Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageSabotage (1936)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
One of the most playful of Hitchcock's British thrillers, this was adapted by Charles Bennett from Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent, which in fact had been the title of Hitch's previous film. The foreign saboteur at large in London is cinema-owner Homolka, and in part at least, his profession allows Hitchcock to indulge in the sort of movie-movie self-consciousness of which he would become the object some 40 years on. The film proceeds from the point where the lights go out (Battersea power station is the first sabotage target), and even includes a telling screen-within-a-screen homage to Disney and the Silly Symphonies. The narrative's a bit perfunctory, but is neatly overbalanced by the joyously rule-breaking sequence of a boy, a bus and a time bomb.Author: PT
Cast & crew
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Producer: Michael Balcon, Ivor Montagu
Cast: Oscar Homolka, Sylvia Sidney, John Loder, Desmond Tester, Joyce Barbour, Martita Hunt, Peter Bull, Torin Thatcher full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 76 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
A holiday guide to movie dystopias
‘Going anywhere nice this summer, sir?’ To celebrate the release of Pixar’s sublime post-apocalyptic robo-romance ‘Wall-E’, Time Out offers a tour guide of the best future worlds in film
Eddie Murphy's Crimes Against Cinema
We all remember the comic highs of 'Beverly Hills Cop' and 'Bowfinger', but Eddie Murphy has been in a fair few stinkers as well. Time Out to presents a handy rundown of his ten darkest cinematic hours...
Olly Blackburn meets Nic Roeg
Nic Roeg is the director of ‘Performance’, ‘Don’t Look Now’ and, most recently, ‘Puffball’. Olly Blackburn is the man behind ‘Donkey Punch’, a thriller about a holiday gone wrong. We sent Olly to meet his legendary colleague
The nine rules of ’80s fantasy
Unpack the VCR and fire up the soda stream as Time Out celebrates a golden age of Hollywood family filmmaking
What do you think?
Post your review now