At times laughably bad

Rating: 5/10 (23 April 2005)

This is one of those films I've always wanted to see but didn't get around to it for years. After buying the DVD on sale and sitting through it, I was hugely disappointed. It's just not good, Hitch fans, when it's not outright bizarre and terrible. Plot holes and absurdities and on the nose dialogue abound. Sure, the Statue of Liberty sequence shows a bit of the director's early genius, as well as a few other signature touches, but for the most part this film is a badly acted, badly structured, and badly written mess.
Nothing in this story unfolds with any believability or credibility, it almost plays like a bad Twilight Zone episode where the hapless protagonist keeps making impossible escapes via doors held open for him by some invisible guardian angel. It's outrageous to watch Robert Cummings get let off the hook time and again on simple faith that he's a noble American defense worker innocent beyond question of sabotage. A real piece of WW2 propagandist pap.
The only other bright spots are a deliciously despicable turn by Otto Kruger as the main villain, and Norman Lloyd, who successfully looks and acts the part of a slimy agent of evil (though he's hardly involved in the plot long enough to be a 3 dimensional character).
As Barry Kane, our righteous hero on the run, Robert Cummings turns in one of the worst leading man performances in the history of Hollywood's golden age. He's even more shrill and wooden than Lew Ayres and Robert Taylor in their worst moments. The only decent speech he delivers is when he confronts Kruger near the end, a speech which resonates particularly well in this era of George W. Bush (Kruger could be playing Dick Cheney). The rest of the time he's overbearingly skittish and meek when he's not chewing the scenery with histrionics.
The interplay between Cummings and Priscilla Lane is completely lifeless and devoid of any romance and humor. This film needed Howard Hawks to oversee that aspect of the film and Hitchcock to handle the suspense.
Not nearly one of Hitchcock's best. A ratings travesty at 7.3