Movies - Sabotage

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Sabotage (film)

	Movies - Sabotage

Sabotage, also released as A Woman Alone, is a 1936 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Carl Verloc (played by Oscar Homolka), the owner of a cinema, is part of a gang of saboteurs from an unnamed European country, who conducts a series of attacks in London. The gang's motives are unclear. As the story develops, his wife, played by Sylvia Sidney, realized that her husband is 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 rôle for Hitchcock. They did not warm to each other and she refused to work for him again.

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

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Sabotage (film) ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Sabotage (film); it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Movies - Sabotage

Cast

Production details

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay