Saboteur
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Movie Reviews of Saboteur
Movie Review: Hitchcock and World War II
Summary: 4 Stars
As a harbinger to "North By Northwest", Alfred Hitchcock devised a brilliant, crisp ending to "Saboteur" by setting up a confrontation between good and evil atop the Statue of Liberty. True to form, the director excels at these last-minute flights downward and "Saboteur" is no exception. It's a Hitchcock classic.
Nicely cast with an impressive young Robert Cummings as the lead, "Saboteur" is a terrific look into America in the early days of the Second World War. Wrongly accused of arson and murder, Barry Kane, (Cummings) begins a flight from "the authorities" which takes him (and an unsuspecting love interest) from California to New York. One of the side comic benefits of this film is the dated, cheesy language, which gives it an extra attraction. But Hitchcock had his own comic moments in mind that work just fine. Encountering a circus troupe at night during one of the legs of his flights, Cummings is introduced to a cadre of performers, the funniest of which is the bearded lady with her beard done up in curlers for the night! Were it not for the midget and the platitudes that the film keeps offering, I would have said that "Saboteur" had its roots in "The Wizard of Oz", produced three years earlier.
As a suspense, "Saboteur" is not up there with later Hitchcock films, but it does give Cummings a stage for some fine acting, not to mention the often overlooked wonderful character actor Norman Lloyd, whose small but important role is central to the film. I highly recommend "Saboteur" for its fine cast and terse direction.
Movie Review: Hitchcock Contiinues a Pattern in America
Summary: 4 Stars
Alfred Hitchcock just came to Amerca just a few years before he made Saboteur. His first film in America was the splendid Rebecca in 1940, but still clinging to his British roots, he used a practically all-British cast. Saboteur came a little while later, and by this time, he was comfortable with Americans. Robert Cummings was not his first choice for his leading man here, and there is still those who did not agree with Cummings as his choice. The strength of this movie lies in the tremendous supporting cast of wonderful and strange character actors led by Otto Kruger, Norman Lloyd as Fry, and many others. Here Hitchcock used these actors as additions of strength to this movie easily making their parts and gimmickry more inportant that Cumming's hero.
Here also is the use of famous places to identify the movie to the audience, to give the viewer the "I've been there!" feeling. In wartime, the Stature of Liberty was an ideal place as a finale to the movie and as a key symbol during wartime. Hitchcock used all of the gimmicks he knew and learned during his English period in America to product a film that only Hitchcock could have made. The suspense and the supporting characters is the strength here. If you like "North By Northwest", "Saboteur" is its direct predecessor.
Movie Review: Great Transfer Elevates Film
Summary: 4 Stars
Wow, this "digitally remastered" DVD really deliers a sharp transfer. It's hard to believe we're looking at a film that is almost 70 years old. Kudos to Universal for the restoration job they did here.
Overall, this is an entertaining but it's an odd film. Don't try to make sense of it. There are more holes in the story than a computer could keep up with, but Robert Cummings and a cast of minor characters are mostly fun to watch in this "Fugitive"-like story.
Unlike the popular TV show and then 1993 movie, this fugitive isn't looking for a one-armed man, but a two-armed Nazi saboteur by the the name of "Frank Fry." Cummings ("Barry Kane") gets blamed when a defense plant blows up in Los Angeles and goes on the lam looking for the man who did it (Fry) to clear his name.
If you haven't seen this film but saw Hitchcock's well-known "North By Northwest," you'll chuckle at the ending and really enjoy it. Instead of a climactic scene at Mount Rushmore, here we have a memorable last 10 minutes at the State Of Liberty. As usual, Hitchcock camera angles are great and fun to view.
Movie Review: Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed ...
Summary: 4 Stars
Not to be confused with the vastly inferior SABOTAGE (1936). Like classic film score composers (especially Erich Wolfgang Korngold), Hitchcock was prone to recycle themes as variations. Something old: a reimagining of THE 39 STEPS (1935). Something new: the shoot-out in a movie theater showing a shoot-out on screen; the dangling sequence on Liberty Island. Something borrowed: a violin-playing, intellectual, blind hermit in an isolated cabin in the woods from FRANKENSTEIN (1931) became a piano-playing, intellectual, blind hermit in an isolated cabin in the high desert. Score by Frank Skinner is a musical harbinger of scores yet to be composed for Hitchcock by Bernard Herrmann. Hitchcock packed the film with mini-serial cliffhangers and a richness of first-rate character actors. His stars (Robert Cummings [quite good] and Priscilla Lane [under whelming]) were not his first choices. (Ms. Lane seems to have vaporized after this film.)
Thrilling stuff--not to be missed!
WILLIAM FLANIGAN, Ph.D.
Movie Review: wartime dry run for N by NW
Summary: 4 Stars
THis is a very fun spy film that has many similar elements with Hitch's great masterpiece, North by Northwest. Normal guy gets into imbroglio, runs to solve it instead of turning himself in, enters adventure he would never have imagined in his wildest dreams. There is a girl, a chase on a famous monument, and a peek into a shadowy and evil world way beyond the normal. It is really great fun, if a bit crude by the standards to which we are accustomed from Hitch's run of absolutely first rate films that began a decade later. Then, of course, there are the quirky twists that you find in his films, from exotic characters that turn up unexpectedly, dazzling visual experiments that stick in the mind for years, and impossible yet somehow believable coincidences.
I saw this as a child and remembered only a few scenes, such as the hero cutting off his handcuffs on the fan belt of a car. It is a sign of Hitch's inimitable magic that such a simple image stuck in my mind for 45 years. Warmly recommended.