie like ESPIONAGE AGENT reminds us that no country can afford to relax its vigilance against terrorists within its borders.Joel McCrea, on the verge of making one of the best WW2 spy pictures of all (Hitchcock's FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, 1940), plays a likable US diplomat who makes the mistake of falling for a woman with a shady past. Orphaned in Europe, his wife Brenda was recruited by German spies, and now that she's married into the diplomatic corps, her handlers want her to use her connections for further infiltration. The two lovers decide to play their own double game to bring down the Germans. There's nothing extraordinary about the film. It's simply done, with solid acting and a taut script with no wasted scenes (and no money wasted on actual location shoots). What makes it seem so special is its timing: being released just as WW2 openly broke out in Europe, and the danger of spies became more of a real threat to free countries everywhere. There's also a nice balance between the spy plot, the romance plot, and some humorous bits involving annoying American tourists.Just like today's terrorists, the German saboteurs operate under a neutral-sounding front: the WORLD PEACE ORGANIZATION. Early in the picture, discussing the government's reluctance to do something about saboteurs, a high-ranking US official asks a question that rings true here in the post-9/11 world: "Will we as a nation ever learn the difference between tolerance and stupidity?" Trivia bit: keep your eyes open for Clark Kent AND Perry White from the old SUPERMAN TV series.And contrary to a previous poster, this film is not in the least confused about which war it's about. The opening scenes, with the father of McCrea's character, take place around WW1. Then there's a very clear narration bringing us up to the late 1930s, and there are several references later on to "20 years ago" (meaning the World War). Someone must have been dozing.

There is little doubt in this film that World War II is about to begin. In fact, it was released just twenty-one days after the invasion of Poland by German forces and was in production long before. Scare tactics aside, the movie reveals real fears during the months preceding the war. Spies, counterspies, terror, suspicions, and other prologues to war gave ample warning of renewed global conflict. This movie reflects that warning.Viewing this film leads one to wonder, given the ample clues, how the war could surprise anyone.