''.
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." Hitchcock later said he was "lucky" to have "young players who are intelligent and sensitive to direction" and "players who are unmistakeably young American. It was easy to bring out the familiar qualities to make Bob seem the loveable boy at the next lathe or around the corner. In Priscilla, too, I had the resolute and daring attributes typical of American girlhood. I wanted the boy and girl in
Saboteur to suggest the thrilling importance of unimportant people, to forget they were movie stars, to remember only that they were free and in terrible danger." Universal did bring in
Dorothy Parker to write a few scenes, "mostly the patriotic speeches given by the hero." However, that film was not used in the final movie.
Shooting Filming took place from December 1941 to February 1942. Hitchcock used extensive location footage in the film, which was unusual for Hollywood productions at the time. Second unit director
Vernon Keays and cinematographer Charles Van Enger shot exteriors in the
Alabama Hills of
Lone Pine, California, and
John P. Fulton shot the background footage in New York City. For the New York City footage, special long lenses were used to shoot from great distances. One background shot shows a capsized ship in the harbor. Fry glances at it and smiles knowingly. The ship shown is the former
SS Normandie, which burned and sank in February 1942, leading to rumors of German sabotage. There was clever matching of the location footage with studio shots, many using
matte paintings for background, for example, in shots of the western ghost town, "Soda City". The famed Statue of Liberty sequence takes place on the torch platform, which had actually been closed to public access since the
Black Tom sabotage in 1916. A mock-up built for filming accurately depicted this part of the statue. The scene also used innovative
visual effects. In particular, Lloyd lay on his side on a black saddle on a black floor while the camera was moved from close-up to 40 feet above him, making him appear to drop downward, away from the camera. Film taken from the top of the Statue was then superimposed onto the black background. There was no music scored for the film's climactic Statue of Liberty scene or the Radio City sequence; instead, Hitchcock let these scenes carry on their own. For example, in the Radio City scene, Hitchcock combined action shown on the theater screen (including gunshots) with the action in the theater. The contrast of the large screen images with the shootout below encompassed the audience into the action and was one of the more effective scenes in
Saboteur. Hitchcock makes his
trademark cameo appearance about an hour into the film (1:04:37), standing at a kiosk in front of Cut Rate Drugs in New York as the saboteurs' car pulls up. In his book-length interview with
François Truffaut (Simon & Schuster, 1967), Hitchcock says he and Parker filmed a cameo showing them as the elderly couple who see Cummings and Lane hitchhiking and drive away, but that he decided to change that shot to the existing cameo. Scripting, pre-production, and principal photography on
Saboteur wrapped in 15 weeks, the fastest Hitchcock had ever worked. By January 1942, the film was in post-production. Early in April,
Saboteur was "redflagged" by officials in the
War Office who had concerns about the scene involving the
SS Normandie (renamed
USS Lafayette). Regarding this scene, Hitchcock said: "the Navy raised hell with Universal about these shots because I implied that the
Normandie had been sabotaged, which was a reflection on their lack of vigilance in guarding it." Despite the official objections, the scene remained in the final film.
Saboteur was premiered in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 1942, with Hitchcock, Cummings and Lane, along with 80 U.S. Senators and 350 U.S. Congressmen, in attendance. the board invited Hollywood designers, including
Travis Banton,
Walter Plunkett,
Irene Saltern, and
Vera West, to create fashions that complied with the new restrictions on fabric. Saltern's designs for the contest were then used for Priscilla Lane's costumes in
Saboteur.
Use of irony and symbolism Hitchcock made use of irony on numerous occasions in
Saboteur. For example, early in the film, the authorities are seen as menacing, while the well-respected rancher and kind grandfather is an enemy agent. In contrast, only ordinary folks and the down-on-their-luck perceive Kane's innocence and offer trust: a long-haul truck driver, a blind householder and the
circus freaks. In New York City, wealthy Mrs. Sutton is secretly funding an enemy group.
Saboteur is an early example of the distrust of authority that is one of Hitchcock's hallmarks. The plot structure of the film, with the falsely accused man having to go undercover and track down the real crooks/spies whilst criss-crossing the US, and the final fight high up on an iconic American monument (and with the hero assisted here by his lady), clearly prefigure
North by Northwest, filmed almost twenty years later. These parallels are openly discussed in Truffaut's famous book of interviews with him,
Hitchcock/Truffaut, in the pages dealing with the earlier film, and when Truffaut notes that
North by Northwest was a kind of remake of the older film, Hitchcock confirms: "Yes". Driving along the New York waterfront, Kane's car passes the capsized hulk of the liner
SS Normandie, an ominous warning of what could happen if the conspirators succeed in their plans. The final battle symbolizing tyranny against democracy takes place on the torch of the Statue of Liberty. ==Reception==