This entertaining curiosity stars a handsome young John Gielgud as a WWI soldier and novelist, the reports of whose death are greatly exaggerated in order to install him as a secret agent abroad. In a Swiss hotel he pretends to be married to fellow agent Madeleine Carroll (playing at marriage is a Hitchcock device that never tires since it's so much more romantic than the real thing); while Peter Lorre "does his thing" as a trigger-happy hitman. Lorre would be largely superfluous were the film not precisely concerned with the temptations and titillations of murder. Hitchcock plays with our own "pleasure" in on-screen death by portraying it here as a very human thing that can easily happen to the wrong guy. Murder comes in extreme-long-shot through a telescope that doubles for a camera that doubles for our sight. And it's not a pretty picture. Carroll's lady spy, having arrived full of (our) excitement for the kill, leaves questioning its justice altogether, even if it's the right guy. Movies aren't supposed to do that.