Hitchcock's B-Movie

Rating: 6/10 (8 January 2008)

Cheap sets, stiff actors, meandering plot - say, what kind of Alfred Hitchcock film is this?
Not his best, truth be told. Made just as Hollywood geared up for World War II, "Saboteur" is so dated you expect a lady selling war bonds to walk into your living room when the DVD's over. But there are enough hints of classic Hitchcock to be found in such things as the offbeat pacing and villain characterizations to keep you watching through to a satisfying if not strong ending.
Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) is a California aircraft factory worker fingered for torching his workplace and killing his best friend. Only Kane knows the truth, that the culprit is a Vladimir Putin lookalike called Fry (Norman Lloyd) whom he traces to a desert ranch. Turns out Fry is working for a group of evil capitalists bent on selling out Uncle Sam to the Axis. Will Kane catch them before they make a battleship in Brooklyn their next trophy?
This was the first of three pictures Hitchcock would make in consecutive years with celebrated American writers, as Dorothy Parker lent a hand to this script. Unfortunately, Parker's clumsy injection of New Yorker left-wing ideology puts us in a movie that asks us to believe American capitalists are conspiring to overthrow their free-market society for a chance to make a few bucks off of slave labor. How this film slipped past McCarthy & Co. is a mystery.
"They bomb cities, sink ships, torture and murder so you and your friends can eat off of gold plate," says Kane to handsome head baddie Charles Tobin (Otto Kruger), who smirks a lot as he ridicules Kane's idealism.
Hitchcock doesn't seem to be at his best either, cribbing off his English works from the 1930s like a madman to lesser effect. Even more original scenes come with awkward exposition, like when Kane is befriended by a troupe of circus freaks, or a windy old blind man who sends Barry off with his niece, professional model Pat (Priscilla Lane).
"Go ahead, Barry, and do the things I wish I could do," says the old man. Maybe I'm reading too much into that, but I was creeped out.
But when the scenes work, they bear the Master's unmistakable stamp. Neither Lane nor Cummings are fresh on screen, but both have their moments, like when he discovers his friend's grieving mother blames him for the murder, or she tries to sucker Fry into hanging out with her on top of the Statue of Liberty.
The Statue of Liberty is the site of "Saboteur's" signature finale, but Hitchcock scores in small ways, too, like with Tobin's unfailing graciousness and his grandfatherly affection for a small tyke. Right next to the house where the grieving mother is sitting is another house from where "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" plays.
In the end, "Saboteur" leaves too much on the table for it to be rated among Hitchcock's better films. But it is an early all-American example of Hitchcock's ability to ride a wooly plot line for maximum entertainment value. Even if it is one for the cheap seats, it's not without some pleasure to be had.