BRITISH AGENT

US, 1934, 81 minutes, Black and white.
Leslie Howard, Kay Francis, William Gargan, Irving Pichel, Philip Reed, Walter Byron, J. Carroll Naish, Halliwell Roberts.
Directed by Michael Curtiz.

British Agent is a short-running espionage thriller. It is of interest as a Michael Curtiz film before he moved into the larger-budget action spectacles for which he was famous at Warner Brothers. It is also a star vehicle for Leslie Howard who, at the same time, was making such spectacular films as The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Petrified Forest. His leading lady is Kay Francis. There is interesting support from actor-director Irving Pichel and J. Carroll Naish.

The film is of historical interest as a thriller of the '30s but, more particularly, as a fictionalised account of the memoirs of a British diplomat, Bruce Lockhart. The story is set at the time of the Russian Revolution and, in studios, re-creates Revolutionary Russia. (The film pales somewhat in comparison with such films as Von Sternberg's 1928 The Last Command.) Of interest also are the portraits of Stalin (Pichel), Trotsky (J. Carroll Naish) and of Lenin himself.

The film is moderately exciting but might have been much better. Of historical interest.