|
Saboteur (1942)
In Alfred Hitchcock's exciting "wrong-man" spy
thriller in the WWII era, it was about the efforts of a suspected
and framed saboteur to confront and capture the real
fifth columnist and foreign saboteur, in order to clear his name
- a cross-country road-chase ensued that climaxed atop the Statue
of Liberty (an NYC landmark) with a fall to the death (reminiscent
of King Kong (1933)) - symbolizing the victory of democracy over
tyranny; the patriotic film was a forerunner to similar themes in
Hitchcock's North
by Northwest (1959) - (with its many famous US
monuments and sites) and also considered a US version of the director's
earlier British film The
39 Steps (1935):
- during the impressive title sequence, a shadowy,
subversive, anonymous silhouette of a trench-coated, hatted saboteur
appeared in front of giant corrugated sheets of aluminum siding
in an aircraft factory - he kept growing in size as he walked
forward; the sinister figure had a slight limp
- after the credits, in the opening scene, aircraft
workers at 8 am entered the Stewart Aircraft Works plant (Glendale,
CA, suburban LA) for their shift - some of whom lit up cigarettes;
aircraft munitions worker Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) and his
best friend Ken Mason (Virgil Summers) were walking along when
Mason was distracted by a hot blonde and bumped into an unfamiliar
and unfriendly worker named Frank Fry (Norman Lloyd), identified
by dropped envelopes onto the floor [Note: This would provide an
unexpected clue to his name and future whereabouts: the Deep Springs
Ranch in Springville, CA.]
- ominously, trails and wisps of billowing black smoke
(a stand-in for the saboteur figure) began to engulf an area in
front of more corrugated steel siding and almost covered the entire
screen, foreshadowing the existence of a massive arson's blaze
- an act of sabotage; fire sirens alerted workers in the factory's
lunch-room
- in a spectacular
sequence, Kane was handed a fire extinguisher
to put out the flames of a blazing factory fire by Fry, which he
then passed to Mason; Kane's efforts resulted in the self-immolation
of Mason, because it was later revealed that the canister was filled
with gasoline; subsequently, Kane was obviously framed and falsely
accused of the death, partly due to the fact that there was no
one named Fry on the employee register; while visiting Mason's
grieving mother (Dorothy Peterson), two detectives came looking
for him to arrest him; Kane fled and hitched a ride with a helpful,
friendly, down-to-earth trucker named Mac (Murray Alper) - to begin
a journey to locate Fry and clear his name
Death of Mason by Sabotage in Aircraft Plant - Kane
Falsely Blamed
|
|
|
|
Extinguisher Handed from Fry to Kane
|
Extinguisher Handed from Kane to Mason
|
Mason Immolated
|
- during Kane's time as a fugitive fleeing from authorities,
billboards (with sayings) editorialized upon his predicament: "You’re
Being Followed," "She’ll Never Let You Down," and "The Final Tribute: Beautiful
Funeral"
Billboard Messages - Hitchcock's Humor
(Images of Billboard Model Patricia!)
|
|
|
|
Ad for Motor Oil
|
Ad for Drink
|
Ad for Funerals
|
- [the film's many references to fire, torches, or destructive
explosions: aircraft workers lighting up cigarettes as they entered
the factory, an arson-saboteur named Fry, the opening factory fire
with gasoline implanted in a fire extinguisher, plans to blow up
Hoover Dam providing electric power to LA defense plants, or to detonate
a USS naval battleship during its launch, the Statue of Liberty's
Torch, the mansion's sprinkler system activated by a match, etc.]
- fortunately for Kane, the trucker was driving on Rte.
395 north toward the exact location where Kane wanted to go - the
small high desert town of Springville, CA and one of its large ranches,
the Deep Springs Ranch - he remembered Fry's name and address on
dropped envelopes from earlier (in an impressive double-exposure)
during the truck ride [Note: the actual town of Springville, CA was
located on Rte 190 on the western side of Sequoia National Forest,
about 200 miles NW of the high-desert region where he was dropped
off]
- at the ranch, Kane met rich, elitist, cultured, well-respected
ranch owner and philanthropist, Charles Tobin (Otto Kruger), with
his daughter Mrs. Brown (Kathryn Adams), a young mother, at his backyard
swimming pool; the tycoon denied knowing Fry; when Tobin went inside,
Kane became suspicious when Tobin's infant grand-daughter Suzy tossed
him correspondence from Tobin's coat-pocket with Fry's name on them;
Kane read a recent Western Union telegram that Fry's next destination
was Soda City - to meet Neilson ("All finished here. Joining
Neilson in Soda City. Frank") [Note: Soda City was a fictional
town; the sequence in 'Soda City' was filmed at Owens Lake, California,
USA]; radio broadcasts had already informed the urbane and charming
Tobin that Kane was a fugitive from the law
- in a dramatic conversational sequence, Kane confronted
the crooked Tobin for covering up for Fry and being mixed up in sabotage
at the aircraft plant: "Frank Fry is a saboteur who doesn't
mind killing Americans for money...You can't get away with this,
Tobin! Even if I don't stop you, there are others that will. A man
like you can't last in a country like this"; the crooked and
villainous Tobin confessed that he was unconcerned about Kane's threats
against his anti-American, fascist objectives; Tobin - who knew that
Kane was a fugitive, had already reported him to the Sheriff: "Very
pretty speech. Youthful, passionate, idealistic. You see, I've already
sent for the police...Must I remind you that you are the
fugitive from justice and not I? I'm a prominent citizen, widely
respected. You are an obscure young workman wanted for the committing
of an extremely unpopular crime. Now which of us do you think the
police will believe, hmm?"
- Kane fled on horseback, but
was soon captured, handcuffed, and taken into policy custody; his
efforts to incriminate Tobin fell on deaf ears: ("Just because he's
got a big ranch and a fancy pool and a lovely house doesn't mean
he's a nice guy"); as Kane was driven away, during an opportune moment
when stalled on a bridge (blocked by the same truck (with a flat
tire) that had given Kane a ride), Kane was able to escape by jumping
off the high bridge railing into a river
- during a rainstorm, fugitive Kane received refuge,
dinner, heat from a fire, and aid in the cabin of a compassionate,
blind composer named Philip Martin (Vaughan Glaser); [Note: The
entire scene played homage to a similar one in The
Bride of Frankenstein (1935).]
he offered an alias name of Barry Mason; they were soon interrupted
by the arrival of the man's visiting niece, a NY billboard blonde
model named Patricia "Pat" Martin
(Priscilla Lane); the blind man revealed that he intuitively knew (through
his accentuated hearing) that the stranger was wearing handcuffs,
but sensed that the 'dangerous man' was innocent: ("It
is my duty as an American citizen to believe a man innocent until
he's been proved guilty....I can see intangible things. For example,
innocence"); he urged
his suspicious niece to drove to the town's blacksmith to have
the handcuffs removed
- Kane was double-crossed by Patricia who
attempted to drive him to the police station and turn him in; she was
convinced he was guilty: ("There's only one reason why a man commits
sabotage. That's worse than murder") but he resisted her efforts
to betray him; in the California
desert, she stopped the car and awaited approaching cars to seek
help; in the suspenseful sequence, he
was able to frantically grind through the chain of his handcuffs
with the fan belt of their car; then, he grabbed her and drove
off to avoid scrutiny by elderly onlookers in a car, who humorously
noted: "My, they must be terribly in love"
|
|
Patricia's Double-Cross - We're On Our Way to the
Police
|
Kane Grinding Through the Chain of His Handcuffs
|
- shortly later on their way to Soda City,
their car overheated (with a broken fan belt), and then on-foot in
a bizarre night-time encounter, they came into contact
with a caravan of the Russell Bros. circus trucks and some of its
performers - unusual freaks (a sequence inspired by Freaks
(1932))
- a microcosm of America (or the world) and its viewpoints; the outcast
characters included argumentative conjoined Siamese twins Minnie and
Marigold (Jeanne and Lynn Romer), a fascistic Hitler-esque Midget (Billy
Curtis), a good-hearted Bearded Lady named Esmeralda, a chivalrous
and thin "Bones" (a
'Human Skeleton') (Pedro de Cordoba), and a Fat Woman named Titania
(Marie LeDeaux); the "freaks" led by "Bones" helped
to conceal Kane and Patricia when police stopped the caravan; after
taking a democratic vote, Esmeralda (who cast the deciding vote)
rationalized: "It's
the good people that stick when anybody's in trouble, and there aren't
many good people in the world. I think that we, all of us, know that
better than most....We don't give them up"
- after being dropped off 2 miles from the seemingly-deserted,
western ghost-town of Soda City, Kane and Patricia discovered
a cabin hideout; inside was a tripod and telescope designed to be
pointed at Hoover (Boulder) Dam; presumably, it was part of their
ongoing plot to blow up the dam; when a car approached,
Patricia hid in an adjacent room as Kane was confronted by two more
saboteurs - sinister, sexually-ambiguous Mr. Freeman (Alan Baxter)
and Neilson (Clem Bevans); he was able to convince them that he was
sent by Tobin, and was another allied saboteur that needed protection;
he showed them a recent press article about his 'wanted' status';
he persuaded Freeman to take him back East by car to their next destination
and objective; meanwhile, after overhearing Kane's duplicitous confessions
about helping them, Patricia (now disbelieving) reported him to a
local Sheriff after they left - little did she know until later that
the Sheriff was one of the conspirators
Soda City: Hideout For More Saboteurs
|
|
|
|
Telescopic View of Hoover Dam
|
Kane's 'Wanted' Article in Newspaper
|
(l to r): Neilson and Freeman
|
- before making their way to New York, Freeman had
their car swing by Hoover Dam for one last look, to speak about how
its demolition would disrupt electricity to Los Angeles and its defense
plants; in one of the creepiest moments of the film, Freeman made some unprompted
comments - about how he wished his youngest of two male children
(aged 2 and 4), a naughty and destructive child, was a girl: ("Sometimes
I wish my younger child had been a girl"), and proceeded to describe
how as a child, he had long golden locks that people would stop to
gaze at: ("When I was a child, I had long golden curls. People used
to stop on the street to admire me")
- Hitchcock's cameo appearance was at approx 1 hour
and 4 minutes - in front of Cut Rate Drugs in New York
as the saboteurs' car pulled up in the city, he was speaking to a
woman; it slipped that their next target was in Brooklyn (at the
Navy Yard, to sabotage the launching of a new U.S. Navy battleship)
- Freeman led Kane
to a charity ball held at a mansion by a co-conspirator - wealthy
New York dowager Mrs. Henrietta Sutton (Alma Kruger) who was generously
funding the saboteurs; after meeting Mrs. Sutton, Kane was shocked
to discover Patricia in the room; according to Freeman, Patricia
had been "indiscreet" after leaving him in Soda City when she went
to the Sheriff (who was corrupt and on the side of the saboteurs)
to report on Kane; Kane tried to signal Patricia to "ESCAPE" by pointing
to a book's spine on a shelf; but then Tobin entered the room - the
mastermind of the fifth columnists; he recommended another more appropriate,
"somehow prophetic" book for Kane - and indicated "THE DEATH OF A
NOBODY" by Jules Romains
|
|
Kane's Surreptitious Signal to Patricia to "ESCAPE"
|
Tobin's Recommended Book: "THE DEATH OF A NOBODY"
|
- Tobin announced to Mrs. Sutton and the others that
their entire operation at the dam had been compromised and had to
be abandoned; they had followed Patricia to her blind uncle Philip
Martin, who then went to the police; Tobin left his ranch before
officers arrived to arrest him; he criticized Freeman for his carelessness
regarding Kane: ("You might have been more efficient")
- the slimy ranch owner Tobin then began the first of
two heavy-handed monologues about the patriotic Kane and his true
character - with heavy sarcasm: "He's noble and fine and pure,
and so he pays the penalty that the noble and the fine and the pure
must pay in this world. He's misjudged by everyone. Why, even the
police have a completely erroneous impression of him. I can assure
you that, contrary to what is supposed, and to what he may himself
have told you, that young man is certainly not one of his country's
enemies";
his main point - that Kane was an imposter - startled the others:
("Mr.
Kane is definitely no part of our little organization") - finally,
Patricia realized that Kane was on her side; Tobin subtly suggested
that Kane had to be eliminated, and their work must proceed the next
day in Brooklyn; however, Tobin himself was immediately leaving for
Central America: "Havana will be very gay this season"
- knowing that they were both trapped, Kane and
Patricia snuck away and entered the elegant party's ballroom dance
floor; she told him how she had become the group's captive when they
picked her up upon arrival in NYC at the airport; realizing that
all their exits were blocked, Kane tried to convince an elderly male
guest of their predicament: ("This
whole house is a hotbed of spies and saboteurs"); he also told
another disbelieving male: "We're right in the middle of the
biggest bunch of fifth columnists in this country"
- surrounded from
all angles by "ruthless" saboteurs ("It's easy to win when you forget
about the rules"), they decided to dance together; falling in love
with Kane, Patricia remarked that she wished she had met him earlier,
possibly somewhere else like the North Pole: (Kane concurred: "We
might wind up there yet too, chasing Fry over an old glacier");
she also added: "Why couldn't I have met you 100 years ago, on a
beach somewhere?" - and they kissed; she also spoke about being romantic
in public: "I'm afraid we're not behaving very well," to
which Kane responded: "What's the difference? We weren't invited anyway?" before
they again kissed; he savored the moment: "No matter what happens, they
can never take it away from me"
- Patricia was whisked away by another dance partner,
while Kane attempted to create a diversion; he made a public announcement
about an on-the-spot auction of one of hostess Mrs. Sutton's bracelets,
and was about to reveal her true identity, but he modified his speech
after being alerted by strong-armed butler-saboteur Robert (Ian Wolfe)
that a gun was pointed toward his direction from behind a curtain
on the balcony; he was interrupted and ushered upstairs to speak
to Tobin; Kane prefaced their discussion:
"Why is it that you sneer every time you refer to this country?
You've done pretty well here, I don't get it"
- in a second long monologue with Kane, Tobin (in black)
was positioned on a couch between two symmetrical pictures; during
the exchange, the camera slowly zoomed in on Kane, while Tobin was
kept in a long-shot; the condescending Tobin admitted his choice
to be anti-American, with totalitarian-leanings and pro-terrorism
views, and expressed his disgust for any patriots or populists in
the country: "You're
one of the ardent believers - a good American. Oh, there are millions
like you. People that plod along, without asking questions. I hate
to use the word stupid, but it seems to be the only one that applies.
The great masses, the moron millions. Well, there are a few of us
who are unwilling to just troop along, a few of us who are clever
enough to see that there's much more to be done than just live small
complacent lives, a few of us in America who desire a more profitable
type of government. When you think about it, Mr. Kane, the competence
of totalitarian nations is much higher than ours. They get things
done"; Kane replied: "Yeah.
They get things done. They bomb cities, sink ships, torture and murder
so you and your friends can eat off a gold plate; it’s a great
philosophy"; Tobin reacted: "I neither intend to be bombed
nor sunk, Mr. Kane. That’s why I’m leaving now. And if
things don’t arrive for you, if, uh, we should win, then
I’ll come back. Perhaps I can get what I want then: Power.
Yes. I want that as much as you want your comfort, or your job, or
that girl. We all have different tastes, as you can see. Only I'm
willing to back my tastes with the necessary force"; Kane rebutted
Tobin: "You certainly make it sound smooth and easy. Well, that's
a trick. I know the results of that power you believe in. It killed
my friend, and it's killing thousands like him. That's what you're
aiming at. But it doesn't bother you, I can see that. Because you
really hate all people. Let me tell you something. The last four
or five days, I've learned a lot. I've met guys like you, and I've
met others - people that are helpful and eager to do the right thing;
people that get a kick out of helping each other fight the bad guys.
Love and hate. The world's choosing up sides. I know who I'm with.
There are a lot of people on my side - millions of us in every country.
And we're not soft; we're plenty strong. And we'll fight standing
up on our two feet, and we'll win. Remember that, Mr Tobin. We'll
win, no matter what you guys do. We'll win if it takes from now until
the cows come home."
- Kane was knocked out from behind by Robert, and then
imprisoned in the mansion's basement-cellar storeroom overnight,
while Patricia was taken and entrapped in an office hideout (inside
the Rockefeller Center skyscraper); the next morning, Kane successfully
slipped away from the mansion by triggering a fire alarm sprinkler
system, while Patricia alerted a group of cab drivers below on the
street of her predicament by dropping an SOS note (written in lipstick
on poster-board) from the office window that fluttered down in the
wind
- Kane raced in a taxi to stop the planned
sabotage of the USS Alaska battleship as it was christened
at 11:30 am and launched down a slipway at the Brooklyn Navy Yard;
there, he wrestled with armed foreign saboteur Frank Fry, who was
impersonating a newsman in a fake American Newsreel camera sound
truck; his efforts succeeded in delaying the blast (detonated by
a pushed button) so that only the dock was destroyed
- although successful at the Navy Yard in preventing
the ship's destruction, Kane was taken prisoner by Fry and his two
accomplices, and driven to the Rockefeller Center skyscraper; there,
because of Patricia's note, the police and FBI were awaiting their
arrival in the American Newsreel office; Kane was taken prisoner
(he was still a 'wanted' man), and Fry's accomplices were apprehended,
but Fry escaped
- there was an exciting pursuit after Fry
across the movie theatre stage of Radio City Music Hall, where on-screen
gunfire mirrored deadly gunfire in the audience; Fry shot a
man (Milton Kibbee) seated next to his wife, to cause chaos; Fry
escaped from Radio City Musical Hall in a taxi, and during his flight,
he spotted and smugly smiled at a ship on its side (evidence of
an earlier successful act of sabotage)
- the pursuit after Fry was taken up by Patricia who
tracked and shadowed the saboteur via taxi; they boarded a ferry
that was bound for Bedloe Island ("Liberty Island") where
the Statue of Liberty was located; in contact with the FBI by phone,
she was directed to enter the Statue's base and stall, distract and
keep Fry occupied until Kane and the FBI arrived; she followed him
up to inside the statue's crown where she engaged in small-talk with
Fry; when he suspected her story and she mistakenly called him Mr.
Fry, she further identified her knowledge of his act of sabotage: "It
all started with an unknown blonde, an aircraft worker at a factory
in Glendale, California"
- once Kane arrived at the Statue of Liberty in the
film's exhilarating conclusion, he pursued Fry onto the viewing platform
on the statue's torch; in a frightening, harrowing scene high up
above the water of NY harbor, Kane confronted
Fry with a gun; windblown against a cloudy
sky, Fry backed away, accidentally lost his balance and fell over
the side of the platform's railing - he bounced
once and was left clinging to the space between the immense base
of the thumb and the forefinger that composed the concrete hand of
the statue; Kane climbed down to rescue and
valiantly save the spy - he half-crouched and had one hand wrapped
around part of the base of the torch; with his free hand,
he could only reach and clutch Fry's coat jacket sleeve near the
wrist; the police and FBI reached the platform and watched what was
unfolding from the railing
- Fry perilously hung
there clinging for his life as perspiration beads appeared on his forehead;
the sleeve began to gradually tear apart at the stitching or seam where
the left arm joined the shoulder; the saboteur literally dangled by
a thread; as the split widened, Fry's terror-stricken face noticed
that his entire coat jacket would soon separate; he cried out: "Quick,
the sleeve, the sleeve!" and then his arm slipped suddenly out
of the sleeve - in a disorienting, downward view from Kane's perspective,
Fry fell away through space and dropped to his death many feet below;
his face contorted, his body rotated awkwardly, and his screams became
fainter as he approached the ground: "Kaaaaaaaaaaaaannnne...." -
the film's last line of dialogue
Fry's Fall From the Statue of Liberty - Clinging
For Life
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- the film's ending images were of Kane climbing back
up and embracing Patricia
|
(l to r): Kane, Fry, and Mason
Fry's Dropped Letters and $100 Dollar Bills - Clues
Ominous Black Smoke - Evidence of Sabotage
Kane Hitching a Ride Out of Town in a Truck - Sitting Next to a Fire Extinguisher
Kane's Double-Exposure: Remembering Fry's Letter, Addressed
to Deep Springs Ranch
Kane's Meeting with Tobin at Deep Springs Ranch
Western Union Telegram to Tobin: Fry's Next Destination
Was Soda City to Meet Up With Neilson
Kane's Confrontation with Tobin
Kane Handcuffed by Police
Kane's Escape: High-Dive Off Bridge
Kane's Refuge with Clairvoyant Blind Man
Patricia "Pat" Martin (Priscilla Lane)
The Group of Circus "Freaks"
Soda City Sign (With Bullet Marks)
Kane with Freeman on Drive to the East
Hitchcock's Cameo - In Front of NYC Drug Store
Mrs. Sutton - Benefactress of Saboteurs
Tobin's Speech About Kane
Patricia and Kane on the Dance Floor
Elitist Tobin's Allegiance to Terrorism
Kane's Reluctance To Bow to Saboteurs
Brooklyn Naval Yard's Launch of Battleship
Plans to Detonate the Battleship During Launch
Announcement of the Battleship's Launch
Patricia's SOS Note
Kane Wrestling with Fry in News Truck, To Prevent Detonation of Blast by
Button-Push
Delayed Blast Blew Up Dock, But Avoided Ship
Radio City Music Hall (On-Screen and Off-Screen Murders)
Fry - on the Ferry to the Statue of Liberty Island
Patricia Inside the Statue's Crown with Fry
Ending: Fade to Black - Kane Embracing Patricia
|