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Sabotage (1936)

Sabotage (1936)

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Sabotage
Review: About a month ago, I saw Mars Attacks! (1996). I really liked the old woman who played the grandmother. And here she is again, but 60 years younger. And she's good in this movie too, where

Sylvia Sidney is very good in the lead part as Mrs Verloc, who is unaware of her husband's ways to make some extra money. He is a saboteur and Scotland Yard has sent out an undercover detective to observe him. I don't think Hitchcock's English 1930's movies are quite as good as his later, but this one is a little better than for example Young and Innocent and as good as the (overrated) 39 Steps.

This movie is entertaining, if you like Hitchock, or old thrillers, it's a movie you should see.

(Tim Burton fans may recognize Sylvia Sidney from "Beetlejuice" and "Mars Attacks!". The latter was made 60 years after this movie.)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of Hitchcock's best. Very creative and entertaining.
Review: Even though it is a hour and twenty minutes long, this movie has everything that mkes a movie great and also one of Hitchcock 's best. There are many scenes that should be part of the movie making history. The script is extremely original , with wonderful and suspenful twists (the boy's and Homolka's deaths). It is supreme!!. Everything has been geniously thought by the master, creating one of the best movie ever.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Exellent British Thriller!
Review: Hitchcock made this brilliant thriller the same year he made "The Secret Agent" and although the above is a great movie, "Sabotage" is much better.

In this movie a woman finds out that she is married to a saboteur. Unfortunately she finds out too late. You see it seems that Mr. Verloc has sent her brother out on a small errand. (Here comes the spoiler- IF YOU DON'T WANT IT RUINED FOR YOU QUIT READING) What the kid (yes, it's a young child) doesn't know is that he is delivering a bomb against the clock. Things get in his way and surpriseingly in theis movie, the suspence ends with a shock. Indeed the kid gets blown up.

Now, in this scene Hitch uses the camera and the use of montage quite geniously. It really is quite a spectacle.

When Mrs. Verlock finds out and her husband is less than greiving she gets the sudden urge to kill him. The scene with the knife on the table is great!

This is a must for thriller fans!!! You seriously need to check it out.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Hitchcock's worst
Review: I'm a particular fan of Hitchcock, and I've seen quite a few of his movies. My favorite is "North by Northwest" -- also my favorite movie by any director, my favorite movie PERIOD. My second favorite is "Spellbound". Although I subsequently read the novel "Sabotage" is based on, Joseph Conrad's excellent "The Secret Agent", and although I subsequently watched another film adaptation of this novel, the excellent "Secret Agent" (1996) with Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette, and Robin Williams and a score by Philip Glass, I hadn't when I watched "Sabotage". Thus my opinion is unbiased by the novel and this other movie. "Sabotage" is clearly the worst Alfred Hitchcock picture I know. HAVING subsequently read the novel and a much better adaptation, I am now in a position to say what went wrong with "Sabotage"; I wasn't then. Essentially "Sabotage" is too squeamish. It twists itself into knots to make its heroine sympathetic. It bowdlerizes its story's political content. (I don't want to give this political content away. There are, however, crosses and double-crosses, intrigues, and timely anti-terrorist tactics reminiscent of the regime of a certain twenty-first-century un-elected American president.) Read "The Secret Agent" by Joseph Conrad. Watch "Secret Agent", its 1996 film adaptation.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Boring stuff. For die-hard Hitch fans only.
Review: Other than the bomb on the bus sequence I thought this was an extremely dull movie. The story moves like a snail. The worst Hitchcock film I've seen to date.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: HITCH'S BEST PRE-WAR FILM!
Review: Please don't mix this film up with either "Sabateur" or "Secret Agent"...! "Sabotage" is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent." Hitch's "The Secret Agent" is not. "Sabateur" is another Hitchcock film--and not a very good one. "Sabotage" is quite good, however. By 1937, he had refined the writing, timing and mise en scene that make him one of the greats in the thriller genre. Earlier work--such as Blackmail, Number 17, and Murder--are not as well crafted or confident. It all comes together with "Sabotage," though. You might also watch "The Secret Agent," a film that came out a few years ago starring Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette and Gerard Depardieu--it's another adaptation of Contrad's novel and a pretty good one to boot.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: HITCH'S BEST PRE-WAR FILM!
Review: Please don't mix this film up with either "Sabateur" or "Secret Agent"...! "Sabotage" is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent." Hitch's "The Secret Agent" is not. "Sabateur" is another Hitchcock film--and not a very good one. "Sabotage" is quite good, however. By 1937, he had refined the writing, timing and mise en scene that make him one of the greats in the thriller genre. Earlier work--such as Blackmail, Number 17, and Murder--are not as well crafted or confident. It all comes together with "Sabotage," though. You might also watch "The Secret Agent," a film that came out a few years ago starring Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette and Gerard Depardieu--it's another adaptation of Contrad's novel and a pretty good one to boot.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ONE OF HITCHCOCKS BEST FILMS
Review: Released in 1936, SABOTAGE is a first class example of what makes Alfred hitchcock the master of suspense. As a die hard fan of Hitchcock, I will admit that I originally bought this film on the bargain shelf to complete my collection. After one viewing I had an new favorite Hitchcock film. The plot is simple...London is being hit with acts of sabotage and the police suspect the owner of a small movie theater is responsible.An undercover agent tries to get information from the mans unsuspecting wife. The plot may be simple but the complex emotions that are revealed as the story progresses are not. Sylvia Sydney is outstanding as the wife and does an outstanding job in her portrayal of a woman whos entire world is crumbling around her, and she often does it without uttering a single word. Hitchcock is known for the style of his movies and trust me, this movie is one of his most stylish. Student filmmakers should be required to watch this movie to learn how to create suspense and intrigue. If you have ever seen and loved a Hitchcock movie, watching this movie will show that his unique sense of emotion and humor was fully intact even in his earlier films. I will end this by just saying...WATCH this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A very dark movie
Review: Sabotage is a very good movie, full of suspense and black irony. This is the story of a treacherous living in London with his wife and her brother. He indulges in undesirable practices like the sabotage of a power station. Being watched by the police, he decides to leave a bomb at Piccadilly. The movie is not considered as important movie in Hitchcock filmography. Yet there is in the movie one of the strongest hitchcockian scene with a terrible death, this scene would not be possible in an American film (you will understand if you watch the movie). This death is the central point of the plot and conduce to another strong scene at dinner time. Sabotage is very dark, perhaps the most dark in the English period of Alfred Hitchcock. The central murder scene is shocking and could be compared to the shower scene of Psycho for the surprise induced by the brutal death. Sabotage is definitely a dark Hitchcock movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Ancient Hitch tale of deception
Review: Sabotage was a serviceable Hitchcock tale of espionage while he was still making films in England.

The flick is based around the machinations of Mr. Verloc, a foreign spy and saboteur based in London and played by the sinister bushy eyebrowed Oskar Homolka. His wife played by Sylvia Sydney, who together with Homolka run a cinema, is clueless as to his clandestine activities. The film opens with Mr. Verloc causing a widespread power outage by fouling the generators with sand

A Scotland Yard detective played by John Loder is working undercover at a fruit and vegetable store next to the cinema, suspicious of Homolka and watching him. Unable to carry out his next act of terrorism due to the surveillance, Homolka commissions Sydney's young brother to unwittingly transport and deliver a package containing a bomb. Tragically, traffic delays cause the bomb to explode prematurely, killing the young boy and other passengers on the bus he was on.

In very atypical fashion, Hitchcock has a totally innocent victim fall prey to violence. He, however, followed the movie morality code of the time in this case as the villian gets his just desserts. Justice is served and vengeance is meted out.


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