Sabotage (1936 film)

Sabotage, also released as The Woman Alone, is a 1936 British espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, and John Loder. It is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent, about a woman who discovers that her husband, a London cinema owner, is a terrorist agent. Sabotage should not be confused with Hitchcock's film Secret Agent, also released in 1936, but based on the stories of W. Somerset Maugham. Also should not be confused with Hitchcock's film Saboteur (1942) which includes the iconic fall from the torch of the Statue of Liberty which presaged the Mount Rushmore scene in North by Northwest. The film holds a rare 100% rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. In 2017 a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine saw Sabotage ranked the 44th best British film ever. Suddenly, London goes dark and loses all of its electricity. There is commotion at a cinema, with people demanding their money back. The owner of the cinema, Karl Verloc (Oscar Homolka), enters through a back entrance to the living quarters above, and pretends to have been asleep and not know anything of the blackout. His wife, Mrs. Verloc (Sylvia Sidney) comes to get him and is surprised to see him, but he informs her that he had been sleeping the entire time. He instructs his wife to return the money to the customers – against her protests – because he has "some money coming in." As the money is about to be disbursed to the customers downstairs, the lights go back on. It is revealed that sand was put in the boilers as an act of sabotage on London's electricity grid. The next day, Verloc meets with his contact and it is revealed that he is part of a gang of terrorists from an unnamed European country who are planning a series of attacks in London, though their exact motives are not made clear. Verloc's contact is disappointed that the newspapers mocked the short loss of electricity, and instructs Verloc to place a parcel of "fireworks" at the Piccadilly London Underground station. Verloc tells the contact that he is not comfortable with any act that would cause the loss of life. More on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabotage_(1936_film)

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