Saboteur is a 1942 American spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock with a screenplay written by Peter Viertel, Joan Harrison and Dorothy Parker. The film stars Robert Cummings, Priscilla Lane and Norman Lloyd.
Plot
Barry Kane is falsely accused of torching Stewart Aircraft Works in Glendale, California, an act of sabotage that incinerates one of his co-workers. Barry believes the culprit is a man named Fry, but investigators find no such name on the employee list. Thus Barry, under suspicion, becomes the target of a manhunt. While eluding capture, he remembers Fry's address from an envelope, so he thumbs a truck ride to a huge ranch in the High Desert. While there, he learns the whereabouts of Fry. He also discovers the ranch's owner, Charles Tobin, is collaborating with Fry and other saboteurs. Barry escapes the ranch, later taking refuge with a blind man whose niece, Patricia Martin, attempts to betray him to police. Barry insists he is innocent and kidnaps Patricia. This leads to a series of adventures that take the couple from one end of the country to the other.
Barry and Patricia stow away on a circus caravan, whose members conceal the pair from authorities. Eventually the two reach Soda City, a desert ghost town, where they separate. After infiltrating Tobin's spy ring, Barry learns the saboteurs are preparing to disable a new battleship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Meanwhile, Patricia contacts the nearest sheriff, whom she later discovers is on Tobin's payroll. Tobin and associates retrieve Patricia from the sheriff and take her to New York. At the same time, Barry and the saboteurs travel to New York and meet with Tobin and the captive Patricia at the posh home of a rich Nazi sympathizer, Mrs. Sutton. Later, Tobin's organization imprisons Patricia in an office high up Rockefeller Center, while Barry is locked in the Sutton basement. He escapes by triggering a fire alarm. At the same time, from the multi-storied office building, Patricia floats an SOS note out a window. It lands next to a group of cab drivers who read it and notify police.
Barry rushes to the Navy Yard and locates Fry at the controls of a device designed to blow up the battleship. In the ensuing struggle, Fry successfully presses the button and sends the ship to the bottom of the harbor. Fry then escapes. After terrorizing a movie audience at Radio City Music Hall, he takes the ferry to Bedloe's Island and hides inside the Statue of Liberty. Fry is confronted by both Barry and Patricia. Barry pursues Fry onto Lady Liberty's torch, holding him at gunpoint. While backing away from Barry, however, Fry falls over the platform's railing and clings to the statue's hand. Barry tries to save him, but as the police and FBI arrive, Fry falls to his death.
Cast
Robert Cummings as Barry Kane
Priscilla Lane as Patricia "Pat" Martin
Otto Kruger as Charles Tobin
Alan Baxter as Freeman
Clem Bevans as Neilson
Norman Lloyd as Frank Fry
Alma Kruger as Mrs. Sutton
Vaughan Glaser as Uncle Phillip Martin (as Vaughan Glazer) Dorothy Peterson as Mrs. Mason Ian Wolfe as Robert Frances Carson as Society Woman Murray Alper as Truck Driver Kathryn Adams as Mrs. Brown (Tobin's daughter) Pedro de Cordoba as Bones - Circus Troupe Billy Curtis as Major / Midget - Circus Troupe Marie LeDeaux as Titania the Fat Woman - Circus Troupe (as Matie Ke Deaux) Anita Sharp-Bolster as Esmeralda - Circus Troupe (as Anita Bloster) Jean Romer as Siamese Twins (as Jeanne Romer) Laura Mason as Siamese Twins (as Lynn Romer)
Production
Development
Hitchcock was under contract to David O. Selznick, so he first pitched the idea for the film to him; Selznick gave the okay for a script to be written, assigning John Houseman to keep an eye on its progress and direction. Val Lewton, Selznick's story editor, eventually rejected the script, which reviewer Leonard Maltin later called "extremely offbeat," so Selznick forced Hitchcock to offer it to other studios, "causing ill feelings between the producer and his director since it not only showed a lack of belief in Hitchcock's abilities, but also because the terms of Hitchcock's contract would net Selznick a three-hundred percent profit on the sale."
Universal signed on, but Hitchcock could not have the two actors he wanted for the leading roles. Gary Cooper was uninterested in the project and Barbara Stanwyck had other commitments. He settled on Robert Cummings who had a new contract with Universal, while Priscilla Lane was borrowed from Warner Bros. although her scenes had to wait while she finished Arsenic and Old Lace, a production that was eventually shelved until its 1944 release.