Indeed, "Secret Agent" was a disappointment to me and for many reasons. Gielgud wasn't bad, but he wasn't Robert Donat and his flat performance might explain why he and Hitchcock never collaborated again. His companion played by an over-the-top Peter Lorre was too goofy even in his sinister moments to sustain the gravitas of the plot, when there was any. In fact, the thriller went in too many directions, indecisive about its status as straight thriller, character study or fun escapism.But "Sabotage" puts the cards in the table right away. The film, loosely adapted from a Joseph Conrad's novel, takes place in London at a time where America was stricken by the Great Depression and Europe witnessing the rise of fascism and totalitarian regimes, Britain was still a colonial empire and geopolitically, an oasis of relative stability and democracy so that the only potential threat in peacetime was espionage and sabotage. What's a sabotage?Well, the film's opening with the dictionary page inspired me three reactions. First, I was wondering whether that creative license didn't inspire Quentin Tarantino for "Pulp Fiction". Secondly, I thought it was a splendid idea to give a technical definition of what seemed an obvious term, like an iconoclastic 'tell-and-show' move from Hitchcock. And finally, I couldn't help but think how the definition matched today's terrorism. Indeed, one couldn't call the climactic sequence "sabotage".But one can certainly call it one of the most intense and suspenseful ten minutes from any film. My memory might fail me but I remember that scene from a documentary about Scorsese's main inspirations. Never mind where I got it, but I had that mysterious image of a boy carrying a parcel with a bomb for years and years. Speaking of Scorsese, he referred to the dream sequence of "Vertigo" as a mini-film within the film, one can say the same thing about the climax of "Sabotage".Hitchcock's quote about the difference between 'surprise' and 'suspense' is well known by movie lovers. Two men having a conversation and a bomb underneath the table explodes will provide fifteen seconds of surprise but if we know that the bomb will explode at 1 o'clock, their conversation becomes more fascinating and we're literally hung to what happens on the screen, we just want them to get out, then suspense provides fifteen minutes of suspense. Watching this scene created a feeling of uneasiness, for the set-up first. I couldn't believe the cruelty of the villain who risks the life of his wife's little brother (Desmond Tester) for a job he's been assigned to. Oscar Homolka, as the sinister cinema owner Verloc, doesn't look like the murderer type, he expresses at some point his reluctance to cause loss of life. He's basically a goon, a luggage-carrier, not muscle, only a man capable to put sand in London electricity grid to provoke a massive blackout, but when you think about it, such men are capable to be driven to extreme actions when they're trapped.It's generally a comedic device when an inoffensive person is used to for a dangerous delivery so he wouldn't raise any suspicion, but in "Sabotage" the idea comes when Verloc discovers that Scotland Yard has an eye on him and the Detective played by John Loder is having a "talk" with his wife. Verloc is like a cornered rat and can only fight back by resorting to the most desperate measure, asking a child to literally carry death to Piccadily Circus. Hitchcock is no sadistic but he knows our heart is hooked with little Stevie, so he punctuates his path with many events that delays his mission such as a procession or a street vendor using him for painful and humiliating demonstrations. Hitchcock enhances our empathy while providing lighthearted moments that might mislead us about Stevie's fate. Surely after all these annoyances, he'll manage to put the parcel under the cloak room and come back safely. But then the frenetic editing goes, he's still got the parcel and we're a few seconds from 1.45.Could Hitchcock use another victim than a child? No because empathy could only work if he knew one of the victims, much more an innocent one and on that level, I wonder if the bombing sequence in "Battle of Algiers" wasn't inspired by the film. Secondly, the main protagonist, played by Silvia Sidney, needed a motive to kill her husband. Indeed, for a movie that deals with British threats from within, Hitchcock takes one step forward and give it a domestic dimension.Realizing that her husband is responsible for the death of her brother, she stabs him with a knife. The trickiest part is that he's done such a great job maintaining a 'honest citizen' façade, that she's basically a murderer at that point. The film ends with a turn of events that get rid of the two villains and of any evidence incriminating her, two birds with the same stone, as foreshadowed by Verloc. However, right before the "cleansing" explosion, a distraught Mrs. Verloc said her husband was dead. But the explosion came so instantly that the detective wondered later whether it came before or after. A matter of half-a-second wrapped up the plot and provided some comedic relief to end a rather dark movie. I criticized the ending of "Secret Agent" but "Sabotage" ended with the note that proved that Hitchcock was back in shape with a first-rate thriller. The light-hearted "39 Steps" opened with 'Music Hall' letters lighting up, "Sabotage" with a big light-bulb and London's plunged into blackout, maybe announcing his darker masterpieces. My only complaint comes from the fan of Disney's "Who Killed Cock Robin?", where I wished the audience didn't overplay the laughs at the film's start, the funnier parts would come later, but at least when the arrow hits the bird, Sylvia Sydney had the right reaction, the cartoon could be dark indeed, like the film.But it had to be dark, leaving the kid alive would have been cinematic sabotage.

One might not think a film made in 1936 could be so relevant today, but this one really is. It starts with the power supply for much of London being cut off by a terrorist bombing of the Chelsea Power Station. I need hardly remind anyone of the many contemporary media warnings of such threats, whether by bombs or by the new means of 'hacking'. The Great Blackout in New York City decades ago, and the huge power cut for much of Canada many years ago, may have been 'dry-runs'. Such threats are more relevant now than in 1936. But the eeriest thing in this film is to see a bus blown up by a bomb in a busy London street, killing its passengers. This really happened in 2005, 69 years after this film was released. Are the Islamic terrorists watching Hitchcock films? Or was Hitchcock just that far ahead of his time in seeing what was coming? This film is far more powerful than THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1934, see my review), and shows Hitchcock's suspense muscles tightening considerably. The unlikely star of the film is Oscar Homolka, who spent the rest of his career as a steady character actor. Here he is the lead, and he gives a spectacular performance. Hitchcock likes to close in on his face, especially when Homolka is silent, just as he had done two years earlier with the equally expressive face of Peter Lorre when he was also silent. What is it about these Central European actors of that generation who did not need to speak in order to act? Well, of course, they had grown up in the era of silent films, and they knew what a face could say without opening its mouth. As a stage actor in Vienna, which he fled because of the Nazis, Homolka had played Othello, and in this film we see the real stuff he was made of, which is that of a towering talent. This film is loosely based on a Joseph Conrad novel, THE SECRET AGENT (this novel would later be made into a feature film four more times, and in 2016 into a BBC TV series). The female lead in this film is Sylvia Sidney, who was famous for her sad eyes. She was very petite. She is perfect for the part of Homolka's wife, and she too says much without speaking. This is an extremely intense film, where the tension goes on increasing in the usual Hitchcock manner. Homolka lives in London but is in liaison with some terrorists, and considering that his boss has a German accent and this is 1936, we get the message. A character actor who plays one of the 'bad guys' is Peter Bull (uncredited), whom I used to know when he ran an astrology shop in Notting Hill Gate long ago. His heavy protruding lower lip resembled Hitchcock's. We see a great deal of London life in this film, whether on location or on a huge set makes little difference, as it is all thoroughly authentic. Hitchcock loved grocer's shops (his father had been a cabbage dealer) and street markets. The featured area in the film is S.W.5, which is the Earl's Court area, as it may have looked at that time. The editing of this film by Charles Frend is sensational, and greatly adds to the power of the movie. The scenes in the aquarium are suitably weird, and add to the furtive atmosphere of Homolka meeting and receiving instructions from his Nazi handler. This is truly vintage Hitchcock at its best.

In this 1936 film from Alfred Hitchcock, a foreign terrorist group is operating in London, and their agent (Oskar Homolka) operates a movie theater as a cover, along with his unsuspecting wife (Sylvia Sidney) and her teenage brother. Homolka is suitably creepy, glowering behind bushy eyebrows, and the kitten-faced Sidney may remind you of Myrna Loy. Scotland Yard is on to Homolka, and their man (John Loder) spies on him and cozies up to the family in an attempt to learn more. Unfortunately, with the exception of a couple of scenes, the film is rather slow and sedate, and is only of interest because it's one of Hitchcock's early pre-Hollywood efforts.Spoiler alert from here on.Hitchcock does provide tension in the pivotal sequence where, because of police surveillance, Homolka is forced to send the young boy out to deliver a package containing a bomb. He emphasizes the importance of getting to his destination by 1:30, knowing the bomb is set to go off at 1:45, but of course the boy doesn't know that and ends up being delayed on his way (comically being dragged into a demonstration by a peddler of toothpaste and shampoo at one point). While we feel the suspense, Hitchcock as a younger director exercises no restraint at all, melodramatically increasing the volume of the music and showing us the time on clocks repeatedly as it gets closer and closer to 1:45.To Hitchcock's credit (or Joseph Conrad's, the author of the story) the bomb does go off, and it is a little shocking even today. Imagine what the reaction was like in 1936 to have an innocent boy, one moment playing with a puppy on a bus, the next minute gone, along with all of the other passengers. The shock presages other Hitchcock moments, such as the shower scene in Psycho. Unfortunately, in the wake of this, the emotional reaction of the characters doesn't ring true, though it does lead to what I think was the best scene in the movie – the mother thinking her son is running towards her on the street, which for a split second has us somehow believing, as she does, that he's survived.Watch it for the bomb scene and for Sylvia Sidney, but it's certainly not a classic.

A Scotland Yard undercover detective is on the trail of a saboteur who is part of a plot to set off a bomb in London. But when the detective's cover is blown, the plot begins to unravel.This film has received some notoriety for having a young boy carry a bomb around London. And I think that is warranted, although it is nothing to apologize for (Hitchcock had apparently "regretted" this later in life). What could make the story more suspenseful than placing danger in the hands of someone so innocent? The story comes from Joseph Conrad, the same author whose work inspired "Apocalypse Now". I must say I have read "Heart of Darkness" and did not particularly enjoy it, causing me to go no further with Conrad's work. This movie, however, makes me think "Secret Agent" might be worth picking up.