Saboteure

This is one of the classic Hitchcock films. It's not really a great film but its classic Hitchcock all the same. It's got the cross- country chase, the interesting characters and situation along the way, the innocent hero and the blonde, the oily villain and his crazed henchman, the big ending, (North by Northeast?).

I think it's a little weak that every nice person- save for the girl, instinctively knows Bob Cummings is innocent the moment they meet him. If you ran into a guy who is accused of torching a defense plant and his best friend with it, who you immediately decide that he's not so bad? Also the horrendous nature of the accusation would make the `It Happened One Night' type scenes that draw the hero and heroine together rather unlikely. The wartime patriotic speech at the end can certainly be forgiven. What movies in 1942 didn't have a speech like that?

The big thing, of course is the ending. Sweet old Norman Lloyd in his younger days finds, as Ben Hecht said, that `he needs a new tailor.' It's a model for many similar scenes later. One wonders why there was no denouement. Lloyd tells Cummings that he will clear him and then dies. Is Cummings on his way to jail at the end? An earlier scene suggests that the police already on his side. Wouldn't it be better to make that unclear and then have a scene afterwards where we find out he's off the hook?

'Saboteur' isn't one of Hitchcock's best known movies but it shouldn't be completely dismissed for that reason. It's a very entertaining "innocent man on the run" thriller, a theme he had previously used to great success in 'The 39 Steps', and would later recycle in one of his most popular movies 'North By Northwest' (and one which still gets used time and time again by Hollywood - see 'The Fugitive', 'Enemy Of The State', 'Minority Report' and countless others). Some people slam Robert Cummings (who later appeared in Hitchcock's 'Dial M For Murder') as being a bit lightweight, but I think he's actually pretty good as a leading man, and Priscilla Lane ('Arsenic And Old Lace') is also not bad, and the two do show some on screen chemistry. Of course with more charismatic leads 'Saboteur' would have been greatly improved, but as it is it's good enough. One actor in the cast I think is really terrific is Otto Kruger ('Murder, My Sweet') who plays Tobin, one of Hitchcock's best ever villains. 'Saboteur' is action packed and keeps things interesting. There's a good sequence with a traveling circus, memorable bit parts from a truck driver and a blind man, and the climax is great stuff and vintage Hitch. If you are new to Hitchcock I could name at least a dozen of his movies to watch before this one, but if you've seen his "greatest hits" try 'Saboteur', it's lots of fun.

Saboteur is a fairly routine Alfred Hitchcock film. It is in many ways an update on the director's first big hit The 39 Steps, with its story of a wronged man on the run. Although it also was a forerunner for the later North by Northwest, which also shared this idea as well as a finale set on a famous monument that represented America. Although Saboteur is not amongst the director's best, it still is a movie with several great sequences. The opening fire is filmed in a very stylish manner with black smoke slowly engulfing the screen; the set-piece with the circus troupe is quirky with memorable characters such as a fascistic dwarf, a highly creepy bearded lady and a human skeleton who is at best slightly thin; there's also a great sequence in a cinema where the characters act out action that is mirrored on the big screen backdrop; but best of all is the final set-piece atop the Statue of Liberty, it's exciting stuff with excellent set design too.

The story itself is fairly derivative. It's about a group of rich 5th columnists who organise activities to sabotage the war effort. An innocent man is accused and is forced to try and clear his name.

It's not the most involving story but decent enough. Main man Robert Cummings is okay but not overly charismatic. There is a typical Hitchcock romantic sub-plot where our hero hooks up with an at-first reluctant ice blonde woman. This girl is introduced by way of a scene where the man on the run is taken in by a kindly blind man who seems to be the only one who doesn't see him as a criminal. It's very similar indeed to the famous sequence in the Bride of Frankenstein where the monster's only friend in an unjudgemental blind hermit.

This is not classic Hitchcock but a stylish thriller none-the-less. Worth a look if you appreciate the older flicks.

Hitchcock made at least 11 films about the ordinary man, wrongly accused, on the run (sometimes really running, sometimes not) to prove his innocence in a situation beyond his control, the first one being "The 39 Steps", which really made him popular in Great Britain. It really is his signature theme.

Others include "Young and Innocent", "Saboteur", "Spellbound", "Stage Fright", "Strangers on a Train", "I Confess", "To Catch a Thief", "The Wrong Man", "North by Northwest", and finally "Frenzy". "Saboteur" starts Robert Cummings as Barry Kane, a wartime aircraft plant worker during wartime accused of murdering his co-worker and best friend during an act of sabotage on the plant. He meets up with model Patricia Martin, played by actress Priscilla Lane, during his run from the law, and later, of course, the various Nazi/Fascist sympathizers along the way.

"Saboteur" is mainly like "The 39 Steps", even including similar plot devices such as handcuffs, the blonde who doesn't trust the main character in the beginning, a race across the country (in one case London to Scotland, and in the other California to New York), and meeting the "colorful" locals along the way. And so, just like "The Man Who Knew Too Much", I believe this is an American remake of one of Hitchcock's earlier works.

I think Robert Cummings was chosen because he comes across as a very ordinary American, sort of an "everyman" with whom the audience can identify. I like Priscilla Lane because her character is a more involved in the action than Madeline Carroll in "The 39 Steps" and Ruth Roman in "Strangers on a Train". As mentioned elsewhere, though, Otto Kruger steals the show as the villain. I also liked Vaughan Glaser's performance as the blind uncle; his lines are great. There are some funny touches all along the way for some comic relief, such as road signs featuring Priscilla Lane's character on them, and circus sideshow performers, and the truck driver, Murray Alper. Contrary to other opinions here, there aren't too many characters who believe Barry Kane's innocence immediately.

There are some slow parts, mainly when the action first moves to New York, but it picks up quickly when the last planned act of the fifth columnists gets underway.

It's one of my favorite films from Hitchcock (I put it in my top 5), especially in these days of the new war on terrorism. I think it hits home.

It makes you think, "Could my coworker be involved in something evil?" In fact, one of the movie posters for "Saboteur" proclaimed "Watch Out for the Man behind your back!" Imagine how that played in the mind of adults during the Second World War.

The story is spelled out elsewhere -- Cummings being mistaken for a saboteur and getting mixed up with a real gang -- so I'll pretty much skip it and just add a few comments.

First, it's identifiably Hitchcock, but is an example of his lighthearted thrillers not his more ambitious dramas. Think of it as being in the same class as, say, "The Lady Vanishes" or "North by Northwest." Aside from a speech Robert Cummings makes to the Nazis at the mansion -- about "you and your kind" -- none of this is meant to be taken very seriously.

This is also the first use Hitchcock makes of an American landmark or even an identifiable American landscape in his films. It isn't his first use of landmarks as setting for a chase, since he earlier used the British Museum. He does better here with his mockup of the Statue of Liberty, which also carries a (rather heavy) symbolic weight.

The score is kind of sweet and musically a little tricky, but there is no music at all while Cummings is holding the villain Norman Loyd by the sleeve at the top of the statue. The scene cries out for explosive dramatic suspenseful collossal stupendous orchestration -- and Hitchcock keeps it silent except for a few whispered words from Loyd.

The plot has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese but it doesn't matter much. "The FBI arrived at my ranch," says the suave Otto Krueger. "Luckily I was just leaving." The mother of the victim at the beginning seems to believe that Cummings, the victim's best friend, may have deliberately murdered him. A hole has been drilled in the wall of a deserted shack so that Cummings can find a telescope and look through the hole and see what appears to be Boulder Dam and cotton to what's going on. Oh, well.

The makeup department should have been penalized (or drafted). In some scenes Cummings is so plastered with makeup that he resembles a silent screen hero like Valentino. And sometimes the delectably cream-fed Priscilla Lane looks almost ordinary.

The best performances are from Otto Krueger, who switched from music to acting, fortunately, and from Alan Baxter as the soft spoken and not entirely unsympathetic heavy. We first see Baxter as he enters the abandoned shack at Soda City with Clem Bevins, brushing the dust fussily from the sleeve of his dark jacket. And he has a truly amazing conversation with Cummings in the back seat of a car while they are being driven to New York. It's a complete non sequitur dealing with Baxter's two young sons. He describes them lovingly and then talks about how much he wanted a girl. He asks Cummings if it would be acceptable to raise a boy nowadays with long hair, adding that when he himself was a child he had beautiful long golden curls. "You might do the kid a favor if you got him a haircut," advises Cummings! It's sometimes easy to make fun of Hitchcock and call him nothing more than a successful commercial hack, but it's almost impossible to imagine scenes like these appearing in another director's work, not with such consistency.

As far as that goes, few other directors would have the imagination to roll the credits against a blank wall and, afterwards, have an ominous black shadow of smoke unfurl itself against that background. But that's only visual flair. Not that it should be dismissed, but that conversation between Cummings and Baxter I think tells us much more about what exercised Hitchcock's interest aside from patterns on a silver screen.