Sabotage (film)
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Sabotage, also released as A Woman Alone, is a 1936 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Karl Verloc (played by Oscar Homolka), the owner of a cinema, is part of a gang of saboteurs from an unnamed European country who conduct a series of attacks in London. The gang's motives are unclear. As the story develops, his wife, played by Sylvia Sidney, realizes that her husband may be behind the attacks that are terrorizing the city. When her younger brother, Stevie (played by Desmond Tester) is killed, unknowingly carrying a bomb for Verloc to the London Underground, Mrs Verloc joins forces with Sergeant Ted Spencer (John Loder, who replaced Robert Donat who was too ill from asthma to play the part) from Scotland Yard to stop her husband and end the bombing spree before another major attack.
Based on Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent, the film was produced in the years immediately preceding World War II, and the unnamed hostile power behind the bombings is assumed to be Nazi Germany. At the time of its release, Europe was already preparing for war, and espionage was rampant, particularly between the European powers. The film can therefore be interpreted as a warning to civilians to be aware of foreigners, who threatened the safety of the country. (On a side note, Sabotage would have been called Secret Agent except Hitchcock had recently made a film with that title.)
Hitchcock took considerable liberties with the novel, transforming the highly political anarchists and socialists into foreign agents without any obvious political leanings. Verloc's shop is transformed into a movie theater (with the films being shown echoing the story), and the policeman investigating the case is cast as an undercover officer posing as a greengrocer. Verloc's first name has also been changed, presumably as Adolf had too many connotations by the time the film was made. To critics, however, the most troubling change was in the character of Stevie, Mrs Verloc's young brother, who is portrayed as a simpleton, with few of the visionary attributes of his literary counterparts. Stevie's death is a climactic moment in the plot, providing insight into Hitchcock's views about how the innocent suffer through random acts of violence. When a critic condemned Stevie's death as brutal and unnecessary, however, Hitchcock refused to defend his position and said that he regretted including it in the film—although with this he remained faithful to the novel.
The fact that the film was set in a movie theater allowed Hitchcock to reference the plot with contemporary films and storylines. Perhaps the most famous of these is the final film sequence, an animated short produced by Walt Disney.
Despite being regarded by many as her best performance, this is Sylvia Sidney’s only role for Hitchcock. They did not warm to each other and she refused to work for him again.
Copyright status
Like other Hitchcock works made for British International Pictures, the copyright status of this film is unclear at present, meaning that it is widely accepted as being in the public domain. This status means that it is widely available in both the VHS and DVD format at very modest prices but that the quality of most available copies tends to be quite poor, as there is little profit motive for any would-be restorer of the work.Cast
- Sylvia Sidney Mrs. Verloc (as Sylvia Sydney)
- Oskar Homolka Karl Anton Verloc (as Oscar Homolka)
- Desmond Tester Steve Verloc
- John Loder Sgt. Ted Spencer
- Joyce Barbour Renee
- Matthew Boulton Superintendent Talbot
- S.J. Warmington Hollingshead
- William Dewhurst The Professor
Production details
- Producer – Michael Balcon
- Director - Sir Alfred Hitchcock,
- Screenplay – Charles Bennett,
- Editor – Charles Frend
- Cinematography – Bernard Knowles
- Music – Louis Levy
- Art Directors – Otto Werndorff, Albert Jullion
- Length – 76 minutes
- Colour - Black & White
External links
- [An analysis of Sabotage] in the context of Hitchcock's career
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