.Saboteur (1942)Is there anything better than the cross-cutting between that eensy splitting seam of fabric and that grand sweeping vista of life and death on top of the Statue of Liberty? You might even say that the entire country's fat...
.Saboteur (1942)Is there anything better than the cross-cutting between that eensy splitting seam of fabric and that grand sweeping vista of life and death on top of the Statue of Liberty? You might even say that the entire country's fate itself is hanging by a thread (wokka wokka). Seriously though it's all so masterful, from conception to shoot to edit. Pure Eisenstein up in the hizzouse.Anyway I wanted to do something America themed since it's Memorial Day this weekend; first I was thinking of the scene on Mount Rushmore in North By Northwest, but while I was looking at that scene I realized the action itself on that set is really not all that thrillingly shot. I'm not saying it's a boring scene, or an ugly scene, or anything like that - don't stone me here. There are tons of spectacular shots that Hitch got of the giant faces from all kinds of angles, and it's edited masterfully, and the characters are all their charming Hitchy selves. But as far as money-shots go with the bad guys meeting their doom, notsomuch.It just would've been kind of tedious to look at, in the context of this series. There's some wrestling with a knife, until Cary Grant throws the dude off the edge, the end. Yawn. I know that Hitch was hoping to do more with this scene in North By Northwest - he spoke about wanting to do a gag where Cary Grant sneezed while inside of Lincoln's nose!I guess the logisitics of the location and the sets made it too difficult. He does manage to make Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint look like Presidential boogers way in the distance in the above shot though, so all's not lost.(Above: Hitch and his delightful daughter Pat with Saboteur star Robert Cummings) Back to Saboteur though. This flick's probably more appropriate a pick for Memorial Day anyway, since it deals more specifically with war (of the non-Cold sort) - World War II in this case. Our hero Barry (Cummings) has been framed for the explosion of a munitions plant - the dude who actually did the crime is the one dangling off Lady Liberty's wrist. This film is mainly remembered for that incredible sequence but it's actually one of Hitch's finest films start to finish, if you ask me. It's a ripping good yarn, told with prime Hitch panache. Most highly recommended.And here's a fun fact about Saboteur that I didn't know, via this informative write-up about the making of the film over at TCM: "Hitchcock's cameo appearance (a tradition) in Saboteur was originally going to be shared with Dorothy Parker. In the scene where an older couple drives by the hero struggling with the reluctant model on the side of the road, the director drove the car and the writer, as the wife, delivered the line, "They must be terribly in love." After watching the dailies, however, Hitchcock thought their appearance was too distracting from the story, so he re-shot it with professional actors. He then decided to cast himself in a cameo as a man using sign language to convey an apparently bold comment to a deaf woman (played by his secretary Carol Stevens), who promptly slaps him. But the studio thought that would be offensive to people with hearing disabilities, so Hitchcock decided to make his cameo extremely brief, appearing at the window of a drugstore. Blink and you'll miss him."Hitch also apparently wanted the leads of the film to be Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, but couldn't get them - I'll try not to think about how freaking incredible that could have been since I'm heaping praise on the movie instead. (But WOW can you imagine???)All of the Previous Ways Not To Die after the jump... -------------------------------------- Horns of Plenty... Dead! -- Mistress-And-Run -- Wolverine Interrupted -- Who Let The Guts Out -- Zzzapped Innards-Side-Out -- Bad Romance -- Twas Beauty (And Also Aeroplanes) -- Bad Head -- Valentine's Day Massacred -- Belly Buster -- For Being Not The Babysitter -- Splat In Slo-Mo -- To Be Dis-Continued -- For Being Mouthy -- Do You Smell What Billy's Mom Is Cooking
