The interest lies with the villains

Rating: 6/10 (22 March 2007)

During this film I found myself suffering from what I can only call 'Hollywood thriller syndrome'. This is an all-too-common complaint in which the protagonist comes across as bland, tedious and somewhat annoying, whereas his sinister opponents -- typically characterised as European and/or effete against his all-American working-class worth, facially striking and/or highly intelligent against his dogged brawn, verbally dexterous and/or ironic against his inarticulate honesty -- are, frankly, the ones who instinctively attract my sympathies. The result of which is that I spend most of the film subconsciously rejoicing when things go wrong for the hero, while knowing that I am bound to be frustrated in the end as the entire plot is inevitably rigged in his favour! At the end of "Saboteur", as in "North by Northwest", it wasn't the name of the male lead I was looking up; as so often, it was more a question of 'Who was that actor with the wonderful face who played the villain?'
From this inverted point of view the film does, of course, have quite a lot to offer. The beautiful blonde not only fails to believe the hero's story; she behaves intelligently for once, allowing him to think that she is on his side while driving him off to the police station and then tricking and physically overpowering him. She feigns frailty in order not to get left behind in the desert, then informs him once on the bus that she has every intention of handing him in after all. Admittedly she then goes on, predictably but not very explicably, to fall in love with him -- but as she is at pains to point out, it's a free country: which means one can't have everything.
The hero's attempts at amateur sleuthing, a flamboyant getaway, and undercover infiltration are also gratifyingly frustrated; in fact, this is one of the least heroic characters in the genre. Attempting while on the run to track down the true criminal, only to get arrested yourself, is perhaps par for the course in the wronged-man scenario -- but it makes a change to see the hero vault onto a horse, leap a fence and gallop off, only to be roped by the bad guys and dragged ignominiously to earth within minutes! And I found it very satisfying when Charles Tobin, surely the most charismatic of criminals, not only unmasked Barry's masquerade but revealed that he already had the girl in custody. The final revealing straw came when I caught a glimpse of the battleship lying sidelong across the ways like a great beached whale, and experienced a distinct unexpected lifting of the heart: apparently the hero's oh-so-predictable eleventh-hour rush to foil the plot had failed after all...
In total and in consequence, when the film is considered as a piece of propaganda -- which is its fairly unsubtle intent -- I can only say that where I was concerned it appears to have backfired badly. But then, of course, it wasn't aimed at me. It was aimed at the 'Average Joe' in 1940s America, and if it is formulaic and ultimately frustrating, it was as the result of a calculated effort to appeal.
Oddly enough I did like the blind-man sequence, with its echoes of a similar scenario for Frankenstein's monster; it could have struck me as cheap and corny, but it didn't. Perhaps it is because in this case, the 'good' character is shown as refined of speech and quick-thinking -- note that the hero is still ultimately wrong-footed by the revelation that his host, for all his blindness, was not fooled for a minute! The cinema sequence at the end came across as very contrived, however: Hitchcock clearly simply fancied the idea of having real gunfire in the auditorium mistaken for on-screen shots, although it's not at all clear why the audience reaction is to roll with laughter.
It's only fair to admit that I'm looking at this film across a vast cultural gulf, and that somehow or other I managed to conceive a dislike for the main protagonist from the start, which inevitably coloured my entire reaction to the picture. Unlike other viewers, I don't think it was actually Robert Cummings' fault that I found the character less than charismatic; I do get the impression that this production was basically a case of Hitchcock sticking pet concepts together by-the-numbers to produce an uneven and sometimes illogical result.
I don't hate the film, and in fact I'd give it a mild recommendation. But no more than mild. It irks me too much.