Steineded How sad is this?

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

bkoganbing The only thing about Special Agent worth remembering is that for Bette Davis it was the film that she did immediately prior to her first Oscar winner Dangerous. Other than that it was the kind of potboiler programmer that Warner Brothers kept casting her in despite acclaim she got for a few films like Of Human Bondage.At least she got her favorite leading man in Special Agent and in the title role. George Brent has the perfect cover for being a Special Agent for the Treasury Department. He's a reporter which means he can go places see things and ask questions and no one suspects. Least of all gambler/racketeer Ricardo Cortez who Brent has been working on for years to take down.Of course this film was done with the successful prosecution of Al Capone in the mind of the movie-going public. Davis keeps Cortez's books and Brent is keeping company with her. Here the story is rather vague. Did he like her before or after he learned she was keeper of the records in her own code so even Cortez can't decipher it. His convincing Bette to turn on Cortez wasn't really convincing to me.Coming off best in this film is Ricardo Cortez. He is one shrewd article who has his fingers everywhere, it's why no one's caught him till now and Brent nearly doesn't get him this time.Special Agent did Bette Davis and George Brent no harm and great things were in the offing for Bette Davis.

akasbarian Above-average gangster film, typical of the '30s genre. Fun watching, but nothing too extraordinary...EXCEPT some of the close-up scenes involving Ricardo Cortez. With the help of some great lighting, his eyes and facial expressions are chillingly sinister! In particular, there is his private showdown with Armitage (Robert Strange)...simply unforgettable.I also found Cortez's expressions to be reminiscent of Pacino in the Godfather (or should i say the reverse)...i wonder if Pacino studied this film at some point.Bette Davis clearly showed great acting chops, but her role was fairly typecast and thus limited her range somewhat. George Brent did just fine...his role was probably the most straightforward. The supporting cast was outstanding...lots of subplots, double-crosses, and idiosyncrasies that enriched the story.

MartinHafer In the 1930s, Warner Brothers was the place for gangster films, as they churned out a huge number of high-quality films in this genre. While this one did NOT star the usual gangster stars of the day (Cagney or Edward G. Robinson), it star the ever-capable George Brent as a federal agent and Ricardo Cortez as an Al Capone-like thug. I particularly liked Cortez's little speech to Brent that men like him are above the law and can never be convicted--it was a very exciting scene. In addition to these two, the film also stars Bette Davis in a pretty decent role as Cortez's bookkeeper. The film features good writing, dialog and acting and while not the greatest gangster film, it is very good and watchable. Oh, and by the way, the ending is pretty exciting (and violent), so it won't disappoint.By the way, if you see the film and it seems familiar, this appears to be a reworking of the plot from the MGM film THE SECRET SIX. There are just too many similarities to be coincidental, as both heroes are government agents whose cover is newspaper reporter.

lastliberal Bette Davis was already an established actress when she did this film with 27 movies under her belt, and an Oscar nomination for Of Human Bondage. She would win an Oscar for Dangerous the same year this film was released. This is a different Bette Davis than most of us are used to seeing. She was a cute blonde in this film and here acting ability was very evident even in this average gangster flick.This flick had a good story about trying to bring down a mobster (Ricardo Cortez) with a T-Man (George Brent) posing as a newspaper reporter. You have to suspend belief at some of the story, but it's not 2007! Brent and Davis would join forces later with Bogey and Ronald Reagan in the Oscar-nominated Dark Victory.