Steven Torrey
Once the viewer gets past the feeling of familiarity--'say, haven't I seen this movie before?'--it's not a bad movie. Certainly not one of the greats. "39 Steps" is great because it was Hitchcock's early treatment of a man wrongfully accused on the run inadvertently chained to someone he can barely tolerate. And the chemistry in "39 Steps" between the actors combined with an excellent script made for film excellence. But while "39 Steps" had a believable cast, Robert Cummings simply cannot be seen in emotional distress. (Never mind, in real life, Cummings would succumb to meth addiction from Dr. Feelgood thus affecting both his physical health and his mental health. But that was way distant in his future.) Robert Cummings ends up being the weakest link in a weak movie. His blithe good looks served him well in "Dial M for Murder", not so much here where he is expected to demonstrate a range of emotional distress.Simply put, Hitchcock went to the well too many times here. And part of the problem is by now the movie viewer has seen most of Hitchcock's movies, not necessarily in the sequence he made them; as he made the film they fall within an historical time-line that is not available to the viewer who sees them as a measure of their popularity. So there is a sense that this movie has been seen and the realization that the treatment of the topic is not as good as in that other film: "Vertigo", "North by Northwest", "39 Steps", etc.But as suspense drama, the movie does hold up fairly well. The closing scene at the Statue of Liberty holds the viewer. Priscilla Lane holds on to Otto Kruger so he doesn't escape; and the suspense is taut to its conclusion.It just doesn't seem to measure up to other films Hitchcock made surrounding similar themes with different actors.
brchthethird
Hitchcock is one of those directors that every film buff is aware of, but few will admit to having seen none of his films. Prior to this, I'd only seen THE BIRDS and PSYCHO (in that order), but that was a long time ago so I consider this to be my (re)introduction to him. Other than a lot of suspense, I wasn't really sure what to expect from SABOTEUR. It turned out to be quite good for an early Hitchcock film, although it betrays the time in which it was made a little too much. The story is about Barry Kane (Robert Cummings), who works at an airplane factory. One day a catastrophic fire kills one of his friends and he's pinned as the one responsible. This sets him on a journey to prove his innocence and find out just what is going on. Generally speaking, there wasn't a dull moment in this, although I do think it began to lose some narrative steam in the final half-hour as they struggle to find a way to keep the action going after the villain's endgame is (sort of) revealed. I do think it was well-acted and had interesting characters, although nearly everyone upstages Barry's "Average Joe." My two favorite characters are Philip Martin, the blind man he meets, and Tobin, someone who turns out to be very important. These two characters also happen to have a couple scenes which very eruditely give the thematic concerns we're supposed to take away from the film. Given that this produced during American involvement in WWII, anybody who didn't support the war effort would naturally have been looked on with suspicion. This is why the villains are saboteurs who aim to damage the US war effort. However, the blind man (in what might have been a compromise with the studio?) is made to say that even in times of war, our democratic principles still hold and a person is innocent until proved guilty. Without that counterpoint, I feel that the film would have verged on being jingoistic and meaninglessly patriotic. While I'm not too much enamored of the way the film reduces wartime politics to an "us vs them" binary, Hitchcock did make a solidly thrilling picture that is still quite relevant today.
disinterested_spectator
"You look like a saboteur," Pat says to Barry accusatively.What are we to make of this remark? First of all, there is reality. We all know as a general rule, saboteurs do not have a distinctive look. Now, inasmuch as World War II had just broken out, I suppose that if Barry had been Japanese or German, her remark would have been appropriate. Of course, today we would call that racial profiling, but since this movie was made in 1942, she could have gotten away with it. But Barry does not appear to be either.Second, there is type casting. A movie producer might call up an agent, and say, "We're making a spy movie. Do you have anyone who looks like a saboteur? If so, send him over for an interview." And then the agent might send over someone like Norman Lloyd, the man who plays the saboteur named Fry in the movie. But the agent would not have sent over Robert Cummings.Third, there is the reason why Pat said it. After she expresses her difficulty in believing that any American would be a saboteur, Barry responds, "Well, you believe it about me!" She replies that he is different, because he looks like a saboteur. And that is peculiar, because neither reality nor movie stereotyping would make anyone say that about someone who looks like Robert Cummings. Besides, she had a very good reason for thinking he was a saboteur, which has nothing to do with his looks. When she first met him, she saw that he was wearing handcuffs, and she realized that he was the fugitive the police were looking for.Actually, it is precisely because Barry does not look like a saboteur that he is able to avoid the police. After he jumps out of the police car, he jumps from the bridge into the river below. The truck driver that had earlier given him a ride recognizes him, and he misdirects the police so that Barry can escape. Now, why would anyone do that? I would have helped the police by pointing out where Barry was hiding. All we can conclude is that the truck driver figured Barry did not look like a criminal, so he helped him escape.Barry takes shelter in a blind man's house. When his niece Pat turns up, and she sees the handcuffs that her uncle Philip already knew about on account of his acute hearing, she says he should have turned him in to the police. Her uncle accuses her of being cruel. He assures her that Barry is not dangerous. And besides, he argues, a man is innocent until proved guilty. Now, because Philip is blind, he obviously cannot be coming to these incredible conclusions simply on account of Barry's looks. But Philip tells Pat that he can see intangible things, like innocence.Pat pretends to go along with what her uncle wants, which is to take Barry to a blacksmith to get the handcuffs off, but she tries to take him to the police instead. That doesn't work, however, and after some complications, they find themselves in the company of some circus freaks. Some of them want to turn Barry over to the police, who are inspecting the circus trucks, but the deciding vote is the bearded lady who blathers about how fine it is that Pat has stuck with Barry through his difficulties, and therefore they must be good people. This makes about as much sense as when earlier a man and a woman saw Barry kidnap Pat, dragging her into the car against her will, and the woman said, "My, they must be terribly in love."What these three instances—that of the truck driver, Uncle Philip, and the freaks—have in common is that appearances, in one form or another, make people decide to thwart the police and help the fugitive. Toward the end of the movie, Tobin, one of the villains, says of Barry that he is noble, fine, and pure, and that is why he is misjudged by everyone. But save for the police, Barry is not misjudged by others. The point of this line is to show just how much evil foreigners underestimate Americans. Americans, being basically noble, fine, and pure, can readily see the goodness in others, which is why they are willing to help a fugitive from justice escape from the police: they can just tell that Barry is noble, fine, and pure.In some ways, this movie reminds us of "The 39 Steps" (1935), made several years earlier. In that movie, a man is also falsely suspected of being a spy and has to convince a woman that he is really a good guy. There is a pair of handcuffs in that movie too, except that the man and woman are handcuffed together in that one. However, "Saboteur" also made me think of "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943), which Hitchcock made just a year later, in which appearances, instead of being dependable, turn out to be deceptive. Perhaps the one was a reaction to the other.
merrywater
Hitchcock made this movie three times: the first was released in 1935 called "The 39 Steps", the second in 1942 called "Saboteur", and the third in 1959 named "North by Northwest".The basic ingredients are: (1) A lonely man wrongfully accused of something he didn't do. (2) His wanting to have himself in the clear. (3) His incapacity of turning his case over to justice. (4) His pursuit of the party who incriminated him. (5) His involvement in between with a blond girl that he can't trust. (6) His final encounter with his nemesis, preferably at a spectacular site."The 39 Steps" is truly a masterpiece, for it is still mesmerizes you in spite of being filmed 80 years ago! Which other movie that old does that? None whatsoever, I dare you. (The next likely candidate, "The Lady Vanishes" was only released three years later, and was directed by the Master of Suspense as well.)Now, "North by Northwest" would have been this masterpiece, had it not been preceded by "The 39 Steps". "Noth by Northwest" has some unforgettable moments as the pesticide aircraft chase, but the plot is anything but new."Saboteur" differs from the other two pictures in being excessively patriotic and antifascist, somewhat of war propaganda, shot during WWII as it was. It does have some exciting moments, but having seen the other two movies in the "trilogy", it just sticks out as the lesser attempt of them.
