Alfred Hitchock, the grand Master of Suspense, liked to describe his film making technique by telling the right and the wrong way to make a scene featuring bomb going off. Simply showing the bomb going off was the wrong way, because it would be quick and, apart from shock value, won’t be that effective in emotionally engaging the audience. The right way was to establish bomb being set up and slowly ticking while their unsuspecting victims going through their business, thus creating emotional tension that would be released one way or another. That particular scene was actually used by Hitchcock himself in his 1936 British thriller Sabotage.
The film is based on The Secret Agent, popular 1907 novel by Joseph Conrad. The plot begins one night in London when the entire city suffers blackout because of the sabotage conducted at power station. This is the work of Karl Anton Verloc (played by Oscar Homolka), cinema owner who supplements his income providing clandestine services for representatives of unknown foreign power. He is very good at hiding this from his young wife Mrs. Verloc (played by Sylvia Sidney) and her young brother Stevie (played by Desmond Tester). However, his employer isn’t actually pleased with the effects of blackout on British public and demands more shocking action in the form of bombing attack on London Underground. Verloc isn’t happy about it, but nevertheless goes with the scheme and obtains explosive device from The Professor (played by William Dewhurst), eccentric bomb maker who warns him that it is timed and that it will go off at precise time during Lord Mayor’s Show. Verloc’s mission is complicated with presence of Ted Spencer (played by John Loder), clerk from nearby greengrocery who is actually an undercover Scotland Yard detective tasked with surveillance of potential saboteurs. He becomes interested in Verloc also because of attraction he feels towards his young wife.
Script for Sabotage was written by Charles Bennett, popular screenwriter who had worked with Hitchock before. While retaining most of the plot of the original novel, he erased most of Conrad’s political context by having plot set in contemporary Britain. With Czarist Russia not being around Bennett changed the main culprit into unnamed “foreign power”; in subsequent years some critics and scholars believed that the “foreign power” was Nazi Germany, which would go to war with Britain few years after the premiere. This is, however, very unlikely because Bennett even changed the name of Verloc from “Adolf” (in original novel) into “Karl” for the sole purpose of severing any association with German leader Adolf Hitler. Furthermore, radical revolutionary underground of Edwardian era London was, with the exception of The Professor, reduced into criminals of more generic variety. Setting the film in 1930s also allowed Hitchcock opportunity to modernise the plot and characters; Verloc was changed from book store owner into cinema owner and the films in his theatre (including parts of Disney’s animated short Who Killed Cock Robin?) served as some sort of Greek chorus to the events in the film.
Hitchcock, however, remained faithful to Conrad’s novel in using the most shocking and disturbing event from its text – the actual explosion of the bomb. In the film, just like in the novel, it claims the life of innocent child (and in the film it is even worse, because he happens on the crowded bus). This makes Sabotage one of the more disturbing films of Hitchock’s filmography and director even had to publicly apologise to more sensitive parts of the audience. It is even more disturbing, because this scene is made in perfect Hitchcockian manner – the audience knows what is going to happen, while the victim, who carries the bomb, does not; what was supposed to be simple plan gets complicated by series of coincidences and even some comical events that actually seal the victim’s fate. When the tragedy happens, it has profound effect not only to the viewers, but also to the characters, making the last segment of the film, despite violence and high emotions, more realistic than melodramatic.
Much of the credit for the success of the film should be credited to the cast. Oscar Homolka, Austrian actor who would later make a career playing Communist spies and Soviet officials, plays character who is supposed to be a villain, but who even manages to evoke some of the audience’s sympathy by trying to justify his unforgivable act. American actress Sylvia Sidney (known to younger audiences for her supporting role in Beetlejuice half a century later) delivers emotional performance which, although at edge of hamming it up, is quite strong and rather fitting for this tragic story. Hitchock, however, didn’t have that much luck with John Loder in the role of Spencer. He originally wanted Robert Donat, with whom he worked very well in The 39 Steps, but the actor was unavailable. While Loder is adequate, he lacks proper chemistry with Sidney, especially near the end when script adds romantic subplot. More cynical or jaded viewers would criticise this addition for succumbing to cliches and commercial demands of 1930s cinema, but, on the other hand, it works in context of Depression-era audiences which needed at least glimpses of happy ending to this otherwise intolerably cruel story. Sabotage in the end works as one of the finer Hitchcock’s works and can even be recommended to modern viewers who care little about film history or Master of Suspense.
(Note: Hitchcock’s previous film, which had nothing to do with Conrad’s novel, was titled Secret Agent. In order to prevent confusion the adaptation was titled Sabotage. This, however, created a little bit confusion among some cinephiles later on, because only few years later in Hollywood Hitchcock directed similarly titled Saboteur.)
RATING: 8/10 (+++)
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