THE latest adventure movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock is “Saboteur” and it has the craftsmanship of “The Lady Vanishes,” except for one thing. It’s not exciting—not even mildly. Unfortunately that’s the very thing it needs, and the thing Hitchcock is famous for. In his earlier masterpieces the quality he achieved by making danger constantly real and imminent was an overwhelming horror unsurpassed for getting the last subtle and delicate turn of the screw. In “Saboteur” they talk things over. Actually, in place of suspense, it is conversation, and when it’s Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane it is worse than that.
The film is constructed on that basic pattern for movie excitement, the chase. The cops are after Robert Cummings for burning an airplane factory and Robert is after the real criminals, a ring of Fascist saboteurs. And don’t think Hitchcock can’t chase. Across the continent from San Diego to the Statue of Liberty by way of a ghost town, Boulder Dam and Radio City Music Hall, he chases. Wherever there is a deserted shack, a winding stairway, or any like hazards conducive to thrills, there is Hitchcock, breathlessly followed up by Robert. But still with plenty of wind left to talk. Of course this destroys the suspense, or what was the point? And there is not even a suggestion of the smooth, fast continuity Hitchcock once achieved. It gets to such a state that the final excitement of Cummings out on a limb of the Statue of Liberty, risking his neck for the most vicious criminal in the United States, is the last grab at a straw for thrills, and as such silly.
So the only virtues of this emasculated adventure are the small displays of Hitchcock technique. He is one of the sharpest and most adult of movie satirists, one who doesn’t have to resort to pie throwing to make fun of people. His formula is to confine this skill with genre to bit players; the important players he leaves to get along the best they can, and when it was Michael Redgrave or Robert Donat it worked. Even “Saboteur” has these mordant sketches, which are among the most excellent things in movie history, people caught at a moment of speech or pantomime that defines their characters to a pitch completely beyond the reach of ordinary character handling. In “The Lady Vanishes” this talent was used to contribute to the total effect of horror, not simply, as in “Saboteur,” as a sideline to hide inadequacies of movement. The man who rediscovered the movie value of the Western and gangster film lost his grip completely in this one.
The propaganda against the Fascists in this film is as neat as you like, and illustrative of the Hitchcock invention, which never falls for the hackneyed. There are telling bits here about the significance of democracy, treated intelligently and not tacked on, and an actor only once turns flush to the audience to deliver an oration.
But for all of these bits, and for all of the clear, dramatic camera work, there is nothing to make the film stand up and move. And in spite of the propaganda subtleties, the best chance yet to show the brutality and horror of the Nazi character is lost in a patter of words.
“We Were Dancing” is a motionless picture in which two faces, Norma Shearer’s and Melvyn Douglas’, talk to each other at dull length about whether they should go on living together. The last thing they were interested in was making you care. Sometime they’ll find that Melvyn Douglas has been made to play this role just once too often. It starts off by following a one-act play by Noel Coward and carries on like “My Favorite Wife,” to the shame of both.
May 18, 1942