ElMaruecan82 Indeed, "Secret Agent" was a disappointment to me and for many reasons. Gielgud wasn't bad, but he wasn't Robert Donat and his flat performance might explain why he and Hitchcock never collaborated again. His companion played by an over-the-top Peter Lorre was too goofy even in his sinister moments to sustain the gravitas of the plot, when there was any. In fact, the thriller went in too many directions, indecisive about its status as straight thriller, character study or fun escapism.But "Sabotage" puts the cards in the table right away. The film, loosely adapted from a Joseph Conrad's novel, takes place in London at a time where America was stricken by the Great Depression and Europe witnessing the rise of fascism and totalitarian regimes, Britain was still a colonial empire and geopolitically, an oasis of relative stability and democracy so that the only potential threat in peacetime was espionage and sabotage. What's a sabotage?Well, the film's opening with the dictionary page inspired me three reactions. First, I was wondering whether that creative license didn't inspire Quentin Tarantino for "Pulp Fiction". Secondly, I thought it was a splendid idea to give a technical definition of what seemed an obvious term, like an iconoclastic 'tell-and-show' move from Hitchcock. And finally, I couldn't help but think how the definition matched today's terrorism. Indeed, one couldn't call the climactic sequence "sabotage".But one can certainly call it one of the most intense and suspenseful ten minutes from any film. My memory might fail me but I remember that scene from a documentary about Scorsese's main inspirations. Never mind where I got it, but I had that mysterious image of a boy carrying a parcel with a bomb for years and years. Speaking of Scorsese, he referred to the dream sequence of "Vertigo" as a mini-film within the film, one can say the same thing about the climax of "Sabotage".Hitchcock's quote about the difference between 'surprise' and 'suspense' is well known by movie lovers. Two men having a conversation and a bomb underneath the table explodes will provide fifteen seconds of surprise but if we know that the bomb will explode at 1 o'clock, their conversation becomes more fascinating and we're literally hung to what happens on the screen, we just want them to get out, then suspense provides fifteen minutes of suspense. Watching this scene created a feeling of uneasiness, for the set-up first. I couldn't believe the cruelty of the villain who risks the life of his wife's little brother (Desmond Tester) for a job he's been assigned to. Oscar Homolka, as the sinister cinema owner Verloc, doesn't look like the murderer type, he expresses at some point his reluctance to cause loss of life. He's basically a goon, a luggage-carrier, not muscle, only a man capable to put sand in London electricity grid to provoke a massive blackout, but when you think about it, such men are capable to be driven to extreme actions when they're trapped.It's generally a comedic device when an inoffensive person is used to for a dangerous delivery so he wouldn't raise any suspicion, but in "Sabotage" the idea comes when Verloc discovers that Scotland Yard has an eye on him and the Detective played by John Loder is having a "talk" with his wife. Verloc is like a cornered rat and can only fight back by resorting to the most desperate measure, asking a child to literally carry death to Piccadily Circus. Hitchcock is no sadistic but he knows our heart is hooked with little Stevie, so he punctuates his path with many events that delays his mission such as a procession or a street vendor using him for painful and humiliating demonstrations. Hitchcock enhances our empathy while providing lighthearted moments that might mislead us about Stevie's fate. Surely after all these annoyances, he'll manage to put the parcel under the cloak room and come back safely. But then the frenetic editing goes, he's still got the parcel and we're a few seconds from 1.45.Could Hitchcock use another victim than a child? No because empathy could only work if he knew one of the victims, much more an innocent one and on that level, I wonder if the bombing sequence in "Battle of Algiers" wasn't inspired by the film. Secondly, the main protagonist, played by Silvia Sidney, needed a motive to kill her husband. Indeed, for a movie that deals with British threats from within, Hitchcock takes one step forward and give it a domestic dimension.Realizing that her husband is responsible for the death of her brother, she stabs him with a knife. The trickiest part is that he's done such a great job maintaining a 'honest citizen' façade, that she's basically a murderer at that point. The film ends with a turn of events that get rid of the two villains and of any evidence incriminating her, two birds with the same stone, as foreshadowed by Verloc. However, right before the "cleansing" explosion, a distraught Mrs. Verloc said her husband was dead. But the explosion came so instantly that the detective wondered later whether it came before or after. A matter of half-a-second wrapped up the plot and provided some comedic relief to end a rather dark movie. I criticized the ending of "Secret Agent" but "Sabotage" ended with the note that proved that Hitchcock was back in shape with a first-rate thriller. The light-hearted "39 Steps" opened with 'Music Hall' letters lighting up, "Sabotage" with a big light-bulb and London's plunged into blackout, maybe announcing his darker masterpieces. My only complaint comes from the fan of Disney's "Who Killed Cock Robin?", where I wished the audience didn't overplay the laughs at the film's start, the funnier parts would come later, but at least when the arrow hits the bird, Sylvia Sydney had the right reaction, the cartoon could be dark indeed, like the film.But it had to be dark, leaving the kid alive would have been cinematic sabotage.

TheLittleSongbird Sabotage is not among Hitchcock's very finest, and I consider The Lady Vanishes and The 39 Steps better films from his British period. However, it is still a great, though perhaps a too-short length, film and one of his most underrated. There are more audacious films of his visually(Vertigo, Rebecca and To Catch a Thief for examples) but it is still a very well made film and the sets exude a lot of atmosphere. It is very well-directed by Hitchcock with some really nice touches and a visual style that makes you think yes this is Hitchcock. The dialogue provokes thought and keeps you gripped and guessing, while the story draws you in- due to its high levels of suspense and great atmosphere- with the 75 minutes or so just flying by. It is not a Hitchcock film without a memorable or suspenseful set-piece, Sabotage has those, the highlights are the scene on the bus with the bomb and the death of Verloc though Verloc imagining London in ruin is chilling stuff too. Sylvia Sidney is wonderful in a nuanced and quite touching performance, the scene where her character is watching Who Killed Cock Robin saw Sidney express many different emotions that made that scene tense and moving at the same time. Oskar Homolka's Verloc has a strong air of menace, you only have to look at his appearance for starters, yet there is a hint of a sympathetic edge. To conclude, a great British Hitchcock and one of his most underrated efforts. 9/10 Bethany Cox

jzappa Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, at this stage just the vigorous maverick of the Gaumont-British sentry, carved a mercilessly sensational bit from Conrad's The Secret Agent into a proficient drill in suspense. Sabotage is flawed plotting, but unqualified histrionics. Edgily dismissing all but the facade of motivation, the great manipulator thrusts his lens into the nucleus of Conrad's plot and extracts a giftedly implemented splinter of a story. What makes Hitchcock Hitchcock is that his technique is its own justification.Invariably the master of his movie's fate, this sculptor of modern cinema has compacted this story to the nuts and bolts, choosing just those events which he could crook to his dramatic command. His tempo is deceivingly measured, but he lurches mercilessly to his climaxes and makes the effect intense and unexpected. The excellent Oscar Homolka, Sylvia Sidney, John Loder and that winning youngster Desmond Tester, are held tightly to the frontier of plot development and, inside the slender confines Hitchcock allows them, supply thoroughgoing characterizations.For reasons vague, minor cinema owner Verloc has been ordered to terrorize London. His gateway is to disable the city's lighting works. London receives the blackout as a gag. The foreign agent retaining him cautions that London better not chuckle next time: A time bomb, placed in a Piccadilly cloakroom, would truly try the British sense of humor.Verloc, being watched by Scotland Yard, is incapable of sending the bomb himself and picks his wife's baby brother as the innocuous courier of terror. The kid takes the paper-wrapped bomb, calculated to explode at quarter two, and commences his venture across town. Verloc has cautioned him to leave the little box no later than half one. Despite the Master of Suspense's later nitpicking of his work here, he orders the sequence mischievously. It's excruciating to have to helplessly watch the heedless youngster's easygoing movement across London, stopping at shop windows, volunteered by a sidewalk vender for a presentation, postponed by a parade, by traffic and finicky policemen.Homolka as Verloc is an ideal means for Hitchcock's calculated rhythm. Sidney as his baffled wife, mothering her young brother, John Loder as the amorous Scotland Yard sergeant, William Dewhurst as the bomb maker and of course Tester are severally solid. But this is Hitchcock's film and a worthy early one.

Jackson Booth-Millard Master of Suspense director Sir Alfred Hitchcock started his successful career in his home country, and this was one of the last films he made before going to the United States (although he did return home for Frenzy), I was interested. Basically Karl Verloc (Oskar Homolka) is a cinema owner and a member of a gang planning to sabotage operations in London, and he lives with his wife Sylvia (Beetlejuice's Sylvia Sidney) and her teenage brother Stevie (Desmond Tester). His wife and her brother know nothing about Karl's big secret, even after a big incident where many lights in a part of London were turned off, but there are worse things to happen than that. Suspecting something is going on with Verloc, Scotland Yard assigns undercover Detective Sergeant Ted Spencer (John Loder) to keep an eye on him, working near the cinema and investigate. Sylvia didn't originally know anything, but her suspicion arises, and at a reasonably good time because the gang assign Karl to put a bomb in the metro, so he sends young Stevie with a bag for him to "deliver", but he does not make it all the way to the right location for the explosion. In the end the villain Karl gets what he deserves being stabbed by his own wife, and London seems to be safe from anymore sabotage incidents, and Sylvia walks away with Ted. Also starring Joyce Barbour as Renee, Matthew Boulton as Superintendent Talbot, S.J. Warmington as Hollingshead, William Dewhurst as Professor A.F. Chatman, and Hitchcock's cameo is as the man passing looking up when the lights go back on. The acting is reasonable, the best scene is certainly unknowingly carrying the bomb in the bag, and there are some good tense moments you would expect from the great director, a watchable mystery thriller. Very good!