Sabotage

1937 "… A bomb plot … A killing … Justice"
7| 1h17m| NR| en
Details

Karl Anton Verloc and his wife own a small cinema in a quiet London suburb where they live seemingly happily. But Mrs. Verloc does not know that her husband has a secret that will affect their relationship and threaten her teenage brother's life.

Director

Producted By

Gaumont-British Picture Corporation

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Also starring Desmond Tester

Reviews

Karry Best movie of this year hands down!
Freaktana A Major Disappointment
Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Mandar Nitin Pawar A masterpiece, brilliant screen writing and story. Engaging drama. Actors also acted good. At the end, all the evidences of murder are destroyed due to bomb explosion and the inspector tries to remember whether the lady told him that she murdered her husband before the explosion or after the explosion but he is not sure. That scene was a classic and can be called as trademark of Hitchcock film.
Antonius Block In this 1936 film from Alfred Hitchcock, a foreign terrorist group is operating in London, and their agent (Oskar Homolka) operates a movie theater as a cover, along with his unsuspecting wife (Sylvia Sidney) and her teenage brother. Homolka is suitably creepy, glowering behind bushy eyebrows, and the kitten-faced Sidney may remind you of Myrna Loy. Scotland Yard is on to Homolka, and their man (John Loder) spies on him and cozies up to the family in an attempt to learn more. Unfortunately, with the exception of a couple of scenes, the film is rather slow and sedate, and is only of interest because it's one of Hitchcock's early pre-Hollywood efforts.Spoiler alert from here on.Hitchcock does provide tension in the pivotal sequence where, because of police surveillance, Homolka is forced to send the young boy out to deliver a package containing a bomb. He emphasizes the importance of getting to his destination by 1:30, knowing the bomb is set to go off at 1:45, but of course the boy doesn't know that and ends up being delayed on his way (comically being dragged into a demonstration by a peddler of toothpaste and shampoo at one point). While we feel the suspense, Hitchcock as a younger director exercises no restraint at all, melodramatically increasing the volume of the music and showing us the time on clocks repeatedly as it gets closer and closer to 1:45.To Hitchcock's credit (or Joseph Conrad's, the author of the story) the bomb does go off, and it is a little shocking even today. Imagine what the reaction was like in 1936 to have an innocent boy, one moment playing with a puppy on a bus, the next minute gone, along with all of the other passengers. The shock presages other Hitchcock moments, such as the shower scene in Psycho. Unfortunately, in the wake of this, the emotional reaction of the characters doesn't ring true, though it does lead to what I think was the best scene in the movie – the mother thinking her son is running towards her on the street, which for a split second has us somehow believing, as she does, that he's survived.Watch it for the bomb scene and for Sylvia Sidney, but it's certainly not a classic.
Dalbert Pringle Released in 1936 - This intriguing early film directed by Alfred Hitchcock contains a great opening scene where the electrical power goes off all over London, which is caused by a willful act of sabotage.The camera then gives the viewer a sweeping panoramic view of the situation, scanning over the city that's now in shadows and blackness with an emphasis placed on selected historical sites.This excellent beginning immediately grabs the viewer's attention as Sabotage's gripping, well-crafted story gets underway, moving the action along at a fine clip.Adapted from Joseph Conrad's novel "Secret Agent", Sabotage tells the tale of a Scotland Yard undercover detective who is hot on the trail of a suspected saboteur who's part of a diabolical plot to set off a powerful bomb in broad daylight in downtown London.When the detective's cover is blown, the plot begins to unravel and go haywire.Even at this early phase of Hitchcock's career as a director, it's plainly obvious to see that he had something of a strong fascination with butcher's knives, already.Featuring a really strong cast, this first-rate, b&w Suspense/Thriller has a running time of only 76 minutes.
Yelisey A highly recommended film, better than many of Hitch's follow-ups. Plus it has a story I can believe in, which is not that typical for the lion's share of his filmography. And who would expect such a disturbing and utterly thrilling ending from an early Hitch film that starts with a quite funny episode of a crowd demanding their money back because of outage? I guess that the only drawback of the film is that Sidney and Homolka were miscast as a married couple, they look like a father and a daughter. Though, I cannot complain too much on their acting; furthermore, the supporting cast is quite solid.