Sabotage (1936)

Title Card: [camera zooms in on definition] sa-botage sà-bo-tarj. Wilful destruction of buildings or machinery with the object of alarming a group of persons or inspiring public uneasiness.

For some reason, this film fizzled for me on the second viewing despite excellent performances by some of the actors and a rather prescient treatment of urban terrorism.

Karl Verloc (Oskar Homolca), of Continental but undefined nationality, runs a cinema in London with his wife (Sylvia Sidney).  Mr. Verloc is considerably older than his wife who seems to have married him to provide security for her much younger brother Stevie (Desmond Tester).  The film opens with a general blackout that results from Mr. Verloc sabotaging a power station.  A friendly fruit seller (John Loden) keeps an eye on the cinema and befriends Mrs. Verloc and Stevie.  It turns out that he works for Scotland Yard.  Verloc’s employers are not happy with the blackout and instruct him to plant a bomb in an underground station.  Family happiness is threatened when the only person Verloc can think of to deliver the bomb is Stevie.

I remember loving this film the first time around but now the infamous “bomb on the bus” set piece seems uncharacteristically heavy-handed to me. The use of the montage of ticking clocks, etc. seems much too obvious.  I still adore Sylvia Sidney’s performance particularly in the “knife” scene and thereafter.  I think it is one of the best portrayals of grief on record.  Homolka, Loden and Tester are also very good.  The poor quality of the public domain print I watched didn’t help at all.

Hitchcock himself regretted the “bomb” sequence later in life as it violated his general method of suspense whereby tension eventually had to be relieved.

Clip – Alfred Hitchcock at the AFI on the difference between “mystery” and “suspense”