I Revisit Sabotage

I'm referring to the 1936 Hitchcock movie, not the David Ayer disaster: 

Listen up y’all, it’s Sabotage… a new review of the film that was needed because perhaps a second impression would be better and the original review from 2014 was rather lackluster in hindsight. The Criterion Channel added a new collection of Hitchcock movies; many I had seen before (& I’m happy with those reviews) but revisits probably will happen that won’t be noted online as I’m happy with those original opinions I wrote years ago. As it’s been too long since one of his movies has been discussed by me, a link to my list of Hitchcock reviews is here for those curious. In short, most of the movies by the Master of Suspense I think are at least good, and some are 4 ½ or 5 stars.

It is tragic for me to say then that this movie is still one I don’t love as much as others--which has been the trend with the last few I’ve seen, but alas. Unbeknownst to Sylvia Sidney, her husband happens to be working with terrorists who cause havoc across London, because… well, that’s a MacGuffin. That husband Karl needs money as running a movie house isn’t enough to pay all the bills; after all, there’s also Sidney’s little brother Stevie, still a child. As Karl is undercover doing that bidding for the villains, so is someone from Scotland Yard undercover investigating the dastardly heels.

Despite my not loving the movie (possibly because there are many Hitch pictures I do love), that doesn’t make Sabotage bad, or even worse, comparable to the atrocious David Ayer Sabotage. It’s always nice seeing Sylvia Sidney, after all; there are also some nice suspense sequences, especially one that leads to the film’s most controversial moment. It’s a narrative decision I’m not offended by—audiences at the time were, though. There were other narrative decisions I didn’t necessarily love, although it did not turn the entire head of lettuce brown, to reference an insignificant plot point. I wish we could have gotten to know more about the majority of the leads.

There are still several memorable characters & the movie still works despite its small scale where much of the action takes place at a movie house. Having seen a decent amount of Hitch’s British beginnings, this is still one of the better ones; you’d be surprised at how bad some of them are.