Immigration Officer (uncredited) Marie De Becker as Miner's Wife (uncredited) John Goldsworthy as Beggar (uncredited) Production The screenplay was based on a Graham Greene novel, of the same name. There is evidence of jump cuts, which suggest that editing, to get the running time under two hours, did not help. Though regarded as overly long, the film remains true to Greene's original story. Reception Critical response According to "The Big Sleep Comparisons 1945/46", a featurette on the 2000 DVD release of Bacall's film The Big Sleep, her reviews for Confidential Agent were largely negative, with particular aspersions cast on Bacall's performance, as a "pretty amateur". According to film historian Robert Gitt, host of the featurette, Warner studio head Jack L. Warner was lobbied to order certain scenes in The Big Sleep re-shot in order to rectify performance issues with Bacall identified in Confidential Agent, which he did. In her own autobiography, Bacall said that she begged not to have to do the film, but couldn't break her contract that early, though her career never fully recovered from Confidential Agent. Graham Greene's response Greene, generally critical of film adaptations of his works, disagreed with the critics. In 1979, when Philip Purser returned to the question of the casting of Bacall in The Sunday Telegraph, Greene responded and commended the acting of both Bacall and Boyer. He also praised Shumlin as the only American director to make a good film from one of his stories. In a letter to the paper entitled "An Honourable Performance", Greene wrote: Mr Philip Purser writes that Lauren Bacall was 'insanely miscast in her third picture The [sic] Confidential Agent and having given—as she admits—a lousy performance, she nevertheless bitterly resented the cool notices that came her way'. I also as the author of the book resent those cool notices. This remains the only good film ever made from one of my books by an American director and Miss Bacall gave an admirable performance and so did Charles Boyer. References External links Confidential Agent film review by Dan Stumpf in Mystery*File 1945 films 1940s spy drama films American spy drama films American black-and-white films Films scored by Franz Waxman Films based on British novels Films based on thriller novels Films based on works by Graham Greene Spanish Civil War films Warner Bros. films Films set in London Films set in Kent 1945 drama films 1940s English-language films