Reviewing Hitchcock. #22: ‘Sabotage’ (1936).

“What goes on after hours in that cinema of yours?”

If many of Hitchcock’s later films had not been so astounding, perhaps this offering from 1936 would be far better known. It certainly deserves to be. Many of the themes and tropes which would come to define Hitchcock’s films are already here: the icy blonde, the innocent man who is wrongly accused and the narrative ‘wrong footing’. Sabotage actually contains one of Hitchcock’s more shocking and unexpected reveals, one that the director himself was conflicted over. Following the relatively light-hearted screwball elements of The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, where a slightly kooky romantic pairing offers a cornerstone to the more serious suspense and action, here things are considerably more restrained.

Sure, there is a romantic flowering between the two main characters, but this is a pairing more in tune with the less fantastical plot. The story of Mr. Verloc (Oscar Homolka) and his treacherous involvement with foreign agents (for he is the saboteur of the title) just about remains within the realms of everyday plausibility, taking place in a minimum of locations, that lacks the travelogue proto-James Bond feel of The 39 Steps or the much later North by Northwest.

At the beginning of the film we’re introduced to a successful attack on London’s electricity grid, and to Verloc’s involvement (which is never truly explained. What are his motives?) Despite being spotted coming in through the backdoor by his wife (Sylvia Sydney), which is untypical, he lies to her about his whereabouts and our seeds of suspicion are firmly planted. The Verlocs are the owners of a London cinema, which must have felt quite novel in 1936 and lends the film a degree of subversion; Mr. Verloc’s genuine affairs are likely more shocking than the fictions on the silver screen.

A memorable meeting between Verloc and his contact in an aquarium (with a blink and you’ll miss it appearance from Carry On’s Charles Hawtry) tell us little about the villains’ nationality. This was probably deliberate, although in the build up to World War II we can make some educated guesses. Verloc is instructed to take possession of some explosives and how to use them, with the stress on making this a success. “They must not laugh…” This cannot be anything other than a successful terrorist act, which the populace and media will take seriously.

Sometimes Hitchcock deliberately led us down a narrative path that indicated the true villain was someone other than it actually was, such as influencing our suspicion of Norman Bates’ mother being the perpetrator in Psycho. But here, Verloc is most definitely the antagonist, and instead of playing with the audiences’ narratively constructed prejudices, instead focuses on his wife’s growing realisation that her husband is a killer. Many of Hitchcock’s films feature women in relationships with bad men that they cannot escape, to the extent that in Notorious the woman eventually becomes a literal prisoner. Mrs Verloc’s growing unease and eventual paranoia over her husband’s activities fuel the film and the introduction of Detective Sergeant Ted Spencer (John Loder) compounds her suspicions; her husband is evidently being investigated. From all these suspicions Hitchcock weaves his tapestry of suspense quite effectively. Ted initially operates undercover but a growing affection with Mrs Verloc soon blossoms into something else, in an earnest and touching way not really present in the aforementioned coupling in The 39 Steps.

The suspenseful centrepiece of the film is one that Hitchcock himself was quite critical of, suggesting the sequence could have been more effective. It does lead to one of Hitchcock’s more sombre and shocking moments. Mr. Verloc ropes in his wife’s young brother Stevie (Desmond Tester) to act as a courier, carrying the deadly package to Piccadilly, where the bomb is set to go off at 1:45pm. Unexpected delays along the route will have you knawing at your fingers, not least because of the regular clock updates. Never have the hands moved so slowly to the doomed time. Stevie is detained by a market salesman, a police officer and general crowds, all going about their business, but it leaves the boy fatally delayed. Although this centrepiece scene occurs without Mrs Veloc, it is that character who I was eager to get back to, to see her responses. Sydney’s performance is key to the film’s success and her subtle portrayal of the wife more than makes up for any of the film’s narrative failings.

You see, there are some things in Sabotage that clearly don’t make sense. Why would an experienced police detective bungle his eavesdropping on the terrorists by sticking his hand through a window? Why did Mrs Verloc ever marry Mr. Verloc, who she seems to share zero romantic chemistry? Often, Hitchcock presents things ‘just because’ they will help further the story and rack up the suspense by ensuring certain things will happen. I’m not convinced that it’s a heavier handed way of telling a story that Hitchcock ever truly abandoned, but I can just about let those implausible actions go in the broader context of the story being told.

Even with its irrational moments, and it isn’t the only Hitchcock film to have them, Sabotage is one of Hitchcock’s finest early pictures. The film is very effective in communicating the mood of a city just three years away from an huge unavoidable conflict, and one of his last British films before Hollywood finally poached him.

Reviewing Hitchcock. #23: ‘Young and Innocent’ (1937)

“We ought to order tea or something if we’re going to stay here long…”

Based on the novel A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey, Hitchcock’s twenty third film takes some liberties with its source material, but manages to offer a reasonably engaging man-on-the-run thriller, of the kind beloved of Hitch. The version of Young and Innocent available on Britbox is also of remarkably pristine quality, so much so that the deep shadows and bright skies of summer really spring out of the screen, maybe more so due to the monochrome.

There’s also a pair of likeable and engaging lead performances from Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De Marney. Pilbeam put me in mind of Maxine Peake in appearance and on the strength of Young and Innocent you’d think that her expressive face would be better known, but as in common with many actresses of the ‘20s and ‘30s she had a relatively short screen career, perhaps with the contemporary attitude being to make hay while the sun shone and then retire gracefully. De Marney has the clipped British tones that really don’t sound like anybody British I’ve ever met, and I’ve lived here all my life, but still, a voice that exists in a certain era of cinema as the heroic everyman centre of films such as these (see also Robert Donat in The 39 Steps).

De Marney plays Robert Tisdall, who like many Hitchcock heroes, ends up having his day go to bollocks just because he innocently got involved in events bigger than himself. You have to wonder how absolutely incriminating the spectacle of him running away from the drowned body is, but those two young ladies do seem absolutely appalled and convinced of his guilt, so what’s a police officer going to do? Sorry Son, that’s enough evidence for me! Down the station with you! Meanwhile, we already know there is a jealous husband out there, who is likely the killer. The bloke has a really noticeable twitch. I’m talking proper full on face gymnastics here. He probably should have got someone else to do the dirty work for him, because with a facial performance like that you just know he’s going to be easy to find later. So, already there’s a plot forming that is likely to keep you committed, as long as you overlook the sillier aspects. While praising the film’s strengths, I also have to mention the miniature model work, which is exceptional. I’m never convinced how much these scenes are always necessary, but Hitchcock stages certain scenes exactly how he liked with visual trickery and it usually convinces very well. Bernard Knowles is the camera man, but not sure who supplied the model work. I’ll get back to you on that.

While the film certainly has its merits, it’s a far lesser offering from Hitchcock than would have been usual, even at this early stage. The stakes never feel high enough and like a less considered Columbo script, the motives and ultimate ‘gotcha’ don’t stand up to scrutiny. As with many Hitchcock films, the ending can catch you by surprise unless you’ve been checking the run time; everything is wrapped up very neatly and swiftly in a few minutes. Would finding the murderer under fraught circumstances really convince him to give himself up in maniacal, laughing declaration of guilt? Maybe, maybe not. Young and innocent is best enjoyed for the two leads and their character’s slowly blossoming affection. Having said that, there are times where the film gives over so much time to quiet, unhurried scenes of their romantic bonding that any sense of jeopardy is all but diffused. This makes Young and Innocent less of a nail biting race to prove a man’s innocence in the mould of The 39 Steps or North by Northwest (to name but two of many) and more of a leisurely holiday in the country with a few road blocks and half-hearted car chases. I felt that if the couple stopped off for cream teas, there would still be plenty of time to evade the police. A sort of To Catch a Thief, but without the colour, vistas and sense of intrigue.

Reviewing Hitchcock in no particular order: #20: ‘The 39 Steps’ (1935)

“Have you ever heard of The 39 Steps?”

The enduring feeling after watching The 39 Steps is that I’d watched a film with some very modern sensibilities. This can make it difficult, but not impossible, to imagine how an audience in 1935 would have reacted to it. Nearly thirty years before the first Bond film and nearly twenty five years before Hitchcock’s own North by Northwest, the genesis of the modern suspense thriller may be found in films like The 39 Steps. The 39 Steps is a film that, despite quite obviously being made in 1935, quite successfully transcends its time.

The trope of a man being falsely accused and going on the run, while frantically trying to clear his name, was not a new obsession for Hitchcock but it is here that it is probably first put to its most successful narrative use. Based on John Buchan’s 1915 novel, the film presents the most unfortunate case of a holiday gone to shit, as visiting Canadian Richard Hanney (played with everyman effortlessness by Robert Donat) becomes embroiled in a mysterious and dangerous espionage conflict after he unknowingly takes in a spy after a shooting in a London music hall. The spy, Annabella Smith, is played by Lucie Mannheim who makes enough of an impression that I would have welcomed her as the female lead. But this is a Hitchcock film, so don’t get too attached is all I will advise. Shortly before Smith makes her…er…exit, she entices Hanney with a mention of the titular ’39 Steps’. Are they a place? Actual steps? A set of instructions? Something else entirely? As a McGuffin, it’s one of Hitchcock’s more intriguing and their revelation in the final reel is, in true Hitchcock tradition, neither what most will expect or revealed in the way you would expect either.

Hitch racks up the suspense in a great anxiety fuelled train sequence, (much has been made of Hitchcock’s returning fascination with trains and tunnels, often seen as thinly veiled sexual metaphors). It’s here that we meet Madeleine Carroll as the actual female lead, Pamela, one of Hitchcock’s early ‘icy blondes’. To be fair she thaws pretty quickly once the two leads are reunited later in the picture. Carroll was big news in the mid ‘30s and Donat had started to make an impression in the US, so their casting made economic sense. Her first appearance is so brief that you could be excused for thinking you’ve identified the wrong actress; Hitchcock takes his time setting up the big players in his narrative. For a fairly economical running time, Hitchcock is in no rush to pull this steak off the grill too quickly. This is a slow cooking creation, and as ever with Hitch you have to wait and see how the different elements come together. Questions arise throughout. Who is the man with the missing finger? Is Pamela a help or hindrance to Hannay? You’ll get your answers. If you’re savvy, you’ll remember that Hitch will wrong step you very suddenly; and the answers can arrive unexpectedly.

Despite being a product of the mid ‘30s (the famous sequences where Hannay and Pamela are handcuffed together, traversing the Scottish Highlands and staying the night in an inn, are reminiscent of a ‘30s screwball comedy, likely influenced by the likes of It Happened One Night and its various imitators). But any fashionable tropes work and the chemistry between the leads is strong enough to carry the romantic humour, which never dilutes the jeopardy.

The closing scene is an early Hitchcock masterstroke. If you were paying attention, maybe you saw it coming from the beginning, but either way you won’t be robbed of the satisfaction of the final revelation and righting of wrongs. One enduring criticism of Hitchcock is that his films end suddenly. Perhaps a fair point, but there is rarely any excess, unwanted fat on this perfect steak, so enjoy; this is a superior serving of suspense by a master chef.