Nationalistic American Re-Tooling of The 39 Steps is Still a Non-Stop Adrenaline Rush

Rating: 9/10 (30 December 2010)

I think, despite the wide speared respect and admiration for the Master of Suspense, for self-explanatory reasons, we often forget the rush his work can give us. What do we think of at the mention of his name and how good he was at creating suspense? The sudden opening of a shower curtain, a succession of close-ups with dramatic orchestral music, a spiral staircase, stuff like that, right? Let's not forget what he could do with blind man and a truckload of circus performers complete with a bearded lady, Siamese twins and a dwarf. Being so mesmerized by his later work, we can easily forget that his ability make a Speed or Duel or French Connection kind of non-stop adrenaline rush may still be unparalleled.
His version of that paring-down of the thriller genre to its bare elements is not gritty by any means, or even realistic. It's actually quite silly. What are the odds of encountering the aforementioned characters in a span of a few days, especially in as big a hurry as Kane, the plane factory worker falsely accused of sabotage in a desperate scramble for his life? But Saboteur is pure escape, catching us up in movie land.
In essence, it's an American reworking of The 39 Steps, which is a superior film, perhaps solely on the grounds that this 1942 retooling is somewhat deluded by its forceful injection of wartime nationalistic propaganda. Thereis virtually nonstop talk of how Americans have backbone that will always make them the victors against scum like Otto Kruger, Norman Lloyd and Alan Baxter, who are particularly excellent as three smart, stylish and menacing men Kane must overcome. But altogether, The Master very seldom allows the pounding engine of his plot to in effect stop in its tracks for a soapbox diatribe, and is more often apt to work the propaganda Americana into situations wherein it works sardonically, such as when the circus act decides whether or not to alert the authorities to Kane by putting it to a vote and antagonizing the snarling dwarf who still protests despite the will of the majority. Fritz Lang submitted to WWII propaganda with his very clever Man Hunt, and like though perhaps more so than that 1941 actioner, Saboteur is a relentlessly thrilling picture that runs the risk of taking a modern audience out of the world of the story with blatant jingoistic contrivance, but maybe that is in itself a plus for modern-day movie buffs like myself, who as screen junkies are hyper-aware of the dangers of propaganda but simultaneously are fascinated by its nostalgic effect, that which causes our imaginations to enhance the feeling of escape with the fantasy of being in the old movie house with the cheering, guileless crowd, the celluloid whirring and flickering overhead and projecting magic on that screen.
Indeed, one can imagine the enormous rush of excitement seeing this film at the time of its release, being engulfed by The Master's virtuosic technique like a roller-coaster ride, and what it must've been like at the onset of his American career and how it must've taken cinemas by storm. Although not one of the great film craftsman from Leytonstone's more charismatic leading men, Cummings is capable as the likable Kane. Lane is also good as the stronger-than-usual Hitchcock leading lady. But let's be honest, how much do performances matter in his films? A champion of the Russian montage, even when we're not enthralled by the performance itself as we are by Perkins in Psycho and Stewart or Day in The Man Who Knew Too Much, it's the craftsmanship of the editing and the rhythm that create the illusion of emoting in the faces of his actors. Such is the self-assured skill at work in a film like Saboteur.