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Sabotage
Directed by	Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by	Michael Balcon
Written by	Joseph Conrad (novel The Secret Agent) Charles Bennett (screenplay)
Starring	Sylvia Sidney Oskar Homolka John Loder
Cinematography	Bernard Knowles
Distributed by	General Film Distributors (GFD) Ltd.
Release date(s)	December, 1936 UK release
Running time	76 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
IMDb profile

Sabotage, also released as The Woman Alone, is a 1936 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was based on Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent.

Karl Verloc (Oscar Homolka), the owner of a cinema, is part of a gang of saboteurs from an unnamed European country who conduct a series of attacks in London. The gang's motives are unclear. Scotland Yard suspects Verloc's involvement, and assigns Detective Sergeant Ted Spencer (John Loder, who replaced Robert Donat, who was too ill from asthma to play the part), to investigate (initially undercover) Verloc. Verloc's wife (Sylvia Sidney) gradually suspects that he may be behind the attacks that are terrorizing the city. After her younger brother, Stevie (Desmond Tester) is killed while unknowingly carrying a bomb for Verloc to the London Underground, Verloc confesses to her, but then rationalizes and blames Scotland Yard and its detective Spencer for Stevie's death, saying that they distracted him from successfully carrying out the bomb delivery himself. Soon afterward, in a scene in which Verloc and his wife are at their dinner table, she stabs him fatally with a knife. When Ted Spencer arrives to arrest Verloc on a bombing charge, he finds Verloc dead, realizes what has happened, but insists to Mrs. Verloc that she shouldn't confess to this bomber's death.

The film was produced in the years immediately preceding World War II, and the unnamed hostile power behind the bombings is assumed to be Nazi Germany. At the time of its release, Europe was already preparing for war, and espionage was rampant between the European powers. The film can therefore be interpreted as a warning to civilians to be aware of foreigners, who threatened the safety of the country. (On a side note, Sabotage would have been called Secret Agent except Hitchcock had recently made another film with that title.)

Hitchcock took considerable liberties with the novel, transforming the highly political anarchists and socialists into foreign agents without any obvious political leanings.^[1] Verloc's shop is transformed into a movie theater (with the films being shown echoing the story), and the policeman investigating the case is cast as an undercover officer posing as a greengrocer.^[2] Verloc's first name has also been changed, presumably as Adolf had too many connotations by the time the film was made. To critics, however, the most troubling change was in the character of Stevie, Mrs Verloc's young brother, who is portrayed as a simpleton, with few of the visionary attributes of his literary counterpart. Stevie's death is a climactic moment in the plot, providing insight into Hitchcock's views about how the innocent suffer through random acts of violence.^[2] When a critic condemned Stevie's death as brutal and unnecessary, however, Hitchcock refused to defend his position and said that he regretted including it in the film—although with this he remained faithful to the novel.^[1]

The fact that the film was set in a movie theater allowed Hitchcock to reference the plot with contemporary films and storylines. Perhaps the most famous of these is the final film sequence, an animated short produced by Walt Disney.

Hitchcock desired to cast Robert Donat (with whom he had previously worked for The 39 Steps) but was forced to cast John Loder due to illness on the part of Donat.^[3][1]

Despite being regarded by many as her best performance, this was Sylvia Sidney’s only role for Hitchcock. They did not warm to each other and she refused to work for him again.

• Sylvia Sidney as Mrs. Verloc
• Oskar Homolka as Karl Anton Verloc
• Desmond Tester as Steve Verloc
• John Loder as Sgt. Ted Spencer
• Joyce Barbour as Renee
• Matthew Boulton as Superintendent Talbot
• S.J. Warmington as Hollingshead
• William Dewhurst as The Professor

• Sabotage at the Internet Movie Database
• Sabotage at Google Video