The picture is an adaptation of the Joseph Conrad's novel about Verloc (Oscar Homolka) , an anarchist bomber and owns a theater who actually is an unknown secret agent for the foreign government in London pre-WWII . He is married to Sylvia (Sylvia Sidney )who works as a theater cashier and doesn't know her kindly husband is behind all it and has no idea his activities . An undercover police inspector (John Loder) surveys the marriage movements .

The film contains suspense , tense thriller , intrigue and usual Hitchcock touches . Hitch was a fervent anti-Nazi and similarly other films , he denounces the interior enemy , a spy-ring formed by English and German people . The movie has the expressionist German atmosphere , the suspense is continued and appears lurking and menacing in the theater , streets and during the bus scenes , when the boy carries the bomb . His habitual photographer Bernard Knowles makes an excellent camera-work with lights and shades . Enjoyable cartoon sequence belongs to ¨Who killed cock Robin ?¨ from Silly Symphony of Walt Disney . The movie has the Hitchcock's customary technicians , as Charles Friend (edition) , Louis Levy (musician), Bernard Knowles (cinematographer) , the screenwriter results to be Charles Bennett and being produced by Gaumont British with the great producer Michael Balcon . In spite of long time was released and a little bit dated , the film holds up pretty well . The motion picture was elaborately directed by the master of suspense . Rating : Above average . Essential and indispensable seeing for Hitch's moviegoers.

In the era of 9/11 and terrorist bombings in London and Madrid, Sabotage has assumed an uneasy relevance for today's audience. Sometimes terror does indeed live among us.

In this case it operates the Bijou Theater in London. It's personified by Oscar Homolka of obscure Eastern European origins. Homolka is married to Sylvia Sidney and her juvenile brother Desmond Tester lives with them. She's completely unaware of her husband's other activities as a saboteur.

In the Joseph Conrad novel Homolka is clearly identified as an anarchist and I wish Alfred Hitchcock had done that or at least made it more clear who was doing all this terror and why. Might have helped the audience in understanding the motivation of the characters. I also do find it hard to believe Sylvia Sidney was that dense in that she had no clue what Homolka was up to.

John Loder plays the green grocer next door who in reality is a Scotland Yard inspector doing undercover work. In fact at one point he's spotted doing the surveillance by the gang and his cover is blown. Why Homolka didn't just pack it in and call off the bombing is not quite explained.

Sabotage certainly does have the usual Alfred Hitchcock tension built into the film. Unfortunately the tension is like badly wasted energy on a story that really has too many holes in it.

Most of Hitchcock's pre-Hollywood films have been pretty much ignored by American audiences with only a few exceptions (such as The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes). Of the several somewhat forgotten films is this dandy suspense film from 1936. What I particularly liked about the film was that it COULD have chosen the easy way out of a dilemma but chose for the grittier solution. This provided much greater realism which is so important when making a film about terrorists. In essence, there often is NOT a happy ending and these maniacs hurt a lot of innocent people.

Although the titles are similar, this should not be confused with Hitchcock's propaganda film The Saboteur from 1942. While a good film (and at times great), it is nowhere nearly as well-written and suffers from predictability--and Sabotage is NEVER predictable!