Confidential Agent (1945)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Herman Shumlin

Writers:

Robert Buckner (writer)
Graham Greene (novel)

Release Date:

10 November 1945 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Plot:

During the Spanish Civil War, a republican courier travels to England to try and buy coal. He meets with an amount of local hostility...

Plot Keywords:

Coal | Fascist | Spanish Civil War | Road House | International Intrigue

Cast

Charles Boyer	...	Luis Denard
Lauren Bacall	...	Rose Cullen
Victor Francen	...	Licata
Wanda Hendrix	...	Else
George Coulouris	...	Captain Currie
Peter Lorre	...	Contreras
Katina Paxinou	...	Mrs. Melandez
John Warburton	...	Neil Forbes
Holmes Herbert	...	Lord Benditch
Dan Seymour	...	Mr. Muckerji
Art Foster	...	Chauffeur
Miles Mander	...	Mr. Brigstock
Lawrence Grant	...	Lord Fetting
Ian Wolfe	...	Dr. Bellows
George Zucco	...	Detective Geddes

Runtime:

118 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #11067) | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

This is famously the movie where Howard Hawks said Bacall let her voice get high again, and as a result no-one liked her in it. Curiously enough there is no sign of this in the actual movie. If no-one liked her in it maybe she was just miscast as an Englishwoman.

Quotes:

Rose Cullen: What you want and what you settle for are not often the same.
Luis Denard: And often what you want is no good either.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Hold Your Breath and Cross Your Fingers: The Story of 'Dark Passage' (2003) (V)

Soundtrack:

Too Marvelous for Words

Boyer Isn't Spanish and Bacall Isn't British, Yet...

I watch a lot of films, good, bad and indifferent; there is usually something of interest to fixate upon, even if it is only set design, or the reliable labor of a good character actor, or the fortuitous laughter that emerges from watching ineptitude captured forever.

However, I was quite pleasantly surprised by this film, one I had never seen before. Graham Greene has been translated into film many times of course, in such masterpieces as "Thin Man" and in lesser vehicles. "Confidential Agent" is one of those lesser vehicles, yet it manages to get me somewhere anyway, despite lackluster direction, the incongruity of Bacall and Boyer's depictions as (respectively) British and Spanish, and the almost complete non-existence of any chemistry between the two leads. In some ways, this last "problem" actually begins to work in the film's favor, for how can love really blossom in the killing atmosphere of fascism and capitalism meeting about one person's tragedy? The most compelling aspect of the film arises directly from Greene's complex and guilt-ridden psychology, which pervades the film. I know some see the deliberate pacing here as dull, and I can understand that. Yet I found that plodding accentuated rather than detracted from what is a claustrophobic world. I was compelled to watch, not by any great acting (although Boyer is marvelous as usual, managing to convey a rich mixture of world-weariness, tragedy, hope, and fervor with his magnificent voice and yearning eyes), but by the down-spiraling rush of one man's slim hopes against a world of oppression and money. What is a thief? What good is love in the face of death? Where does mere profit-taking end and exploitation begin? The film does not rise to the level of art, and thus cannot hope to answer such questions, but it is much more than mere entertainment, and its murders and guilts are very grimly drawn. The lack of glitz, of "bubble," of narrative "bounce" help to make this movie very worthwhile.

And there is no happy ending, for history wrote the ending.