Review of Saboteur (1942) by Sean F — 01 Jun 2004

Alfred Hitchcock. Maybe my favorite director. Undeniably the Master of Suspense. Late one night many years ago, I turned on the TV and caught an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" shortly after it had already started.

After just a few minutes I knew it was one of the twenty or so episodes Hitchcock had directed himself. It was a love scene that gave it away. How funny, that Hitchcock is known primarily for suspense and terror, but nobody before or since has been able to direct love scenes in quite the same way.

Hindered by the Hays Code, and yet so passionate. Look at the famous kiss between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in "Notorious" (which I'll get to before too long in this thing). That's Hitchcock, though.

He's one of the few directors that you can just tell that's who it is. Even in a lesser effort like "Saboteur". As the story goes, Hitchcock himself wasn't happy with this film. Perhaps if he had been able to get Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck (two of his original choices) instead of Robert Cummings and Pamela Lane - both very stiff, and neither one really invested in the immediacy of the wartime sabotage - it may have been a better movie.

Certainly more enjoyable, but I doubt much better. The real problem here is the story. Such a ludicrous plot with so many holes is just not deserving of the suspense the Master is able to wring out of it.

Too often in the movie, when all evidence points to our hero being the actual saboteur (this being a Hitchcock film, he is, of course, an innocent accused), he's saved by a stranger who can just tell he's a nice guy.

Even though he's on the run and handcuffed. But then, it was only the most circumstancial of evidence that got him into the mess to begin with. All he had to do in the first place was go to the authorities with the information he had, and the whole thing would've been cleared up.

But then we wouldn't have had the action and drama and that clunky love story that just got in the way of everything. But I love Hitchcock, and even if I can't enjoy one of his movies as a whole, I do find parts that shine through.

The tense confrontation between Cummings and the traitor played by Otto Kruger works very well. The shoot-out in the movie theater, as guns are firing on the screen and in the audience is pure Hitchcock.

And the climactic scene on the Statue of Liberty is almost as famous as the Mount Rushmore scene in "North by Northwest" - a film in which the Innocent Accused Formula works much better. But I'll be getting to that one before too long, as well.