Secret People

There were such hopes invested in this film, Lindsay Anderson wrote a book about its production, but it has never really recovered from its commercial and seemingly artistic failure. In truth, for a film that aspires to be an intelligent study of anarchists beliefs, it suffers from a timidity that some may find all too typical of the British films of its period, and from punches pulled in a manner that rather typifies the work of that almost brilliant director, Thorold Dickinson. But it is an intelligent study for all that, gripping and persuasive until one too many plot convolutions spoils it. I have never failed to be moved when seeing it, nor to be frustrated that it wasn't just a little bit better. The story revolves around European refugees in London who get caught up in the activities of anarchists. Valentina Cortese gives a haunting performance as the conscience-stricken refugee caught up in an assassination plot, and a young Audrey Hepburn is her ballet-dancing innocent sister whose life she must save.

Simply put "Secret People" is about terrorism.

Maria Brentano (Valentina Cortese) and her younger sister Nora (Angela Fouldes/Audrey Hepburn) are sent to live in London with a friend of their father's; he is ultimately killed by a European dictator, Galbern. Maria becomes a citizen and changes her name to Brent and works in her guardian's restaurant, while Nora pursues a career as a dancer. Seven years pass, and their guardian takes them for a weekend in Paris. There, Maria sees her boyfriend Louis (Serge Reggiani), from whom she has been separated for seven years.

Serge and his group are now plotting the assassination of Galbern, who is visiting London. He arranges for Nora to be hired for a private party which will be attended by Galbern, and Maria will be a guest. He pressures her at the last minute to carry a bomb and pass it to someone who will be at the party. The plan goes awry and a waitress is killed. Horrified, Maria goes into a sort of witness protection and is sent back to help capture Louis and his group.

Terrorism coming into and hurting ordinary people, fanatics who believe in their cause -- it resonates today. The acting is very good. Valentina Cortese is excellent as a loving and protective woman drawn into something by the man she loves. Audrey Hepburn is sweet and very girlish as Nora, and Serge Reggiani as the smooth Louis does a great job. This role must have hit close to home for Reggiani; his father was a prominent anti-fascist and fled Mussolini in order to protect his family. Everyone in the film is good.

Valentina Cortese was interviewed for the Audrey Hepburn biography on which I worked. She adored Hepburn, and the two of them used to go to nightclubs together and even at one point tried smoking cigars. So it was especially interesting for me to see this film. Despite some negative reviews here, I found this a worthwhile film.

The Secret People is worth seeing as much for what it did not accomplish as for what it did. It seems to me that only Hitchcock's Sabotage deals with the same sort of moral dilemmas that this film attempts to portray. Both Sabotage and Secret People were filmed in dark London streets and ominous back streets. In fact, the cinematography is literally so dark that it is often difficult to make out the action. In both films, an atmosphere of dread and secrecy hangs over the characters. However, despite the strong bond between the sisters, you never feel the same anguish shown in Sabotage by the wife of the saboteur. The film could have been a lot more forceful in setting up its moral conflicts. Of course, it is worth while just to see the young Audrey Hepburn dance classical ballet, something we were never to see again on film. And to see her before she became a major star. No Givenchy fashions in this one!

Secret People (1951)

A British production, and very much about their view on the coming of World War II. It's gritty, interwoven with several main characters, and fairly dark.

The film is a kind of revisiting of the build up to the war from one small personal point of view, filled with intrigue and international mixing. There are migrants and immigrants and a growing threat of an unnamed evil (though swastikas do appear in some inserted footage). It's complicated and exciting. Some key scenes happen early on in the 1937 Paris Exposition. It whispers and then it shouts. Most of the action is in mysterious London.

The key actor, in my view, is Serge Reggiani, who is Louis, the evil foreigner up to disrupt the uneasy peace still alive in London. He has a subtle touch to his sinister intentions, and it lifts the movie up. The actual main character is also excellent, the tortured and trapped Maria played by another Italian actor, Valentina Cortese.

It might be easy to look back at these times from more than a decade later. But it isn't easy to make it fresh, and to keep the tension make sense. Of course, now it is 60 years later and it becomes more of a drama with historical roots that have to be told by the movie, not assumed. At times the movie pulls this off with surprising sharpness. As the police get involved, it gets curiously complicated, good guys vs. bad guys, with no one quite fitting the clichés of other movies. The idea here is that the enemy is unexpected, and everywhere.

It should be mentioned that we have Audrey Hepburn, whose first movie appearance was just one year earlier. She's not quite the Audrey we all know, but almost. Briefly. Great to see.

The more I watched this movie the more I liked it. It might be an underrated gem in some ways. There is so much going on and really dramatic filming with often nearly pitch black scenes, inside or out.

A final note. A chap at one point says, surprised, "A London girl made good coffee." How times have changed.

It was said that the director Thorold Dickenson and his colleagues viewed Hitchcock's "Sabotage" before starting this film, and I'm not really sure if they learned anything. I do agree with both of the first reviewers for this in that it did have some promise, but it fell short. Perhaps because of the long delay before actual production of the project got under way when Ealing Studios saw it as an unusual product worth tackling.

Valentina Cortesa did a marvelous job as a foreign refugee living in London who gets caught up in the intrigue unwillingly.This film was one of the only ones that I hadn't seen of Audrey Hepburn's earlier works. Although she only appears in it off and on she is given a broader speaking role than her previous earlier film 'walk-on' parts. She was quite able to act with the best of what this British Film Company had to offer, in a role a bit too understated for me. In fact, the whole film was a little too 'understated', dealing with a bomb plot planned by nationals of a foreign tyranny in 1930's London.

I would watch this again, as it is now part of my library of hard to find films. I gave it an eight out of ten stars for Cortesa's performance and the early glimpse of Hepburn beyond a one minute spot.One does walk away from this film wishing it was better given it's premise, which is still very much a topic of today as it was then.If you can find a copy I would recommend it.