User reviews

Hitchcock made at least 11 films about the ordinary man, wrongly accused, on the run (sometimes really running, sometimes not) to prove his innocence in a situation beyond his control, the first one being "The 39 Steps", which really made him popular in Great Britain. It really is his signature theme.

Others include "Young and Innocent", "Saboteur", "Spellbound", "Stage Fright", "Strangers on a Train", "I Confess", "To Catch a Thief", "The Wrong Man", "North by Northwest", and finally "Frenzy". "Saboteur" starts Robert Cummings as Barry Kane, a wartime aircraft plant worker during wartime accused of murdering his co-worker and best friend during an act of sabotage on the plant. He meets up with model Patricia Martin, played by actress Priscilla Lane, during his run from the law, and later, of course, the various Nazi/Fascist sympathizers along the way.

"Saboteur" is mainly like "The 39 Steps", even including similar plot devices such as handcuffs, the blonde who doesn't trust the main character in the beginning, a race across the country (in one case London to Scotland, and in the other California to New York), and meeting the "colorful" locals along the way. And so, just like "The Man Who Knew Too Much", I believe this is an American remake of one of Hitchcock's earlier works.

I think Robert Cummings was chosen because he comes across as a very ordinary American, sort of an "everyman" with whom the audience can identify. I like Priscilla Lane because her character is a more involved in the action than Madeline Carroll in "The 39 Steps" and Ruth Roman in "Strangers on a Train". As mentioned elsewhere, though, Otto Kruger steals the show as the villain. I also liked Vaughan Glaser's performance as the blind uncle; his lines are great. There are some funny touches all along the way for some comic relief, such as road signs featuring Priscilla Lane's character on them, and circus sideshow performers, and the truck driver, Murray Alper. Contrary to other opinions here, there aren't too many characters who believe Barry Kane's innocence immediately.

There are some slow parts, mainly when the action first moves to New York, but it picks up quickly when the last planned act of the fifth columnists gets underway.

It's one of my favorite films from Hitchcock (I put it in my top 5), especially in these days of the new war on terrorism. I think it hits home.

It makes you think, "Could my coworker be involved in something evil?" In fact, one of the movie posters for "Saboteur" proclaimed "Watch Out for the Man behind your back!" Imagine how that played in the mind of adults during the Second World War.

NO SPOILERS!!

After Hitchcock's successful first American film, Rebecca based upon Daphne DuMarier's lush novel of gothic romance and intrigue, he returned to some of the more familiar themes of his early British period - mistaken identity and espionage. As the U.S. settled into World War II and the large scale 'war effort' of civilians building planes, weaponry and other necessary militia, the booming film entertainment business began turning out paranoid and often jingoistic thrillers with war time themes. These thrillers often involved networks of deceptive and skilled operators at work in the shadows among the good, law abiding citizens. Knowing the director was at home in this espionage genre, producer Jack Skirball approached Hitchcock about directing a property he owned that dealt with corruption, war-time sabotage and a helpless hero thrust into a vortex of coincidence and mistaken identity. The darker elements of the narrative and the sharp wit of literary maven Dorothy Parker (during her brief stint in Hollywood before returning to her bohemian roots in NYC) who co-authored the script were a perfect match for Hitchcock's sensibilities.

This often neglected film tells the story of the unfortunate 25 year old Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) who, while at work at a Los Angeles Airplane Factory, meets new employee Frank Frye (Norman Lloydd) and moments later is framed for committing sabotage. Fleeing the authorities who don't believe his far-fetched story he meets several characters on his way to Soda City Utah and finally New York City. These memorable characters include a circus caravan with a car full of helpful 'freaks' and a popular billboard model Patricia Martin (Priscilla Lane) who, during the worst crisis of his life as well as national security, he falls madly in love with! Of course in the land of Hitchcock, Patricia, kidnapped by the supposed saboteur Barry, falls for her captor thus adding romantic tension to the mix.

In good form for this outing, Hitchcock brews a national network of demure old ladies, average Joes, and respectable businessmen who double as secret agent terrorists that harbor criminals, pull guns and detonate bombs to keep things moving. It's a terrific plot that takes its time moving forward and once ignited, culminates in one of Hitchcock's more memorable finales. Look for incredibly life like NYC tourist attractions (all of which were recreated by art directors in Hollywood due to the war-time 'shooting ban' on public attractions). While Saboteur may not be one of Hitchcock's most well known films, it's a popular b-movie that is certainly solid and engaging with plenty of clever plot twists and as usual - terrific Hitchcock villains. Remember to look for Hitchcock's cameo appearance outside a drug store in the second half of the film. Hitchcock's original cameo idea that was shot (him fighting in sign language with his 'deaf' wife) was axed by the Bureau of Standards and Practices who were afraid of offending the deaf!

Saboteur doesn't get the attention it deserves for one major reason. Hitchcock wanted Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. Imagine what a "big" film it would have been perceived as with them as the stars.

Instead, he got Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane, both very good, but signalling that somehow this wasn't a major motion picture.

Saboteur has all the Hitchcock elements, some reminiscent of the 39 Steps - the wrong man accused and on the run, a blonde, handcuffs, and pre-North by Northwest, a scene at a landmark, with similar action taking place.

The story concerns a worker, Barry Kane (Cummings) accused of setting fire to a munitions factory and killing his best friend. In fact, Kane saw the terrorist - a man named Frye, who posed as an employee. He sets out to clear his name.

There are some interesting scenes and colorful characters, and the end is exciting - also a bit abrupt, as if Hitchcock ran out of money. Still very enjoyable and worth seeing.

'Saboteur' isn't one of Hitchcock's best known movies but it shouldn't be completely dismissed for that reason. It's a very entertaining "innocent man on the run" thriller, a theme he had previously used to great success in 'The 39 Steps', and would later recycle in one of his most popular movies 'North By Northwest' (and one which still gets used time and time again by Hollywood - see 'The Fugitive', 'Enemy Of The State', 'Minority Report' and countless others). Some people slam Robert Cummings (who later appeared in Hitchcock's 'Dial M For Murder') as being a bit lightweight, but I think he's actually pretty good as a leading man, and Priscilla Lane ('Arsenic And Old Lace') is also not bad, and the two do show some on screen chemistry. Of course with more charismatic leads 'Saboteur' would have been greatly improved, but as it is it's good enough. One actor in the cast I think is really terrific is Otto Kruger ('Murder, My Sweet') who plays Tobin, one of Hitchcock's best ever villains. 'Saboteur' is action packed and keeps things interesting. There's a good sequence with a traveling circus, memorable bit parts from a truck driver and a blind man, and the climax is great stuff and vintage Hitch. If you are new to Hitchcock I could name at least a dozen of his movies to watch before this one, but if you've seen his "greatest hits" try 'Saboteur', it's lots of fun.

This is a thrilling Hitch movie about a high-class rebellious group plotting to blow up major factories , installations , dams and ships . A factory worker ( Robert Cummings ) wrongfully framed of sabotage at a munitions plant set off on pursuit the traitor ( Norman Lloyd still today acting ) who accused him . He is forced to take on the lam and attempts to elude police while tries to find the real culprit . Our hero flees from the web of circumstance evidence threatening to entrap him . At the beginning a gorgeous model ( Priscilla Lane ) suspects Cummings might be the terrorist planting bombs around factories , but later on , being helped by the personable heroine until a groundbreaking climax finale .

Top-notch and top form Hitchcock movie about a WWII worker turned fugitive who tries to unmask the true saboteur . This exciting story is briskly paced and has a brooding , doom-laden atmosphere , including habitual crop of memorable sequences . Hitch uses impressive locations as Boulder Dam , Radio City Music Hall and the Statue of Liberty to intensify the suspense . Some overwhelming set pieces and breathtaking ending on the Statue of Liberty with incredible special effects by the craftsman John P Fulton who has a long career as FX designer . It contains usual Hitch touches constantly boost the action . Interesting screenplay by Joan Harrison -Hitchcock's usual- , Dorothy Parker and Peter Viertel , Deborah Kerr's husband . Atmospheric cinematography in white and black by Joseph Valentine and suspenseful musical score by the classic Frank Skinner . The picture bears certain remembrance to ¨Sabotage(1936)¨ with Silvia Sidney and Oscar Homolka who Hitchcock directed during his first British period . The story deals with ordinary Hitchcock theme as ¨ Wrong guilty¨ such as ¨ Thirty nine steps¨ , ¨Foreign correspondent¨ , ¨Wrong man¨ , ¨North by Northwest¨ and ¨To catch a thief¨ . Rating : Above average for its numerous quirky touches of the Master of suspense and beginning and finishing memorably . Worthwhile watching and indispensable and essential seeing for Hitchcock fans .

Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur is not one of his best-regarded films; made between two vastly more popular and critically praised pictures, Suspicion and Shadow Of a Doubt, it's generally regarded as a lesser effort. I agree that the later film is groundbreaking, drawing Hitchcock wholly into the American mainstream for the first time, but Saboteur is in its way at least as lively as Suspicion; its chief flaw being its less than charismatic star players, Bob Cummings and Priscilla Lane.

In Saboteur we find Hitchcock feeling his way around America, literally, as its lead character travels from California to New York in search of an arsonist for whose crime he was accused. Cummings is very youthful here, and quite engaging. His boyishness (but not immaturity) perfectly suits the character he is portraying, and seems appropriate, as the director, though middle-aged, was in the process of reinventing himself, and an older, more established star might have thrown things off. Priscilla Lane's spunky heroine, which not a typical type for the director, was very much a common type in American films at the time; and she and Cummings provide an openness and a youth the director needed both in his life and work at this time. I cannot imagine older, more solid types,--Cooper and Stanwyck for instance--doing any better, as they would have, between them, carried, well, too much baggage.

As is the norm in Hitchcock's films, nothing is as it appears. Where Saboteur differs from his better known films is that the audience is let in on the game early. Though Cummings is an accused arsonist, we know that he is innocent. The villains become apparent fairly soon; and the movie hinges more on its plot than its ironies. What pleasures there are are incidental, and here the Master does not disappoint. There is an interesting, Tod Browningish interlude with some circus freaks, who help Cummings elude capture. In another scene, reminiscent of James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein, Cummings spends some time in the cottage of a blind man, who, as it turns out, is Lane's uncle. Was the director perhaps studying key American films of the previous decade? Whatever the case, these and other offbeat and discursive aspects of the movie give it a playfulness and variety, which, when one adds the factor of quite youthful leads, makes the picture seem like the work of a younger man, still learning his craft.

The film's later scenes, in New York, are more suspenseful and typical of the director, as the picture gradually becomes more Hitchockian as it moves along. In the end I find it a satisfying work; and as neither Cummings nor Lane has a dark side as an actor, neither does the movie have one. It is deliberately lightweight, and I suspect semi-experimental; an attempt by Hitchcock to see if he could pull off, in an American setting, the sort of story he had done so well in England. He succeeded admirably. The next logical step: Shadow Of a Doubt, a film in which the main character travels east to west, and with a wholly different set of values and plans.

On my VHS box of Saboteur the film was noted as Alfred Hitchcock's first with an all American cast. Thinking about it you can make that claim for it considering the foreign locations of both Rebecca and Foreign Correspondent.

Saboteur involves Robert Cummings as both the pursuer and the pursued. The police think he's a Saboteur who bombed a Los Angeles aircraft factory where he worked. Cummings knows it was Norman Lloyd who did it, a mysterious man named Fry. So Cummings is both evading the cops and looking for the real Saboteur who can clear him.

The chase and pursue theme is one that Hitchcock uses over and over again from The Thirty Nine Steps to North By Northwest. In both of those films it was much better done.

Hitchcock did not pick his leading players in this film. Priscilla Lane had left Warner Brothers and was looking to broaden her appeal. She'd signed with Universal and Hitchcock had to take her. She's good, but she's hardly in the image of classic sophisticated Hitchcock blonds like Grace Kelly, Madeleine Carroll, or Eva Marie Saint. She's just to perky to compete with those ladies.

Bob Cummintgs was a second choice, Hitchcock wanted and couldn't get Joel McCrea. That proved to be a fortunate accident. Cummings is froth with youthful idealism in his performance, he holds his own in confrontational scenes with master fifth columnist Otto Kruger.

In fact the villains here are the most interesting characters. Whether they are from the isolationist mid-west like Otto Kruger or society matrons like Alma Kruger or some nobodies like Clem Bevans, Alan Baxter, or Norman Lloyd, they've drunken in the philosophy of a master race and find it heady stuff indeed. Listen to Otto Kruger's explanation for his treason, his contempt for the easily manipulated voters, his drive for power as well as money. The most frightening part of the film.

More even than that climax at the Statue of Liberty. For years the torch on the statue has been closed so Cummings and Lloyd at the top is maybe even more thrilling for today's audience than at the time the film was released. But Hitchcock himself said he made a mistake, when he did the chase in North By Northwest, better to have the hero than the villain do the dangling.

It's not one of Hitchcock's best films, but Saboteur holds up well for today's audience and in an age of global terror, very relevant.

Saboteur is a fairly routine Alfred Hitchcock film. It is in many ways an update on the director's first big hit The 39 Steps, with its story of a wronged man on the run. Although it also was a forerunner for the later North by Northwest, which also shared this idea as well as a finale set on a famous monument that represented America. Although Saboteur is not amongst the director's best, it still is a movie with several great sequences. The opening fire is filmed in a very stylish manner with black smoke slowly engulfing the screen; the set-piece with the circus troupe is quirky with memorable characters such as a fascistic dwarf, a highly creepy bearded lady and a human skeleton who is at best slightly thin; there's also a great sequence in a cinema where the characters act out action that is mirrored on the big screen backdrop; but best of all is the final set-piece atop the Statue of Liberty, it's exciting stuff with excellent set design too.

The story itself is fairly derivative. It's about a group of rich 5th columnists who organise activities to sabotage the war effort. An innocent man is accused and is forced to try and clear his name.

It's not the most involving story but decent enough. Main man Robert Cummings is okay but not overly charismatic. There is a typical Hitchcock romantic sub-plot where our hero hooks up with an at-first reluctant ice blonde woman. This girl is introduced by way of a scene where the man on the run is taken in by a kindly blind man who seems to be the only one who doesn't see him as a criminal. It's very similar indeed to the famous sequence in the Bride of Frankenstein where the monster's only friend in an unjudgemental blind hermit.

This is not classic Hitchcock but a stylish thriller none-the-less. Worth a look if you appreciate the older flicks.

Saboteur is the second of three wartime propaganda thrillers that Hitchcock directed. Espionage adventures like this had made up the bulk of his mid-to-late 30s work in Britain, and Saboteur provides some good examples of the very precise method he had by now developed.

Important to these thrillers was the idea that this could happen to anyone, and it was not enough simply to create an honest John Doe character - he had to show the hero's ordinariness, that he was a random victim. This was before Hitch began using the device of panning over a city before homing in on one window, but he achieves a similar effect here with protagonist Robert Cummings emerging as a face in the crowd of factory workers. For different reasons, it was also important to establish the villain as an apparently non-threatening family man - the last person anyone would suspect. Hence we first see Otto Kruger playing with his granddaughter.

Once he has established that his hero is an average Joe, Hitchcock's aim is to keep us with the character and draw us into his experiences. We of course have plenty of point-of-view shots so we see what he sees, and these are not only used to show us information, but also to reveal his paranoid state - for example with those ironic billboard slogans. A subtler but equally effective trick is to cut to a close reaction shot while another character is talking. This is done for example in the scene where he gets a lift from a truck driver. As the driver prattles away, we see them both framed together, but whenever he says something worth listening to, we cut to a closeup of Cummings. This not only draws your attention to crucial information, it also really focuses you on the character's thoughts.

Finally, to keep us watching Hitchcock needed to keep the action balanced and varied. Each of Cummings' escapes is played for a different effect. When he gives little Suzi a piggy-back to prevent his getting shot at, we are impressed by his cunning. The scene in the river is pure nail-biting action, whereas cutting through the handcuffs is an exercise in race-against-time tension. The episode with the blind man is a neat little reference to Bride of Frankenstein, drawing the parallel between the outcast monster and the innocent fugitive. This sequence also contains some of the picture's few decent gags, and is marred only by the appalling acting of Vaughan Glaser.

Speaking of acting, this is unfortunately one of the blandest casts Hitchcock ever worked with, Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane being ironically very average leads. None of the supporting players really stands out, with one exception: Otto Kruger, who brilliantly manages to capture that blend of decency and villainy. Add to this dull cast a lifeless screenplay, full of patriotic rhetoric - understandable in the circumstances, but still rather clunky and clichéd - and short on wit and sparkle. The score is by Frank Skinner, one in a long line of composers who failed to get Hitchcock's style.

For all the meticulous construction of Hitchcock's Hollywood pictures, he had already made his best espionage adventures in England in the 30s. I think films like The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes were more effective simply because they were successful at merging comedy and action, with a lively cast that made them fun and breezy. Saboteur has plenty of strong set pieces, but is otherwise fairly flat. Conversely though, Hitch's mastery of his method was beginning to pay dividends in his domestic crime thrillers, as can be seen in his next feature, Shadow of Doubt.

Saboteur was one of the few Hitchcocks I had yet to discover and I was less than half-overwhelmed. The French title "La Cinquième colonne" (i.e. The Fifth Column, a very evocative phrase for underground spying and sabotage organizations) set my expectations quite high as did the images of the finale on top of the Statue of Liberty.

Basically Saboteur is as much light-hearted as were The 39 steps (note this is another evocative phrase, even McGuffin as a title) but it lacks most of the humor (so the characters are rather down to earth) and it's definitely not as fast paced. As a chase movie across the USA from LA to NY Saboteur drags its feet from sequence to sequence. The sequence at the villain's lovely ranch? Lovely ranch, lovely villain but pretty tame on the whole, it doesn't really add up to nothing. The meeting with the blind man, the mixing with Circus people, the Soda City sequence, the NY ball sequence? They fall flat, bringing in more characters with very little added suspense value.

One big problem I can point out is the relationship between the leads Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane which is not building up as with Robert Donat and Madeleine Caroll in The 39 steps. Hence the whole narrative structure is floating, depending on the addition of new scenes. And new scenes only bring us nearer the end since it's not clear if the hook is the hero's escape from the police, from the villains or his action to stop the plotted sabotages. In The 39 steps it was clearly scripted as 1/escaping from the police (so you know the hero can't just go to the police) then 2/running for his life and after the villains to prove his innocence.

If you want a better Hitchcock from the 40s wartime propaganda I would advise you to chose Foreign Correspondant over Saboteur. They are both chase movies with a catchy finale, well really a gripping one and not just sightseeing in Foreign Correspondant as well as beautifully efficient scenes (the umbrella crowd, the tulip fields, the strange mills...).

The story is spelled out elsewhere -- Cummings being mistaken for a saboteur and getting mixed up with a real gang -- so I'll pretty much skip it and just add a few comments.

First, it's identifiably Hitchcock, but is an example of his lighthearted thrillers not his more ambitious dramas. Think of it as being in the same class as, say, "The Lady Vanishes" or "North by Northwest." Aside from a speech Robert Cummings makes to the Nazis at the mansion -- about "you and your kind" -- none of this is meant to be taken very seriously.

This is also the first use Hitchcock makes of an American landmark or even an identifiable American landscape in his films. It isn't his first use of landmarks as setting for a chase, since he earlier used the British Museum. He does better here with his mockup of the Statue of Liberty, which also carries a (rather heavy) symbolic weight.

The score is kind of sweet and musically a little tricky, but there is no music at all while Cummings is holding the villain Norman Loyd by the sleeve at the top of the statue. The scene cries out for explosive dramatic suspenseful collossal stupendous orchestration -- and Hitchcock keeps it silent except for a few whispered words from Loyd.

The plot has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese but it doesn't matter much. "The FBI arrived at my ranch," says the suave Otto Krueger. "Luckily I was just leaving." The mother of the victim at the beginning seems to believe that Cummings, the victim's best friend, may have deliberately murdered him. A hole has been drilled in the wall of a deserted shack so that Cummings can find a telescope and look through the hole and see what appears to be Boulder Dam and cotton to what's going on. Oh, well.

The makeup department should have been penalized (or drafted). In some scenes Cummings is so plastered with makeup that he resembles a silent screen hero like Valentino. And sometimes the delectably cream-fed Priscilla Lane looks almost ordinary.

The best performances are from Otto Krueger, who switched from music to acting, fortunately, and from Alan Baxter as the soft spoken and not entirely unsympathetic heavy. We first see Baxter as he enters the abandoned shack at Soda City with Clem Bevins, brushing the dust fussily from the sleeve of his dark jacket. And he has a truly amazing conversation with Cummings in the back seat of a car while they are being driven to New York. It's a complete non sequitur dealing with Baxter's two young sons. He describes them lovingly and then talks about how much he wanted a girl. He asks Cummings if it would be acceptable to raise a boy nowadays with long hair, adding that when he himself was a child he had beautiful long golden curls. "You might do the kid a favor if you got him a haircut," advises Cummings! It's sometimes easy to make fun of Hitchcock and call him nothing more than a successful commercial hack, but it's almost impossible to imagine scenes like these appearing in another director's work, not with such consistency.

As far as that goes, few other directors would have the imagination to roll the credits against a blank wall and, afterwards, have an ominous black shadow of smoke unfurl itself against that background. But that's only visual flair. Not that it should be dismissed, but that conversation between Cummings and Baxter I think tells us much more about what exercised Hitchcock's interest aside from patterns on a silver screen.

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.

In 1938 Orson Welles' Mercury Theater Group put on a classic stage production of Shakespeare's JULIUS CAESAR, in which Welles reset the story from the Roman Empire of 44 - 43 B.C. to 1938 Europe. Caesar was now a typical fascist dictator, and Brutus and his fellow conspirators were trying to free their country. The performances were well recalled, in particular two: George Coulouris as Mark Antony (played as a typical Fascist rabble rouser, as only Coulouris could do), and Norman Lloyd as a mediocre poet named Cinna. Cinna is a minor part in the play (it is not even seen in the classic film version of JULIUS CAESAR by Joseph Mankiewicz with Louis Calhern, Marlon Brando, John Guilgud, and James Mason). He is walking home shortly after the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech, and the Roman citizenry is in a mindless anger at the conspirators. One of the conspirators is also named Cinna. When they confront the poet Cinna they jump to a fatally wrong conclusion. The way that Welles directed the scene, a nervous and frightened Lloyd is trying to get out of the confrontation...and quickly. As he has described it on television a year or so ago, the stage became deadly silent for a timed pause, and then the mob jumped him and frightened the audience by the stunning violence of it all.

It helped make the career of this multi-talented performer - he has been producer, director, and actor. He is best known to recent audiences as "Dr. Daniel Auschlander" on ST. ELSEWHERE on television. But his first movie role did not pop up until 1942. He played Frank Fry, the real saboteur in Alfred Hitchcock's SABOTEUR.

Hitchcock wanted to do SABOTEUR as a sequel (of sorts) to FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, where he used Herbert Marshall as representative of suspect English pacifists (possibly "Cliveden" Set types) who were actually agents of Nazism. Being Hitchcock, he made sure that Marshall's character was actually dignified, proud of his real patriotism (even if misguided) to Germany, and eventually heroic to redeem himself for his daughter's sake. In his original plan for SABOTEUR he planned to make Harry Carey the villain - and a type of "American First" leader, like Charles Lindberg (see KEEPER OF THE FLAME). It was a smaller version of the debacle of trying to make Cary Grant a murderer and villain in SUSPICION the previous year: Hitch could not buck RKO and Grant's agent on that one, even though Grant was willing to try it, because of Grant's image. Here it was Carey's following as a popular, father-like, character actor and western star. So Hitch could not do what he really wanted to do.

Robert Cummings gave a decent performance but no more as the suspected saboteur who blew up a factory in the film. He criss-crosses the country trying to find the real saboteur (Lloyd), and running into many interesting "fifth columnist" types (like Clem Bevans, playing a particularly bitter old man who is helping the Axis). The head of the sabotage ring is wealthy Otto Kreuger, who gives a nice performance as a sophisticated villain. His first comment on meeting up with Cummings in his townhouse is to say it reminds him of the title of a novel. He pulls out of a bookcase THE DEATH OF A NOBODY by Jules Romain. Apparently he likes 20th Century French literature.

Cummings is hampered (at first) by Priscilla Lane, but she becomes an ally of his when she slowly realizes he was framed. Together they try to prove his innocence. They are fleeing the police and the enemy agents at the same time (with mixed results). We have seen this situation before. Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll had gone through the same thing chasing Godfrey Tearle in THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS, set in Great Britain. Unfortunately Donat and Carroll were better performers, and their script was better too.

But Lloyd is properly sinister. And he was to have as memorable a conclusion here as he had on stage in JULIUS CAESAR.

SPOILER COMING UP:

The conclusion of SABOTEUR was one of the best known in the films of Alfred Hitchcock. The Statue of Liberty is the setting when Cummings confronts Lloyd in the torch of the statue. Lloyd falls over the side, and Cummings tries to pull him up or hold until help comes. But the coat Lloyd wears starts ripping, and he falls shortly after clearing Cummings in the hearing of the police. It was a good sequence to conclude the film with. And it was a wonderful way for Lloyd to be introduced into movies.

You can't help but marvel at Hitchcock's early work. "Saboteur," for example, is so slick and quick that it's hard to believe he made this film over 60 years ago. There's some propaganda elements but they're woven into the mystery so well that the thing plays beautifully years later. You also get some previews of stuff that Hitchcock would do later--like using a national landmark as a backdrop. This time it's the Statue of Liberty. In "North by Northwest," of course, it's Mt. Rushmore. You'll also recognize things that pop up later in "Rear Window" and "Vertigo" in "Saboteur" but let's not give away the show. Robert Cummings is excellent as is the oh-so-charming Otto Kruger. Look for Hitchcock's mini-western in this one. It happens quickly so don't blink.

The story of a man who is on the run and who must clear his name seems to be a common trope with Hitchcock, but it's because he truly does it best. This one in particular provides a specific brand of paranoia provided by the war time it was released in. The concept of "watch out for the man behind your back!" and the fear of your coworkers being involved in something sinister was a real concern of Americans at this time, which I think makes the story more poignant. While I don't think that Robert Cummings was one of Hitchcocks best leading men, the story of Barry Kane and the people he meets along the way is entertaining all the same. The story does feel a bit slow at points, especially when things start to kick off in New York, but it makes up for itself in other places. It isn't my favorite Hitchcock film, but still worth watching.

Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) is wrongfully accused on sabotaging a hanger making aircrafts for the war. He goes on the run, meets Patricia Martin (Priscilla Lane) along the way, and she joins him to find and bring the real criminals to justice.

There are a lot of things wrong with this film. Robert Cummings was a good actor but he's totally miscast in this role; Priscilla Lane is pretty but was never a good actress; the story doesn't make a whole lot of sense (and rambles on longer than needed); it wears its patriotism a bit much (but this WAS made while WWII was in full swing) and there's no ending. It shouldn't work but it does.

It's full of bizarre lines and characters that certainly hold your interest.

For example: Lane says to Cummings (while they're falling in love), "I wish I could have met you a hundred years ago" (????!!!!); Lane PAYS a villain for getting her lunch and Cummings and Lane join a circus troupe briefly while on the run. Also Hitchcock's direction was (as always) just great--he throws in some truly amazing shots and sequences--especially the Statue of Liberty climax.

This is not one of Hitchcock's classic movie but is still very good and worth catching.

While SABOTEUR may be just another Hitchcock 'wronged man' thriller, don't let that put you off – this turns out to be one of his strongest films from the 1940s (along with FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT). The formula for success is as simple as a decent story, well told by a master filmmaker who wrings every ounce of suspense and tension from his fast-paced narrative.

Robert Cummings plays a working class hero – a surprise, as I'm more used to seeing Jimmy Stewart/Cary Grant playing well suited gents – who finds himself framed for an act of sabotage at an aircraft factory that saw a close friend die. From there on in, he's pursued cross-country by the police and soon finds himself in the midst of a sinister conspiracy by a gang of fifth columnists. There are enough twists and turns to keep even the most jaded mystery fan watching, and the narrative never flags for a second.

Cummings is a delight as the hero, an ordinary Joe type guy you can really get behind. Priscilla Lane is the typically feisty heroine, and the two share a genuine chemistry that enhances the film's appeal. The villains, too, are fast from the ordinary typecast bad guys: Otto Kruger is urbane, well-heeled and supremely confident, Norman Lloyd delightfully sinister.

The film moves from one set-piece to the next. Some of them are visually impressive, such as a scene set on the Statue of Liberty (stylistically foreshadowing the ending of NORTH BY NORTHWEST, which went one better) and the bit where the hero and heroine find themselves at a charity ball, trapped like pieces on a chess board. However, it's the dialogue scenes that really zing – particularly an early encounter with a blind man and a later confrontation in the villains' study. Hitchcock even takes time out for an intense interlude involving a travelling wagon of circus freaks, which I wasn't expecting one bit. Despite the familiar premise, SABOTEUR is one of the master's freshest and most exciting films and a real delight for this viewer.

"Saboteur" was an interesting WWII era film directed by Alfred Hitchcock that takes us on the journey of wrongly accused Barry Kane, played by Robert Cummings. Although there has been many movies about people wrongly accused of crimes, Hitchcock managed to spin this one into a clever story of espionage and suspense. It was interesting that this film highlighted groups that were working against the American cause in the war. Usually everything in that period is pro America and about American patriotism. In the midst of a thriller, Hitchcock weaved a love story into the plot. Patricia Martin, played by Priscilla Lane, was at first trying to turn Barry Kane into the police, became his captive and slowly realized his innocence. I've heard Hitchcock was known for his cutting edge cinematography and there was lots of that in this movie. I think what made this film so good was the big stunts and the artistic use of the camera.

This is one of those films I've always wanted to see but didn't get around to it for years. After buying the DVD on sale and sitting through it, I was hugely disappointed. It's just not good, Hitch fans, when it's not outright bizarre and terrible. Plot holes and absurdities and on the nose dialogue abound. Sure, the Statue of Liberty sequence shows a bit of the director's early genius, as well as a few other signature touches, but for the most part this film is a badly acted, badly structured, and badly written mess.

Nothing in this story unfolds with any believability or credibility, it almost plays like a bad Twilight Zone episode where the hapless protagonist keeps making impossible escapes via doors held open for him by some invisible guardian angel. It's outrageous to watch Robert Cummings get let off the hook time and again on simple faith that he's a noble American defense worker innocent beyond question of sabotage. A real piece of WW2 propagandist pap.

The only other bright spots are a deliciously despicable turn by Otto Kruger as the main villain, and Norman Lloyd, who successfully looks and acts the part of a slimy agent of evil (though he's hardly involved in the plot long enough to be a 3 dimensional character).

As Barry Kane, our righteous hero on the run, Robert Cummings turns in one of the worst leading man performances in the history of Hollywood's golden age. He's even more shrill and wooden than Lew Ayres and Robert Taylor in their worst moments. The only decent speech he delivers is when he confronts Kruger near the end, a speech which resonates particularly well in this era of George W. Bush (Kruger could be playing Dick Cheney). The rest of the time he's overbearingly skittish and meek when he's not chewing the scenery with histrionics.

The interplay between Cummings and Priscilla Lane is completely lifeless and devoid of any romance and humor. This film needed Howard Hawks to oversee that aspect of the film and Hitchcock to handle the suspense.

Not nearly one of Hitchcock's best. A ratings travesty at 7.3