Confidential Agent

Lauren Bacall was TCM's Star of the Month last September on the occasion of her centenary, and it gave me the opportunity to record a movie I wasn't certain whether I had seen before. That movie is Confidential Agent, and as it turns out I hadn't seen it. So I've rectified that situation by watching it in order to be able to do a review now.

Opening intertitles inform us that the movie takes place in October, 1937; as you may recall, that's smack dab in the middle of the Spanish Civil War. On a boat heading from somwhere on the Continent to England is Luis Denard (Charles Boyer). He's working for the Republicans, and has a thing against the fascist Loyalists since they killed his wife and daughter. When they reach the port of Southampton, Luis gets delayed by a customs search, and misses his train as a result.

Also missing the train is Rose Cullen (Lauren Bacall), who isn't British at all although she's playing one, the daughter of industrialist Lord Benditch (Holmes Herbert). Rose being a well-to-do daughter, she's able to rent a car to drive back home, and takes Luis with her. The trip doesn't go smoothly, however, as the car breaks down and Spanish Loyalist Licata tries to pressure Denard into selling a letter of credit that he's got and which is essential for his business in England.

That business is to buy a bunch of coal from the mining magnates, which includes Lord Benditch, in part because it's vital for the Republican war effort but also to keep it out of the hands of the Loyalists from whom it's also vital. So you can see why both sides would want the letter of credit. Denard eventually makes it to London and registers at a hotel where he thinks the owner is sympathetic to the Republican cause. That owner, Mrs. Melandez (Katina Paxinou), turns out to be on the side of the Loyalists which, as you might guess, puts Denard in all sorts of danger.

Denard meets his contact, Contreras (Peter Lorre), only to discover later that Contreras is yet another Loyalist sympathizer. Denard doesn't seem to have much support, but he's got a couple of important people his side. One is Rose who, once she learns Denard is there to buy coal, tries to help him get an in with her father, and is also willing to lie to the police to get Denard out of trouble. (I'm guessing that since she's doing it to aid the antifascist cause and the movie being released in 1945, the Production Code office let this one slide.) The other person helping Denard is young Else (Wanda Hendrix), the hotel maid. But Melandez figures out that Else is helping Denard, which also puts Else in severe danger. Eventually, people die from negligent manslaughter, forcing Denard to go on the run. But again thanks to the Production Code, the good guys are going to win in the end.

I think for me Confidential Agent had several flaws. One is in the casting, since Lauren Bacall is not British at all. (In her defense, she knew this and felt miscast while making the movie.) Another issue is that the plot has to do a lot of contortions to get both a happy ending and one that satisfies the Code office. But more than that, the plot is too convoluted for its own good, with sections of it feeling like they're putting in macguffins to drive the movie forward. It also doesn't help that Confidential Agent runs nearly two hours, which is a good 15 minutes longer than Casablanca. Sadly Confidential Agent often feels overlong as well.

It's not that Confidential Agent is a bad movie so much as it's another of those movies where something so much better could have been made considering the cast.