Sabotage (1936)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Film Review

The fourth of the politically slanted thrillers that Alfred Hitchcock directed in the 1930s is among the director's most chilling and suspenseful films, its bleak mood being a stark reflection of the worsening political situation in Europe at the time.  There can be no doubt that the enemy power alluded to in the film is Nazi Germany.  Although it deals with similar themes to The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and The 39 Steps (1935), Sabotage is a much darker film, with less humour and a much greater sense of realism.

The film is very loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent.  The title had to be changed - to Sabotage - because Hitchcock's previous film had been titled Secret Agent.  Unfortunately, this led to more confusion since a later Hitchcock thriller (made during his time in Hollywood) was named Saboteur.

At the time he made this film, Hitchcock was developing a deep interest in the techniques of the Russian filmmakers, notably Sergei Eisenstein, and was keen to employ these in his own films.  Sabotage shows this influence most clearly in its use of montage, a technique of editing where several shots are combined to create an impression which no individual shot can convey.  The best example of this is the famous sequence in which the boy Stevie is making his way across London to deliver a parcel containing a bomb.  The shots are meticulously juxtaposed to create a sense of time being expanded and compressed in a way that heightens the sequence's subjectivity, making it unbearably tense for the spectator.

Sabotage is also experimental in that it uses far more location shots than was typical in a British film of this period.  These include some familiar London landmarks, such as London Zoo and the Strand, and provide an interesting visual record of how the capital looked in the mid-1930s.  The sequence in which Stevie joins a throng of crowds attending the Lord Mayor's Show was shot not in central London but in a field, with the background made up of a huge full-size photograph.  In many of his subsequent films, Hitchcock would frequently use a similar trick to avoid having to shoot on location, employing static mattes and travelling mattes (blue screen) to combine various images.

Although perhaps less well developed than in many of Hitchcock's films, the main characters in Sabotage are the familiar pairing of a man and woman who initially appear unsuited but who end up romantically attached, suggestive of the old adage that opposites attract.  Hitchcock originally considered Robert Donat for the male lead, but when he was unavailable owing to ill health, John Loder was cast in his place.  Sylvia Sidney was an excellent casting choice for the female lead, because she combines an outward vulnerability with an inner toughness, which makes her character the stronger and more resourceful of the two.   Watch out for Charles Hawtrey, one of the future stars of the Carry On films, in one of his first screen appearances - he gets the funniest line in the film.

On its initial release, Sabotage was a highly controversial film.  Some countries banned it outright through fear that it might encourage terrorists.  Hitchcock was also severely criticised for the sequence in which the bomb exploded, since it killed off the film's most sympathetic character.  The renowned French film critic and filmmaker François Truffaut described it as an abuse of cinematic power.  Hitchcock conceded he had made a mistake, but this didn't prevent him from pulling a similar stunt in some of his later films - notably Psycho (1960) and Frenzy (1972).  Had Hitchcock been more cautious and not made this "faux pas" it is certain that the impact of Sabotage would be greatly diminished.  Sometimes, to make a statement, the writer and director must take us over the edge, and what Sabotage tells us is that terrorism is invariably self-defeating, because what it arouses is revulsion, not fear, and revulsion can be a very dangerous enemy.

Film Synopsis

London is the target of terrorist attacks by an unknown foreign power.  One of the foot soldiers in this campaign of terror is Karl Verloc, the owner of a small cinema.  When his latest assignment, a blackout in the centre of the capital, results in more mirth than mayhem, he is told that his next one will be somewhat more spectacular.  He must deliver a bomb to a chosen location at a precise time on Saturday afternoon.  Unbeknown to Verloc, he is being watched by Detective Sergeant Ted Spencer, posing as a greengrocer next to his cinema.  Spencer has already inveigled his way into the confidence of Verloc's wife and her younger brother Stevie.  On the day of the next attack, Verloc is unable to leave home without arousing Ted's suspicion, so he asks Stevie to deliver the package containing the bomb.   Stevie's poor timekeeping ability is about to have tragic consequences...