120 years of Alfred Hitchcock

Another wonderfully droll Hitchcock touch: one of the henchmen holding Prsicilla Lane prisoner bringing her a milkshake, her politely paying him, and his equally politely making change, as matter-of-factly as though they were office coworkers. 

As the eccentrically creepy Freeman, who speaks wistfully about his destructive tot and his own childhood curls, Alan Baxter has perhaps his finest hour. While he inhabited roles as varied as underworld types who were always referred to by nicknames and rigid military officers, Baxter was never the most expressive of actors, but his controlled playing in Saboteur suits the material perfectly, and he makes the most of such an off-the-beaten-track character.

Andrews would have been an especially good fit. I don't know if Cotten's age - with only five years on Cummings - would have been as much a problem as his innate urbanity. He would, however, have made an excellent Charles Tobin, the elegantly genial enemy ringleader played by Otto Kruger (who was excellent in his own right). 

I'm pretty sure Saboteur was the first Hitchcock film I ever saw (at no more than 10), and there was something about its colorful style, momentum and sly mixture of thrills and humor that set it apart from other films of the era. Sophisticated enough for adults yet accessible and appealing to a kid without being condescending, it made me feel smarter than I was. I recognized those same qualities when seeing North By Northwest on re-release a couple years later, and began paying special attention to this Hitchcock fellow, whom I had known up to then only as the very entertaining host of a weekly TV show, thereafter seizing on any opportunity to explore his work, which remains just as special to me now as then.