Truly Dreadful Film

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

"Saboteur" was Alfred Hitchcock's first film made after America's entry into World War II. He had dealt with the war before in "Foreign Correspondent", but because America was still neutral at the time he was forced to do so a roundabout way. That film does indeed feature a European war, a war which has many similarities with the one actually being waged- London, for example is being bombed- but Hitchcock was not allowed to name the Nazis as the aggressors. Well, after Pearl Harbor Hollywood finally allowed Hitchcock to take the gloves off. "Saboteur" is an unashamed propaganda piece warning Americans to be on their guard against fifth columnists and enemy agents. Hitchcock uses one of his favourite plot devices, one he had already used in the likes of "The 39 Steps" and "Young and Innocent", that of a man wrongly accused of a crime. When an aircraft factory in California is destroyed by fire and a man is killed, Barry Kane, a young worker at the plant, becomes the chief suspect. Kane is forced to go on run to clear his name and expose the real culprits. In the course of a journey which takes him all the way across America to New York he meets a cross-section of Americans, including a garrulous truck driver, a rancher, a blind musician and his model niece, a circus full of freaks and a society hostess. Some of these believe in his innocence and try to help him, others try to hand him over to the police while others turn out to be working for the real saboteurs, a sinister organisation of fifth columnists. The film works well until about halfway through. There is a tense scene at Tobin's ranch, some striking photography of the Western landscapes and a good cameo from Vaughan Glaser as the kindly musician Phillip Martin. After that, however, things start to go downhill. I have always felt that the point at which it jumps the shark is when Kane and Pat meet the circus freaks, most of whom are horribly unconvincing. (The "human skeleton", for example, is not even particularly thin, and the "bearded lady's" beard is obviously false). There is little real tension in the second half of the film. The scene in Mrs Sutton's mansion is overlong and the one where Kane foils an attempt to destroy a new Navy battleship in Brooklyn Navy Yard is confusing. The sight of a ship lying on its side shortly afterwards might seem to suggest, wrongly, that the saboteurs have in fact succeeded in their efforts. (The stricken ship is in fact the SS Normandie, destroyed by fire in February 1942, but even in 1942 audiences from outside New York might have missed this point). Hitchcock loved setting cliff-hanging sequences in or on iconic buildings or structures; during his British period in the thirties the Albert Hall, Westminster Cathedral and the Forth Bridge had all been pressed into service for this purpose. He tries to create another one here using the Statue of Liberty, that iconic symbol of American democracy, but the effect of this is lessened by the fact that the person in the greatest danger is not the hero Kane but one of the villains whom the audience would love to see plunge to his death. Hitchcock originally wanted Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck for the leading roles, but Cooper was uninterested and Stanwyck unavailable. (Cooper seems later to have regretted not working with Hitch; he signed on to star in "The Wreck of the Mary Deare" in the belief that the great man would be directing it, only for Hitchcock to pull out). In the event the roles were taken by Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane; Cummings makes a decent hero, but Lane must be among the least memorable of Hitchcock's trademark blondes. The relationship between Cummings and Lane recalls that between Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll in "The 39 Steps"; she initially distrusts him but is persuaded to believe in him and the couple eventually fall in love. In 1942 Hitchcock was under contract to David O. Selznick, but Selznick rejected the script for this film, one of a number of factors which led to the growth of ill-feeling between director and producer. The film was eventually made by Universal, but it is easy to understand Selznick's reservations. "Saboteur" may have succeeded as a piece of propaganda, but as a piece of film-making it is a relative failure. Hitchcock was capable of much better work than this. 5/10

Alfred Hitchcock made a lot of films where an innocent person get's into some big trouble. In Saboteur we see our hero, factory worker Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) run across the country after being accused of the murder of his coworker. Along with Pat Martin (Priscilla Lane) Barry has to prove his innocence and prevent the next sabotage effort. Yeah, Barry's friend was killed by sabotage. This film bares a lot of similarities to North by Northwest and The 39 Steps both also by Hitchcock. This is a great film like all Hitchcock films. I recommend Saboteur to any Hitchcock fan or anyone who likes good movies in general. It's suspenseful, it's enthralling, and it's a lot of fun.

When sabotage strikes a wartime aircraft factory, employee Barry Kane (Bob Cummings) falls under suspicion. Kane knows a man named Fry (Norman Lloyd) is the real saboteur but police say Fry doesn't exist. So Kane takes it on the run to search for the mystery man and clear his name. Along the way he is joined, reluctantly at first, by a pretty young woman named Pat Martin (Priscilla Lane). The two wind up tangling with a group of fascists who plot to commit more sabotage on American targets.One of my favorite "lesser" Hitchcock films. I say lesser because it's never been one of his more celebrated works. Yeah, it's not Hitch's most unique or complex film. It's also similar in some ways to an earlier classic, The 39 Steps. I get that. But it is a very entertaining and exciting wartime espionage picture with a quick pace and some great set pieces. The bridge jump, the movie theater, and the Statue of Liberty climax are all highlights. Love the scenes with the circus caravan and the blind man. Pretty hokey but I liked it. It's also a beautiful film to look at with some of the best black & white photography of any Hitchcock movie. Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane are both likable heroes. Otto Kruger and Norman Lloyd make for appropriately slimy villains. Not one of Hitch's best but very good and underrated.

***SPOILERS*** Given the "Masters", director Alf Hitchcock, touch the movie is a lot better then it could have been without O'l Alfie directing it. It's about a man Barry Kane, Robert Commings, on the lamb for a crime that he didn't commit: Treason against the USA. It was in fact Barry's co-worker, who was not even employed there, at the aircraft plant Frank Fry, Norman Lloyd, who after a fire broke out at the plant handed Barry a fire extinguisher that was filled with gasoline that ended up burning the place down and killing Barry's friend and person he handed it to Ken Mason, Virgil Summers. Now on the run and wanting to prove his innocence Barry tries to track down Fry and have his brought to justice, in the electric chair, before he dose any more damage as well as clear his name.It's pretty model Pat Martin, Priscilla Lane, who after being kidnapped by him hooks up with Barry, Pat is obviously suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome, in finding Fry and his cohorts who are planning to do bigger and worser things to the USA! That in bombing the both the Hoover Dam and sinking at it's launching at the Brooklyn Navy Yark the latest US battleship the USS Alaska. As it turns out Fry belongs to this group of saboteurs who want to knock the USA out of the war, against Germany & Japan, before it even starts going full blast.***SPOILLERS****The exciting final takes place at of all places the Statue of liberty where the fleeing Fry is totally isolated, surrounded by Manhattan Bay, with no where to go but up with Barry and a squad of New York City policemen and FBI agents chasing him. Fry could have easily escaped on the mainland with the help of his fellow senators but choose to go to Liberty Island for no other reason, as far as I could tell,but to see the sights! Wearing a cheap suit that he bought in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, off a pushcart peddler, and dangling on the statue's Torch of liberty Fry gets cooked by, with Barry losing his grip on him, falling some 130 feet to his death below.What's so unusual about this film is that were never given the name of the country that Fry and his fellow saboteurs working for even though it was obvious to anyone watching it was Hitler's Germany! It may have been that the movie was made before the attack on Pearl Harbor and before Germany's,four days later, deceleration of war on the USA. That in it's distributors not trying to increase the tensions with the German Government, which were high already, that the USA was still at peace with. P.S Look for Actor Robert Mitchum in a walk-on role as an aircraft worker, which he in fact was, earlier in the film going with both Barry & Ken to the plant mess-hall before the deadly fire broke out.