ah and hitchcock . it hard to find a bad hitchcock movie until he lose it after the bird ( 1963 ) and saboteur prove the point . have admire most of this director work for many year and i have manage to skip this one and perhaps from lack of interest in priscilla lane and robert cummings a lead actor . i be of course familiar with the statue of liberty climax from have see it repeatedly in film retrospective but i wrongly assume the story lead up to it might not hold my interest . be i wrong . the suspenseful plot get cook right off the bat through a chance encounter between the bad guy saboteur and the good guy wrongly accuse protagonist and continue zoom along through a series of further chance encounter and narrow escape . familiar hitchcockian element be all there represent the innocent person wrongly accuse of a crime while people not be what they seem to be while dramatic or unlikely location that intensify the suspenseful scene be play out within them ( an airplane hangar and a ranch and a bridge from which the handcuffed hero hurl himself to escape the police and a sumptuous charity ball in a palatial mansion and an upper floor of a skyscraper and and finally the torch of the statue of liberty ) . throughout be humor provide by support player and generous dollop of early ww2 vintage social comment and moment of human warmth where suffer people find it within themselves to lend a hand to help a fellow human and get nothing in return in short and there be always a basic humanity at the core of hitchcock and however grisly the trapping a sensational cast of support player and chiefly otto kruger a the slick villain this side of george sander ( his broadway credit include the male lead in noel coward private life and that say it all ) and weaselly norman lloyd a the titular saboteur and not to mention alma kruger no relation to otto a a prominent society dowager involve in fifth column intrigue ( her character foreshadow that of claude rain mother in notorious ) . priscilla lane do a fine job with a difficult role . for most of her early scene we can not tell whether she believe the hero to be innocent or guilty and she seem constantly to shift her opinion and not come over to his side fully until late in the proceeding . one can not ascertain whether her acting be at fault or whether we be mean to be keep in a state of uncertainty and but the plot development be so swift and fun and clever that we really do not care what she think . then there be the peculiar hitchcock touch that have nothing to do with the plot . twice the lane character pause to get change for a quarter once to reimburse her kidnapper for an ice cream soda and again to make a call from a phone booth . why these scene be insert be anybody guess and perhaps to make the film seem more realistic and thus heighten the believability and suspense . or perhaps to give the audience a moment to catch it breath . some of the character be over the top the garrulous truck driver and the impossibly kind and trusting blind man live alone in a spotlessly maintain forest cabin and the political philosophy spout human skeleton and other member of the circus caravan who hide the protagonist from their pursuer .