Saboteur (film)
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| Saboteur | |
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| Directed by | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Produced by | Frank Lloyd Jack H. Skirball (associate producer) |
| Written by | Peter Viertel Joan Harrison Dorothy Parker |
| Starring | Robert Cummings Priscilla Lane Otto Kruger Norman Lloyd |
| Music by | Frank Skinner |
| Cinematography | Joseph A. Valentine |
| Editing by | Otto Ludwig Edward Curtiss (uncredited) |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | April 22, 1942 |
| Running time | 108 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Saboteur is a 1942 Universal film directed by Alfred Hitchcock with a screenplay written by Peter Viertel, Joan Harrison, and Dorothy Parker. The movie stars Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, and Norman Lloyd.
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[edit] Brief synopsis
Aircraft factory worker Barry Kane (Cummings) is wrongly accused of starting a fire at a Los Angeles airplane plant during World War II, an act of sabotage that killed his best friend. Kane becomes a fugitive when he decides to run from the authorities to find the real saboteur. Kane believes that the real saboteur is a man named Fry (Lloyd), whom he had also seen working at the plant just before the fire, but the images of Kane in the newspapers leads others to believe to contrary, and when authorities check lists of the plant's employees, no one named "Fry" is found on them.
In pursuit of Fry, Kane hitchhikes into the mountains and ends up at a ranch in the Central Valley. The ranch's mysterious owner is apparently a well-respected local citizen but it is later revealed that he is secretly in league with the saboteurs. Turned in by the rancher, Kane is arrested by the police but later manages to escape. He takes refuge with a kind blind man whose visiting niece turns out to be a well-known billboard model, Patricia "Pat" Martin (Priscilla Lane). When her uncle asks her to take Kane to the local blacksmith shop so that he can have his handcuffs removed, she instead attempts to take him to the local police, believing that it is the right thing to do. When Kane catches on, he overpowers and kidnaps Pat, protesting his innocence. He eventually uses the fan-belt of her car's generator to cut off his handcuffs, but the resultant damage eventually causes the car to overheat and break down in the desert.
Late at night, they see a truck of a travelling circus and decide to hitch a ride on its platform. When stopped by the authorities, the circus freaks debate amongst themselves whether to hide the couple or turn them in. The "Human Skeleton" speaks of the controversy as an allegory for contemporary politics and finally puts the issue to a vote. The "Bearded Lady" delivers the decisive opinion, and as she explains why she believes in Kane's innocence, Pat begins to fall in love with the wrongfully-accused man and the kindly circus people decide to deceive the police into believing that Pat is a snake charmer, while hiding Kane in a bunk. After the police pass by, Kane acts on a lead he had discovered at the ranch and asks the circus people to drop them at the destination he knows only as "Soda City".
When they arrive, they find an apparently-abandoned mining camp which is in reality a staging area for the saboteurs' plan to blow up Boulder Dam (which was the then-current name for what we know today as Hoover Dam). Kane is discovered by the saboteurs, but with quick thinking, he convinces them that the newspaper and radio accounts are true and that he is, in fact, a saboteur in league with them. Arguing amonst themselves and finding their plans to destroy Boulder Dam foiled, they resolve to head for a new job in New York City. Overheard from the next room, Kane's performance is so convincing that Pat begins to believe again that he is guilty and flees, hoping to find her way to New York in time to stop them. With Kane, the group of saboteurs drives eastward toward the city, planning to sabotage the launching of a new U.S. Navy ship at the Brooklyn shipyard. The bomb will be in the back of a newsreel truck, belonging to their phony newsreel outfit in Rockefeller Center.
The saboteurs' main New York ally is the socially-prominent Mrs. Sutton, who is hosting a society charity ball at her stately home the night before the planned act. Meeting with the saboteurs in a private study, Kane finds a captured Pat, who had gone to the police with what she knew but was betrayed by a corrupt chief privy to the conspiracy. The captive Pat reacts angrily to Kane, and as he desperately attempts to signal that she should escape, they are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of the ranch owner, who recognizes Kane and denounces him as a foe to the conspiracy. The saboteurs, realizing they were fooled, take both innocents hostage after a prolonged cat-and-mouse sequence through the ballroom floor, locking Kane in the cellar and Pat in a high-floor office at Rockefeller center. The following morning, Pat finally manages to drop a lipsticked rescue note from her window, which leads to notification of the FBI. With the FBI's aid, Pat is rescued, while Kane triggers a fire alarm back at the mansion and frees himself. Kane arrives at the shipyard to warn the Navy just before the planned launching, but his story is not believed by the guards at the gates. Kane sneaks in anyway, discovers the phony newsreel van, and is shocked to find Fry at the controls inside. In a fit of sudden rage, Kane throws himself onto Fry and wrestles to stop him from hitting the detonator. Kane delays Fry long enough so that when Fry manages to activate the detonator the ship is safely out of the dock, saving the ship. Throwing off Kane and holding him at gunpoint, Fry is driven to Rockefeller Center, only to find the police waiting. As the police take Kane into custody, Fry's flight from the officers takes him through a movie theater shootout and eventually to the top of the Statue of Liberty - with Pat following all the way. In the viewing room, she stalls Fry until the police arrive, and Kane, who has been brought along to identify him, dashes away from his police escort long enough to come after Fry, who has now fled to the statue's torch.
Kane and Fry face off in the climactic scene. Kane draws a gun and tries to corner Fry, but instead of stopping, Fry tumbles over the low railing on the torch and clings to the Statue's hand. While the police are still trying to find where Kane went, Kane must risk his own life by clambering down to save Fry. Kane cannot grasp Fry's hand, so he instead wraps his hand in the wrist of Fry's suitcoat. The police finally arrive and one is sent for some rope. But, before the cop returns with the rope, Fry's shoulder threading tears and he plummets to his death.
[edit] Production
Alfred Hitchcock cameo: Hitchcock makes a cameo appearance about an hour into the film, standing at a kiosk in front of Cut Rate Drugs in New York as the saboteur's car pulls up.
The film's references to fascism and governmental abuse of authority are attributed to Dorothy Parker, who was supposed to have a cameo in the film, along with Hitchcock, as the elderly couple who stops to offer help to Lane and Cummings. However, this was changed so that two character actors played the married couple, and Hitchcock did his cameo as above.
Hitchcock used extensive location footage in the film, especially in New York City, and utilized special long lenses to shoot from great distances. At one point Norman Lloyd glances at a capsized ship in the harbor and smiles knowingly; the ship is the Normandie, which was rumored to have been sabotaged by the Germans.[1] There was clever matching of the location footage with studio shots, particularly in the famed Statue of Liberty sequence, where actor Norman Lloyd appeared to fall to his death (through very clever editing and process shots). Hitchcock claimed:
| “ | "The Navy raised hell with Universal about these shots because I implied that the Normandie had been sabotaged, which was a reflection on their lack of vigilance in guarding it." [2] | ” |
In 1947 a man in Germany confessed to the sabotage.[1]
[edit] The film's climax
The film is perhaps best remembered for one of the most spectacular endings Hitchcock ever filmed, which takes place at the Statue of Liberty.
Two things made this sequence unique:
- There was no music to underscore the sequence; Hitchcock chose to let the action on the screen propel the scene on its own (since then, many films have been made that do not rely on a music score, such as Robert Wise's Executive Suite, James Bridges' The China Syndrome, and even Hitchcock's own The Birds).
- Visual effects that were ahead of their time (the way the villain falls from the Statue of Liberty at the end of the film, for example, has since been copied by such films as Die Hard and Batman).
[edit] References
- ^ a b SABOTEURS AND SPIES
- ^ Spoto, Donald (1999). The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. Da Capo, 253. ISBN 030680932X.
[edit] External links
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