Sabotage (1936)

An interesting, early effort from Hitchcock, 1 June 2006

Although it's probably evident if you've read some of the other things I've written, I'm not a writer. I sometimes have difficulty putting my thoughts on a given movie into words. For whatever reason, I'm having more problems writing about Sabotage than I usually do with a movie. There are a lot of things I enjoyed about the movie. The plot, the acting (especially Sylvia Sidney), and Hitchcock's ability to create tension worked for me. Like a lot of others, the "bomb on the bus" scene is the highlight of the movie. Hitchcock's genius at creating tension is as evident in this scene as any I've run across.

Even though I've rated the film a 7/10, there are problems I have with Sabotage that bothered me. I usually hate the term "dated" when discussing movies, but it's the best term I can come up with to describe my feeling toward Sabotage. It might be that I haven't seen enough British films from the 30s or maybe it was the poor transfer on the DVD I watched, but I couldn't shake the feeling. It's really a minor point and it won't deter me from my mission of watching and discovering more of Hitchcock's older, pre-Hollywood films.

7/10