Sabotage (1936 film)
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Sabotage poster showing the U.S. title
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| Directed by | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Produced by | Michael Balcon |
| Screenplay by | Charles Bennett |
| Story by | Joseph Conrad |
| Starring |
Sylvia Sidney Oskar Homolka John Loder |
| Cinematography | Bernard Knowles |
| Edited by | Charles Frend |
| Distributed by | General Film Distributors (GFD) Ltd. |
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Release date
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Running time
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76 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Sabotage, also released as The Woman Alone, is a 1936 British espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock about terrorism in the United Kingdom and an agent who hides a time bomb in a delivery package to blow up London. It is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent. It should not be confused with Hitchcock's film Secret Agent, also released in 1936, but based on the stories of W. Somerset Maugham.
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.
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