Saboteur
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Movie Reviews of Saboteur
Movie Review: Entertaining WWII Thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a fun to watch wartime thriller from Hitchcock of an aircraft munitions worker forced to take it on the lam and find a Nazi saboteur named Fry when he is wrongly accused of the act of sabotage which killed his best friend. Hitchcock's films often get compared unfairly to each other, but taken on its own terms, this is a wonderfully entertaining suspense film with some genuinely memorable moments.
Robert Cummings is excellent as munitions worker Barry Kane, in constant danger both from the police and the bad guys, as he traces a network of saboteurs to a man named Tobin (Otto Kruger) at "Deep Springs Ranch." Tobin knows who Fry is but also knows no one will believe Kane. But as Kane narrowly escapes the police and the Nazi sympathizers he is aided by some along the way who can see he is a stand-up guy, wrongly accused.
One of those people is the blind father of Pat (Priscilla Lane), a billboard model who doesn't share her father's faith in Kane. She starts out doing everthing she can to turn him over to the police but ends up falling in love instead, and in just as much danger as he is. There is a particularly tense scene at a huge party as Kane confronts the cool and slimy Tobin but can't expose the house full of secret agents because Pat has been captured and will be killed if he does.
This film has some great moments of suspense. One such moment, is a plea for help written in lipstick from a trapped Pat, floating down a skyscraper in New York, waiting to be found. The troop of a circus sideshow play a part in the couple's plight also, as his quest to clear himself takes him from Boulder Dam to Rockefeller Center to the Statue of Liberty.
There is a tight and witty script from Dorothy Parker, among others, and Hitchcock's famous little touches keep this one interesting. Robert Cummings, who had proved himself in comedy the previous year in "It Started With Eve" with Deanna Durbin, showed his versatility in this film. Priscilla Lane, pretty and likable, gives another nice performance here.
Taken on its own merits, this is a really good film, a great popcorn movie for a rainy night or a lazy weekend. There's nothing wrong with that.
Movie Review: It takes gut to do war propaganda
Summary: 5 Stars
The subject is banal, even in 1942. It is war propaganda. The fascists are among us and they are doing all they can to sabotage the war effort and to prepare their victory and their seizure of power then and their establishing an effective totalitarian state. But Hitchcock has to make it a real thriller. So he invents a first sabotage that succeeds but one of the victims, the friend of the one who dies in it, becomes the prime suspect and run-away for the sabotage. That enables him to so-to-say visit the country and discover the tricky organization of the local Nazis who have acquaintances and support in the top benevolent society and use the small little dissatisfied whites to do the dirty work. The chase after the real saboteur takes our young false suspect from Los Angeles to New York and to the top of the organization. He meets a blind pianist who believes his senses to know the chap is not guilty, his niece who is a star of the advertising billboard but also a frenetic and fanatic patriot who only thinks of going to the police. Then the rich rancher and his nest of plotters. Then, on the road some sympathetic and friendly truck driver, and the long caravan of a circus going around and their dwarf, bearded woman, Siamese sisters, and a few other grotesques of that type. And he discovers the target in a Soda City, an electric dam that provides Los Angeles and its war industry with the energy they need. He takes part as a gravel in the organization in the sabotage of a USS Alaska military ship when it is launched. And finally with some inventiveness, creativity and elbow grease he and the pianist's niece manage to get the whole lot cleaned up, most of them arrested and the first saboteur, a certain Fry, falls down from the torch of the Statue of Liberty. That one won't fry on the old electric sparking chair. But Hitchcock is not yet in his habit of having a personal cameo appearance in his own films, so don't look for him. It's well built and well performed, but it is only a propaganda film with an extra style.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Movie Review: Terrific wartime Hitchcock thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
The deft Hitchcock cinematographical touch is fully displayed in his sensational, underrated "Saboteur". Making excellent use of his filming locations which include Boulder Dam, Red Rock Canyon and Liberty Island, he is able to frame his drama which commences with an act of sabotage and murder.
Robert Cummings playing aircraft plant employee Barry Kane observes an act of arson at his plant, causing the death of his best friend, perpetrated by the wormy Frank Fry played by veteran character actor Norman Lloyd. Cummings is implicated as the saboteur and must flee for his freedom. Clues lead him to a California ranch owned by suave socialite Charles Tobin played by Otto Kruger. There he learns that Kruger is the leader of a Nazi spy ring attempting to wreck havoc across the American countryside abetting the German war effort.
Escaping from the clutches of Kruger and his minions, Cummings becomes allied with Pat Martin, a New York based model played by Priscilla Lane through the kindness of her reclusive uncle, who sheltered Cummings in his cabin. Together they embark on a trans-continental chase to try to find Fry and thwart the nefarious plans of the spy ring.
Hitchcock's directorial genius in readily apparent as Lane and Cummings find themselves at a gala hoi polloi formal ball hosted by a rich dame sympathetic to Kruger's cause. They are virtual prisoners among a group of military brass and big spenders as Kruger and his spy ring are mixed in the crowd keeping the pair checkmated.
The finale is memorable and actually a model for the memorable conclusion of the classic "North by Northwest" filmed at Mount Rushmore. The saboteur Lloyd is finally cornered atop the Statue of Liberty by the NYPD and Cummings and Lane. His demise is photographed brilliantly as he's hanging for his life on the statue's torch held by his suit sleeve by Cummings as stitch by stitch the needlework holding the sleeve together laggardly pops off.
While the film understandly tends to be somewhat propagandized and didactic, its 1942 date of release in the gloomy days of WW2, make that understandable.
Movie Review: Even lesser Hitchcock towers above most of everything else
Summary: 5 Stars
I enjoyed this film a great deal. However, it depends what you are comparing it against. Hitchcock scholars regard it is as a lesser work of the master. They find its wide ranging geography make the films and plot somewhat disjointed. They see direct borrowings from "The 39 Steps", "The Man Who Knew Too Much", "Sabotage", "The Ring and Murder!" and have a variety of other criticisms from writing to casting. Hitchcock himself said that he felt the film was too cluttered. But all this is comparing it against masterpieces. When you compare this film against the schlock we pay $10 to see nowadays it is terrific.
The film is set at the beginning of World War II and was in fact released in 1942. The basic idea is that Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) is mistakenly taken as a saboteur and is on the run. In his wanderings he meets Pat Martin (Priscilla Lane). She is a successful model, who believes Kane is guilty, but is stuck traveling with him and continues to wrestle over helping Kane or turning him in. The movie ranges from coast to coast with dramatic settings and some pretty dramatic scenes.
Some critics fault the film's lack of humor, but the movie is about the war, the danger of home grown saboteurs, and even shows actual footage the USS Lafayette on its side in New York. (It was the Normandie that had caught on fire and tipped after taking on huge amounts of water from fighting the fire. Some say it was indeed sabotage by the mafia.). The last scene on the Statue of Liberty is a classic. Having climbed the statue as a child, I can assure you that the speed with which they get up and down that huge structure is dramatic license!
I think the leads are quite good and especially enjoy the scene with the kindly Phillip Martin (Vaughan Glaser), who gives the films cautionary advice to an audience alarmed by the war and frightened of enemies on the homefront.
Enjoy!
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
Movie Review: Saboteur in Plain Sight
Summary: 5 Stars
This WWII espionage tale planted on American soil is a minor gem of filmmaking from Alfred Hitchcock. He uses his familiar theme of the wrong man on the run from the law. Implicated by those who are in fact guilty, our hero Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) must uncover the culprits before they carry out their next act of terror and destruction before he himself is apprehended. Simultaneously Kane must clear himself of the initial crime with the aid of Patricia Martin (Priscilla Lane). Set against the backdrop of that familiar icon of freedom, The Statue of Liberty, our hero must undergo a death struggle both metaphorically and realistically demonstrating that we as Americans value our freedoms as well as all human life no matter how malevolent it be because it is in our nature to go the distance for all that is virtuous in the world. Jack Otterson's Art Direction and Joseph A. Valentine's Cinematography are standouts. John P. Fulton's un-credited Special Effects are impressive.