Sabotage

The picture is an adaptation of the Joseph Conrad's novel about Verloc (Oscar Homolka) , an anarchist bomber and owns a theater who actually is an unknown secret agent for the foreign government in London pre-WWII . He is married to Sylvia (Sylvia Sidney )who works as a theater cashier and doesn't know her kindly husband is behind all it and has no idea his activities . An undercover police inspector (John Loder) surveys the marriage movements .

The film contains suspense , tense thriller , intrigue and usual Hitchcock touches . Hitch was a fervent anti-Nazi and similarly other films , he denounces the interior enemy , a spy-ring formed by English and German people . The movie has the expressionist German atmosphere , the suspense is continued and appears lurking and menacing in the theater , streets and during the bus scenes , when the boy carries the bomb . His habitual photographer Bernard Knowles makes an excellent camera-work with lights and shades . Enjoyable cartoon sequence belongs to ¨Who killed cock Robin ?¨ from Silly Symphony of Walt Disney . The movie has the Hitchcock's customary technicians , as Charles Friend (edition) , Louis Levy (musician), Bernard Knowles (cinematographer) , the screenwriter results to be Charles Bennett and being produced by Gaumont British with the great producer Michael Balcon . In spite of long time was released and a little bit dated , the film holds up pretty well . The motion picture was elaborately directed by the master of suspense . Rating : Above average . Essential and indispensable seeing for Hitch's moviegoers.

In the mid-to-late 1930s Alfred Hitchcock held a unique position for a director. Since the successes of The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps, his destiny as a suspense filmmaker had been revealed not only to himself but also to his bosses at Gaumont. He was now only assigned material suitable to his area of expertise, and given a considerable amount of freedom to play around with the form. At the tail end of his British period, at a time when standard cinematic technique and narrative convention were well established, Hitchcock was effectively a researcher, of the kind that hadn't really been seen since the days of Griffith.

Sabotage is adapted from the Joseph Conrad novel Secret Agent, and it's worth taking a peek at a synopsis of the book to see the differences in the movie version, two of which are very significant. Firstly the novel is a kind of anti-heroic piece told largely from the point-of-view of the villainous Verloc. You couldn't have that in cinema in the 30s, so Verloc's opponents are beefed up into morally sound protagonists. However, it is still revealed from the outset that Verloc is the culprit, and we the audience are always kept aware of his doings even when the heroes are not. Dispensing with the Agatha Christie form of "whodunit" is essential to the Hitchcockian mode of suspense building. Revealing the identity and intentions of a killer keeps the audience constantly wondering when and how he will strike again.

The other important difference between the novel and film, is that Conrad states quite explicitly that Verloc and co. are anarchists, delving quite deeply into their ideology, as well as implying that they are Russians. Hitchcock's picture however makes no mention of the politics or nationality of the villains. They are simply generic foreign terrorists, existing to make the plot work. Imagine how much weaker this picture would be if we were asked to think about Verloc's motives. He has thick eyebrows, a sinister accent and he puts bombs on buses. What more do you need?

On a purely formalist level, Hitchcock's method is becoming increasingly streamlined. This is perhaps the earliest of his pictures which really feels like it was planned shot by shot before a single camera rolled. Of particular note is Hitch's staging of drama through reaction shots rather than expository dialogue. For example, Oskar Homolka's reaction to Stevie talking about gangsters, or pair of close-ups after John Loder is pulled through the air vent that tells us one of the gang members has recognised him. There are a few pointless technical touches, such as Homolka's vision of London in the fish tank glass, or Stevie's face popping up among the crowd of boys, but these are not as distracting as they could be in Hitch's earliest pictures.

Hitchcock rarely gave his actors any coaching, and relied upon a good professional cast to deliver the goods. In Sylvia Sydney and Oskar Homolka he has two of the best leads he had worked with so far, and their restrained naturalistic performances make their climactic scene together incredibly effective. The supporting cast are not bad either, although as usual with Hitchcock the comedy characters are the real standouts. Little-known stage veteran William Dewhurst, who plays the "professor", is a joy to watch, and it almost looks as if his scenes are about to turn into Monty Python sketches.

Much as I detest the phrase "experimental film", this was truly an experimental era for Hitchcock, or at least one in which his pictures were going through a process of natural selection. He realised afterwards he had made a huge mistake in one aspect of the main suspense sequence on the bus – I won't reveal it here as it's a major spoiler – and would ensure he never repeated the error. In spite of what was for him an embarrassing flaw, Sabotage is a very enjoyable and effective thriller, not among the greatest of his British period, but certainly worth watching.

A boy, an old lady, and a puppy on a bus. What could possibly be a sweeter film scene? Well, that is unless you're Alfred Hitchcock and the film is "Sabotage," in which case you get a trifecta of quite a different sort.

Playing with the rules was Hitchcock's forte, but never again until "Psycho" would he do so with the cold brilliance on display here. Unlike "Psycho," which hasn't dated a month since its 1960 release, "Sabotage" doesn't for a moment feel like it was made any later than 1936, in part because of its fuzzy sound quality (maybe just the versions I've seen) and in part because it's a very static film.

That's not to say "Sabotage" isn't good. In fact, it's brilliant. Adapted from the Joseph Conrad novel "The Secret Agent" but markedly better both in terms of its linear treatment of the thin central story and its sharper, more measured ending, "Sabotage" introduces us to Mr. Verloc (Oskar Homolka), the owner of a London cinema who sidelines as a secret agent for a mysterious foreign power, "the people you and I will never catch" as one policeman tells another. After causing a power outage that produces laughter rather than the desired fear, Verloc is assigned a more deadly job, to cause an explosion in Piccadilly Circus, "the center of the world," as Verloc's controller calls it.

It's impossible to watch the film now without thinking of 9/11 or the London subway bombings, a world of murderous, anarchic terrorism Conrad's novel and Hitchcock's film anticipated without quite comprehending. The film seems to stumble on offering a coherent "why," perhaps because there isn't one, then or now. But echoing a central point in Conrad's novel, "Sabotage" shows the terrorists' greatest fear is not retribution but indifference. "London must not laugh" is the order given to Verloc.

As played by Homolka with sleepy nuance, Verloc isn't quite a villain, just a weak, lazy man of no moral fiber who objects at the thought of murder but decides to go through with it in order to be paid. Sgt. Spencer of Scotland Yard is hot on Verloc's trail, but he's not exactly a hero, a bit of a bumbler rather who fancies Verloc's wife. Mrs. Verloc, played by screen vet Sylvia Sidney (she was the case worker helping the Maitlands in the afterlife in "Beetle Juice" 52 years later) is the closest we have to a rooting interest, though her concern seems less with the husband or the policeman who woos her than her little brother, Stevie (Desmond Tester).

Hitchcock's direction offers a little of the comic relief more prominent in his other films, and some arresting visuals for their time, especially that of a fish tank which morphs into a London street under attack. There's a very involving scene where a devastated Mrs. Verloc is reduced to tearful laughter by a Disney cartoon. (Verloc's owning a cinema may be a comment on the deceptively transformative power of cinema, or a wink in the direction of his sideline activity in the novel, selling Edwardian porn.) Mostly "Sabotage" is a film that grabs you by the throat and never lets go, making its 80-minute running time feel like forever going by in an instant.

It all comes down to the scene on the bus. Hitchcock apparently believed it was the biggest mistake in his career. It may have killed enthusiasm for "Sabotage," but it made clear to filmgoers that all bets were off as far as this young director was concerned. From then on, cliffhangers would be invested with a certain added dread that would make their resolutions seem less pat, and the movie thriller would be that much more thrilling. It took guts to make a film like that.

Sir Alfred Hitchcock adapted James Conrad's story, "The Secret Agent," into one of better known films. This film is short but not sweet. Sylvia Sidney is magnificent in the leading role as Mrs Verloc. Oscar Homolka plays her husband. They run the Bijou movie house in London, England before Word War II. Her husband is up to something but she doesn't know what. The red flag is raised when the theater loses power and patrons want refunds. Sidney was so young and her eyes could have earned an Academy Award nomination. Sidney supposedly had the saddest eyes in Hollywood but I disagree. Her eyes alone were worth watching. This film is a must for Hitchcock historians and fans alike.

Sabotage clearly isn't Hitchcock's finest hour; but even though this is a 'lesser' Hitchcock film, the director still manages to inject the film with many of his trademarks that would go on to make classics out of films such as Psycho and North by Northwest. Hitchcock makes centrepieces out of several scenes; the best of which include a cross-fade with an aquarium and a London street, the striking opening sequence that sees London go dark; of course, the infamous scene on a bus - and my personal favourite and the crux of the film - the climatic scene that sees saboteur Karl Verloc (played to perfection by Oskar Homolka) try to pass the blame for his actions on to the Scotland Yard inspective who rumbled him. The plot sees cinema owner, the aforementioned Karl Verloc, get himself involved with terrorists. He manages the cinema along with his wife and her brother, and neither of them knows what's going on. The only third party who does know is Sgt. Ted Spencer; the Scotland Yard inspector employed to work a vegetable stall next door as a cover to investigate Mr Verloc.

This film is most famous for the sequence that sees young Desmond Tester carry a bomb onto a packed London bus. Audiences at the time were outraged by the climax to this scene; but I was impressed with it. By having the story run the way it should, Hitchcock showed early on the sort of flair that would ensure Psycho a place on 'best film' lists forty five years after its release. Hitchcock shows a willingness to take a risk, and while it may not have done him much good at the time - it's that sort of mentality that made him one of cinema's greats. As you'd expect, Hitchcock makes best use of the latest cinema techniques available at the time, but also harks back to the silent classics with several shots made to look like storyboards. It's obvious why Joseph Conrad's novel appealed to the great director, as the story itself is packed with suspense and Hitchcock always makes the best of it. The build up to the finale of the bus scene is beautifully serene, yet so daunting at the same time. On the whole; Sabotage represents a good example of early Hitchcock and comes highly recommended to his many fans.