Britanniaa edustamassa

For cryink out Pete sakes! You get Leslie Howard, Kay Francis, a flock of 'A' film character actors and Michael Curtiz to direct, and "British Agent" is the best you come up with? My rating above is the best I can do for this stemwinder of a movie - and it's only 80 minutes long. Where did they go wrong?

For starters, the muddled plot is neither suspenseful nor compelling and the picture is saved only by its two stars. It is always a treat to watch Howard, one of filmdom's brightest and best actors in any picture, even if it's beneath his considerable talent. He had just finished "Of Human Bondage" and his next was "The Scarlet Pimpernel", so with "British Agent" he was in between pictures. Kay Francis was so lovely in all her pictures (See "Jewel Robbery") - she did it for me the way film archaeologists describe Greta Garbo - that I forgive her for a lapse in judgment for taking on this one. Normally glamorous and alluring, she was out of her element as a Russian revolutionary. And Michael Curtiz, hamstrung by the material here, had yet to make "Captain Blood" and "Robin Hood". "Casablanca" was about 10 years off.

I am certain the Russian Revolution was more interesting in person, but it is Hollywood's job to recreate events and make them exciting and entertaining. It is depressing to think of the assemblage of talent wasted on this trudge through the landscape.