Juno and the Paycock (1930)/Sabotage (1936)

  More of Hitchcock's morality on display.

The Boyle family of Dublin have their share of troubles.  Captain Boyle (Edward Chapman) would rather drink with his buddies than work, a fact his wife Juno (Sara Allgood) despises.  But when a young English lawyer (John Longden) informs them that they're coming into some money from a rich distant relative, they finally see a way to put it all behind them.  They start buying things on credit and turning away from all their old companions.  Unfortunately, the lawyer turns out to be a lying bastard who told every single relative the dead guy ever had that they were going to get the inheritance.  He absconds back to England, leaving young Mary Boyle (Kathleen O'Regan) knocked up and the will tied up in probate.  Meanwhile, the Boyles' son Johnny (John Laurie) is executed by the IRA for informing. 

I wasn't expecting this story since I thought (silly me) that it was going to be more of an allusion to the title, which harks back to the mythical goddess Juno who had the eyes of her faithful servant Argos put onto the peacock's tail as a constant reminder of her husband's infidelity.  It takes forever to get into the story and the accent is hard to penetrate.  I'd say give this one a pass.

  This is a much more straightforward film that doesn't feel nearly as long as the previous one.  

When the lights go out in London, most people assume it's a malfunction.  The police know it's a deliberate act of sabotage and they're pretty certain they know who did it.  Mr. Verloc (Oskar Homolka) is a theater-owner by day but an undercover agent next door at the greengrocer's (John Loder) thinks he's also a terrorist.  Complicating matters is the presence of Verloc's young wife (Sylvia Sidney) and her little brother (Desmond Tester).  The cop is reasonably sure she has nothing to do with the plot but how much of that certainty is based on her pretty face?

There is a great suspenseful sequence around the last third of the movie where Verloc has sent the little brother off to deliver a package.  The boy doesn't realize he's carrying a bomb set to go off at 1:45 and has no real rush to arrive at his destination.  The camera does quick shots of clock faces, counting down the times, making you wonder if he's going to be a victim or get away.  Then, later, there's at least one great shot of Sylvia Sidney scanning the crowd for her brother's face.  She sees him, but at the last second he turns into someone else.  It's not a great film by Hitchcock standards but it's a lot closer.