Old Film Review. Hitchcock Series: ‘Sabotage’ (1936)

 picture edited by Laura Lai

by Laura Lai/ Review 

Film’s Title: Sabotage

Lead Actors: Sylvia Sydney (Mrs. Verloc), Oscar Homolka (Mr. Verloc), John Loder (Ted), Desmond Tester (Sylvia’s young brother) 

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

The movie is based on the novel The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad (or as an ebook available for free reading) 

Sabotage is a black-and-white drama (with sound) directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It is the story of a detective, Ted (John Loder) working undercover as a groceries seller to investigate Mr. Verloc (Oscar Homolka) – a cinema owner – on suspicion of involvement in the city black-out and bus bombing.

In order to picture the novel The Secret Agent written in 1907 by J. Conrad, Hitchcock chose to start the movie in the most original way: with the word definition. Therefore, the very first scene of the movie is a dictionary page, which was defining the word ‘sabotage’ as a ‘wilful destruction of buildings or machinery with the object of alarming a group of persons or inspiring public uneasiness.’ This idea of Hitchcock is both original – as I have never seen any other movie opening directly with a dictionary page to emphasize a definition – and cultural.

            Ted’s undercover mission was discovered during a meeting with a group of social agitators, which included also Mr. Verloc. From this moment, the suspense of the movie starts growing. And although one might believe that with the bus bombing the bombing series was over, it was actually followed by a second one, at the cinema.

            Mr. Verloc sent the brother (Desmond Tester) of his wife (Sylvia Sydney) with the tape of the movie Bartholomew the Strangler, which exploded in a bus full of people. Besides the tragedy of the human loss, and that of Mrs. Verloc’s young brother, this particular scene reminds us that at the beginning of the cinema, the movies were taped on an inflammable tape. And for this reason, many movies from the beginning of the cinema are lost - specialists speak of a 90 percent loss from the total of all movies made in that period. It means that great stories are gone, great interpretations, artistic mise-en-scène of different directors, movies that pictured the life, the habits, and the people with the techniques of those times cinema is all gone. People, stories, and movies are gone forever.

         There are two particular scenes that I would like to point out from this movie: the first for its artistic relevance, and the second for its cultural information. The first is the scene at the beginning of the movie when Mr. Verloc came home while the cinema had a blackout and people were asking for their money back. In a complete black-out, Mr. Verloc could not fully rest because he was disturbed by the street light and he covered his face with a newspaper. I found this scene brilliant because, on the one side, people were restless and wanted their money back, while on the other side, Mr. Verloc could not rest in a black-out because of the … street light. Furthermore, the covering of his face with the newspaper is also brilliant because it was in the spirit of the dictionary scene – Mr. Verloc is covering his eyes with the written words of a newspaper. The second scene, I would like to point out, happened ten minutes later and showed a meeting in what we would call nowadays an ‘aquarium’. It was an Aquarium back then, too. It was open to the public, and it was impressive for those times. It helps to realize the development gap between London and the rest of the country, and the rest of the world at that time.

In conclusion, the movie Sabotage is a great drama concentrating on lots of suspense, particularly after the ‘blowing up’ of Ted’s undercover mission, which continues with the blowing-up of the bus and culminates with the blowing-up of the cinema.

Enjoy the movie! J

P.S.: See you in the next review of Alfred Hitchcock’s series!