Main Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka, Desmond Tester, John Loder, Joyce Barbour
Release Year: 1936
Country: US/UK
Run Time: 81 minutes
Plot
Oskar Homolka plays a London movie-theatre owner who maintains a secret life as a paid terrorist. Homolka's wife Sylvia Sidney doesn't suspect Homolka of any wrongdoing, but she's picked up enough second-hand information about her husband's activities to arouse the interest of government agent (John Loder). Posing as a grocer, Loder moves next door to the Homolkas, befriending Sidney and her precocious young brother Desmond Tester. Sensing that he's being watched, Homolka sends Tester out to deliver a reel of film. The reel contains a time bomb, but Homolka is certain that the boy will deliver his package on time and will be safely away by the time the bomb explodes. Thus begins one of Hitchcock's most electrifying suspense sequences, as the unsuspecting boy is delayed en route to his destination. Sabotage was based on Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent; the film was retitled A Woman Alone in the US. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Alfred Hitchcock relished in playing off of his audience's suspicions, and this early suspense film accomplishes just that. Made when Europe was on the verge of war, Sabotage focuses on Mr. Verloc, the incarnation of the heavily accented neighbor who may not be as benign as he seems. This xenophobic approach works to the film's advantage, as the sight of Verloc and his shadowy associates plotting the destruction of London surely must have grabbed English audiences in 1936. Hitchcock's fascination with espionage and crime is evident, as always, especially in the scene where Verloc meets his contact in the aquarium. Another favorite Hitchcock element present is having a wife slowly come to distrust and fear her husband. Sylvia Sidney plays this transformation beautifully. In the early scenes she is warm and friendly, but as the film progresses, she begins to tighten up, and in the final scenes, her hatred toward Verloc is utterly convincing. As for Oscar Homolka, from the start it's obvious he's up to something, but he is convincing as a small cog in a much larger wheel, a pathetic man who is overwhelmed by the pressures imposed upon him. But the centerpiece of the film is the nerve-racking journey of Mrs. Verloc's younger brother Steve, as he travels through London unaware that the reel can he carries contains a bomb. The bomb, of course, is set to a timer, and each delay adds increasing tension as the hour of detonation approaches. The sequence is pure Hitchcock, as there is nothing more suspenseful than to see an innocent in danger. Sabotage may be a couple of notches below The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, but it is still classic Hitchcock. ~ Bob Mastrangelo, All Movie Guide
Ivor Montagu - Associate Producer, Joe Strassner - Costume Designer, Alfred Hitchcock - Director, Charles Frend - Editor, Louis Levy - Composer (Music Score), Albert Jullion - Production Designer, Bernard Knowles - Cinematographer, Michael Balcon - Producer, Albert Jullion - Set Designer, Otto Werndorff - Set Designer, E.V.H. Emmett - Screenwriter, Ian Hay - Screenwriter, Alma Reville - Screenwriter, Helen Simpson - Screenwriter, Jesse Lasky, Jr. - Screenwriter, Charles Bennett - Screenwriter, Campbell Dixon - Screenwriter, Joseph Conrad - Book Author
Karl Verloc (Oscar Homolka), the owner of a cinema, is part of a gang of saboteurs from an unnamed European country who are planning a series of attacks in London. Their exact motives are not made clear. Scotland Yard suspects Verloc's involvement in the plot and assigns Detective Sergeant Ted Spencer (John Loder) to investigate Verloc, initially under cover. Spencer conducts the investigation posing as a greengrocer's helper, selling fruit and vegetables in a shop right next to the cinema.
Verloc's young and beautiful wife (Sylvia Sidney) believes that her husband is a good man because he has been kind to her and her little brother, Stevie (Desmond Tester), who lives with them. However, gradually she comes to suspect that her husband may be one of the people behind the terrorist attacks. The final straw comes when her little brother is killed, along with many other people, when a bus explodes. The boy had thought that he was simply delivering a film canister, but he was unknowingly carrying a time bomb for Verloc, to be detonated in the London Underground station under Piccadilly Circus. The boy had become distracted along the way, which had delayed his delivery, and thus the bomb exploded en route to its final target.
Verloc confesses to his wife, but then blames Scotland Yard and Spencer for Stevie's death, saying that they were the ones who prevented Verloc from successfully carrying out the bomb delivery himself. Soon afterwards, as Verloc and his wife are preparing to eat dinner, she stabs him to death with a knife. When Spencer arrives to arrest Verloc he realizes what has happened, but insists that she shouldn't admit that she killed her husband. Nevertheless, she starts to confess her crime to a policeman. Then an explosion and fire at the cinema intervene, destroying all the evidence of her crime and effectively preventing the policeman from remembering whether it was before or after the explosion that she told him, "My husband is dead!"
At the end we see Mrs Verloc and Ted Spencer walk away together.
Analysis
The film was produced in the years immediately preceding World War II, and the unnamed hostile power behind the bombings has been assumed by many viewers to be Nazi Germany.
Hitchcock took considerable liberties with Joseph Conrad's novel, transforming the highly political anarchists and socialists into foreign agents without any obvious political leanings.[1] Verloc's shop is transformed into a cinema, with the films being shown echoing the story, and the policeman investigating the case is an undercover officer posing as a greengrocer.[2] Verloc's first name has also been changed, presumably because Adolf, his name in the novel, had too many connotations by the time the film was made. Finally, Stevie, Mrs Verloc's brother, is portrayed as a simpleton, with few of the visionary attributes of his literary counterpart. Stevie's death is a climactic moment in the plot, providing insight into Hitchcock's views about how the innocent suffer through random acts of violence.[2] When a critic condemned Stevie's death as brutal and unnecessary, however, Hitchcock said that he regretted including it in the film— even though he remained faithful to the novel in doing so.[1]
The fact that the film was set in a cinema allowed Hitchcock to link the plot to contemporary films and storylines. Perhaps the most famous of these is the final film sequence, an animated short produced by Walt Disney (Who Killed Cock Robin? (1935)).
Hitchcock wanted to cast Robert Donat (with whom he had previously worked in The 39 Steps) but was forced to cast John Loder due to Donat's chronic asthma.[1][3]
Mrs Verloc was Sylvia Sidney’s only role for Hitchcock. Reportedly, they did not warm to each other and she refused to work for him again.
Quentin Tarantino utilized a clip from the film to demonstrate the flammable nature of early film reels in his 2009 film Inglourious Basterds.
