Saboteur (1942)

An aircraft factory worker goes on the run after being wrongly accused of starting a fire that killed his best friend.

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

Peter Viertel (original screen play), Joan Harrison (original screen play)

Stars:

Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, Otto Kruger

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Priscilla Lane	...	Patricia (Pat) Martin
Robert Cummings	...	Barry Kane
Otto Kruger	...	Charles Tobin
Alan Baxter	...	Freeman
Clem Bevans	...	Neilson
Norman Lloyd	...	Frank Fry
Alma Kruger	...	Mrs. Henrietta Sutton
Vaughan Glaser	...	Philip Martin aka Mr. Miller (as Vaughan Glazer)
Dorothy Peterson	...	Mrs. Mason
Ian Wolfe	...	Robert
Frances Carson	...	Society Woman
Murray Alper	...	Truck Driver
Kathryn Adams	...	Mrs. Brown -- Young Mother
Pedro de Cordoba	...	Bones - Circus Troupe
Billy Curtis	...	Midget - Circus Troupe

Storyline

Los Angeles aircraft worker Barry Kane evades arrest after he is unjustly accused of sabotage. Following leads, he travels across the country to New York City trying to clear his name by exposing a gang of fascist-supporting saboteurs led by apparently respectable Charles Tobin. Along the way, he involves Pat Martin, eventually preventing another major act of sabotage. They finally catch up with Frank Frye, the man who actually committed the act of sabotage at the aircraft factory.

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Plot Keywords:

sabotage | horseback riding | apple | gasoline | money | 

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Taglines:

You'd like to say - IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE!... but every jolting scene is TRUE!!

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Genres:

Thriller | War

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Certificate:

PG

Did You Know?

Trivia

According to the Australian videocassette sleeve notes, this was Sir Alfred Hitchcock's first movie with an all-American cast.

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Goofs

While hitch-hiking the first time, Barry Kane's face is shown smiling in one shot, then jumps to a blank face in the next shot.

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Quotes

[to Patricia as they dance at a party full of Nazi sympathizers]
Barry Kane: Right now, they're probably haggling over the price for us with Murder, Incorporated.

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Crazy Credits

Rather than finishing with "The End", the word "Finis" appears. This is perhaps an allusion to the fall of France, which is referred to in Pat's conversation with Fry inside the Statue of Liberty.

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Connections

Featured in Flubber (1997)

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Soundtracks

Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67
(1809) (uncredited)
Music by Ludwig van Beethoven
Opening bars hummed by Murray Alper

User Reviews

Swiss-cheese Hitchcock

For all its gloss and signature moments, this is surely among the dopiest of Hitchcock's American films. The fault lies not with the production design (slick, often striking) or the actors (the usually marzipan Robert Cummings is surprisingly credible), but with a script so preachy and unmoored that it sounds like it was written by the Minister of Propaganda during a helium overdose.

Even the editing-usually one of the glories of a Hitchcock film-is surprisingly sloppy. Example: The Cummings character is locked in a pantry of a Manhattan mansion. He cleverly melts a sprinkler head (his captors apparently having thought nothing of leaving him with matches and other mischief-making devices) and sets off the house's alarm system. There follows much scurrying among the servants, and the next thing we know, Cummings is out on the street in the crowd observing the `fire'. We can guess how he got there, but it's still as if he were teleported, and it's a cheat.

Some of the setpieces (the meeting with the handsome, refined `model citizen' who turns out to be Corruption itself, for example) are themes Hitchcock explored again and again, usually to better effect. And one encounter-with a kindly, effusive blind man in a remote cabin-is straight out of Bride of Frankenstein. Now that is one strange antecedent.

Still, there are rewards, chief among them the black-comedy shootout in Radio City Music Hall and, of course, the dazzling confrontation at the Statue of Liberty. And then there's Norman Lloyd's saboteur, surely one of the grandest creeps Hitchcock ever conjured.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

24 April 1942 (USA)

Also Known As:

Saboteur

Filming Locations:

Owens Lake, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Frank Lloyd Productions, Universal Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

109 min (copyright length)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1