Day 89: Saboteur (1942)

Moving along in Hitchcock's films. The poster above is not the actual movie poster, but a recent minimalistic poster design that I liked.

Barry Kane is accused of starting a fire in an airplane factory, an act of sabotage against the American's war efforts, and goes on the run in an attempt to find the real saboteur and clear his name. He quickly finds himself caught up in an ring of evil-doers who are trying to sabotage multiple aspects of the American war effort, and Barry tries to stop them.

This is one of many (11 by my count) films that Hitchcock made with the ordinary man is wrongly accused, and must go on the run from the police to clear his name. The first example is The 39 Steps, one of his best British films, and continues with others including Spellbound, North by Northwest, The Wrong Man, and Frenzy. This is one of Hitchcock's signature theme, and one he is very talented at. This film feels very much like an American remake of The 39 Steps, as it shares many of the same elements - handcuffs being a main plot point, the unwilling blonde who doesn't believe him and who he is stuck with, men who want to kill him to prevent him from getting in the way of stopping their evil plans, and a cross country journey (here it being America as opposed to England/Scotland). Hitchcock, as is expected, manages to weave together romance, comedy, and a thriller into another wonderful film. I feel like this is often overlooked when people talk about Hitchcock films, but it really shouldn't be. Also of note, it's the first time Hitchcock used an American landmark as a background for his films, in this case being both the Hoover dam, and the Statue of Liberty. This is a theme he would revisit, famously, again.

A couple points that struck me:
- Barry's last name is Kane. Considering that Citizen Kane was released the previous year, it is hard to imagine this not being deliberate.
- The film has elements of propaganda in it, such as speeches about what it means to be an American, what it means to live in a democracy and the like, though they are crafted into the plot and are not as blatant as many other films. Yet, the entire film is based on the fact that Kane doesn't want to go to the police because he fears they won't believe him, and it'll be months before anything happens. How is suggesting that American police officers being ineffective positive? Is the value of American independence and strength, as shown by Barry, greater than the institutionalized power as represented by the police? It just seems to be a contradiction.