Saboteur

A film about a man on the run in America during the war. Barry works in an aircraft factory. One day there is a fire and his friend is killed. The fire is not an accident. Barry knows who the saboteur is, but the man's name is not on the employee list and nobody believes him. The blame falls on him. He runs. From there the film is a journey across the whole country. A ranch, a lorry, a charity event, a circus caravan, a ghost town and New York. There are people along the way. A blind musician helps him; the sideshow performers in the circus hold a vote among themselves about hiding him from the police. Patricia is a billboard model. She tries to turn him in at first, then believes him, and they go on together. What the narrative is interested in is not espionage but who is on the inside: the film shows the saboteurs not as foreign agents but as respectable, wealthy Americans. A fundraising dinner sums this up. There is nowhere to run in the middle of a crowded, polite, rich room. The finale takes place on the Statue of Liberty. The narrative moves its climax onto a structure, and the scene is the first form of a pattern the director would repeat later. Hitchcock had wanted other names in the leads and the studio did not provide them; this is discussed as a known weakness of the film. Robert Cummings, Priscilla Lane, Otto Kruger and Norman Lloyd are in the cast. Alfred Hitchcock directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes classical Hitchcock chases. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a strong lead; the narrative is fast but the actor at its centre cannot carry the part, and some sections slide into propaganda.