Ian Fleming & Hitchcock's "Secret Agent"

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bigsilent... RemoveThis @aol.com wrote:


> The film that inspired Ian Flemming to
> write the Bond books, there's "Secret Agent." It was the blueprint for
> the 007 series.

You've written this before, Rich, and I'd meant to ask you then .. how
certain are you of this? I've read many of the Bond books and never
once would have imagined they were based on Hitchcock's 'Secret Agent'.

I'm not saying its definitely not true (I'm far from an authority on
James Bond) .. but if it were, how funny it would be that the Bond
novels and movies were both separately influenced by a couple of
Hitchcock films ('Secret Agent' (1936) and 'North By Northwest' (1959)
respectively).

Fergal #.


Thanks for the question Furgal, I'll do my best to support my
suggestion that this film "Secret Agent" was a direct influence on Ian
Fleming. While the evidence is circumstantial, I think that it is
worth considering.

First some general background: Ian Fleming was born in 1904 making
him about 32 when "Secret Agent" was released. Fleming was an English
journalist and probably familiar with the Daphne Du Mauier novel in
addition to seeing Hitchcock's films when they were new. Du Mauier's
writing were the basis for many Hitchcock films including this one
according to my copy.
Briefly, copied from IMDB, this is a general description of "Secret
Agent":

"The death of a British agent (John Gielgud) is faked and he is sent
to Switzerland with the new name of Ashenden. He is involved in
espionage, or spying with a strange man called The General (Peter
Lorre). A fake Mrs. Ashenden (Madeleine Carroll) is issued to him as
his wife and partner in espionage. Thus begins a journey of adventure,
intrigue and death."

What is strikingly similar to many Bond films? In "You Only Live
Twice, to trick SPECTRE into lowering his guard on British Secret
Service activities in Japan, Bond manages to fake his own death...
That Bond feature begins much the same was as this 1936 film. Below
are four more similar items found in Fleming's series of Bond stories.

1. The Secret Agent finds that the agency has already sent a female
agent on ahead of him masquerading as his wife.
2. The head man in charge of the agency is called "R" and in the
Bond films it's "M"
3. This "R" character, like "M" is very powerful and given authority
to take decisive action. In the story, when R is concerned that his
agents might fail, he orders the air force to bomb the entire train to
insure that the enemy agents are killed.
4. Also like Bond films, our hero gets the girl in the end. But
unlike Bond, the film ends with them resigning (but you can also sense
that the decision isn't theirs to make).

Further, Fleming became the assistant to the head of Naval
Intelligence in 1939 and undoubtedly he would have remembered the
similar intelligence work shown in the film less than three years
earlier. Ian Flemings first Bond book, "Casino Royale" was published
in 1952.


Your comments will be appreciated,

Rich Wagner

bigsilentfan RemoveThis @aol.com wrote:

> 4. Also like Bond films, our hero gets the girl in the end. But
> unlike Bond, the film ends with them resigning (but you can also sense
> that the decision isn't theirs to make).

I find 'Secret Agent' a troublesome film for a number of reasons.
It seems to have an anti-espionage, anti-violence message (when it come
to the time to do the assassination, Ashenden can't bring himself to do
it and is later deeply sickened when he finds out the man was the wrong
target).
But then, on subsequently learning the identity of the real target,
Marvin, he's happily 'back on the job' .. as if his recent guilt pangs
hadn't happened at all.

But that scene on the train I do like. The bombing authorised by R
seems to me to be an attempt to show how callous the whole espionage
business is .. R cares more about getting the job done than he does
about Ashenden's, Elsa's and the General's lives. (And indeed, the
General dies amid the wreckage.)

Fergal #.