Mood: Still content.
Music: Sweetness (Katcha remix) – Xstasia
Sabotage, also released as ‘The Woman Alone’ is a 1936 British thriller, directed by the one and only Alfred Hitchcock. The film is based off of Joseph Conrad’s novel ‘The Secret Agent‘, which I haven’t read. On a scale of one to ten (one being terrible, ten being excellent), I would rate this film a seven.
As a whole, the acting was good, and to date with it’s time period. The first thing that caught me in the film, though, was Karl Verloc’s (played by Oscar Homolka) accent. I fell in love with it. Now, the character himself isn’t – by my standards – all that likable. We first encounter him when he comes into his house with the power down and washes sand off his hands in the sink. Ah-oh, he’s been up to something bad!
Other characters in the film are Karl’s wife, played by Sylvia Sydney (for some reason, despite her being one of the main characters, we never learn her first name), her younger brother Stevie (Desmond Tester), and the likable, secret-agent-type Ted Spencer (John Loder).
Ted is undercover as a grocer next door to Karl’s cinema. His job is to keep an eye on Karl, as the police suspect his involvement in a series of attacks on London. As an actor, Loder does a good job at switching from easy-going grocer to police officer, he made me like his character, despite his introduction making him seem something of a jerk (his first scene has him convincing Verloc’s cinema goers they don’t need their money back, despite not being able to see the show because of a power-outage, and generally being meddlesome, much to Mrs. Verloc’s annoyance). He is far more honorable then Karl, and much more feeling.
Mrs. Verloc is portrayed as kind, beautiful, and quiet. She helps to run her husband’s cinema and steadfastly defends him against Ted, even if she does end up (spoiler! Spoiler!) killing him after the death of her brother. She proved herself to me when she didn’t hold her tongue about Ted’s obvious deception in regards to his identity.
Stevie is your typical boy, a happy-go-lucky type. Karl uses him as something of an errand boy, but seems to be kind enough to him, although that may be just to keep Mrs. Verloc happy.
Overall, I enjoyed the film – the characters were original, the plot line not lacking, and the growing romance between Ted and Mrs. Verloc surprisingly amusing (it was like watching a game of cat and mouse, but without a mouse, and involving two cats).
Would I recommend this movie? Yes, if you like old movies. I specify that because this movie is, at it’s heart, an old movie. Personally, I like old films, but then, I was raised with them.
Now I ask for your opinion – as a review, what did you think of this? I tried to not spoil the film, which may have limited my writing. Please let me know if there’s anything specific I should improve upon, or something you’re more interested in knowing about (this review was, mostly, an overview and brief look at the characters).
– S.
