Saboteur is a 1942 American spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock with a screenplay written by Peter Viertel, Joan Harrison and Dorothy Parker.

Aircraft factory worker Barry Kane wrongly falls under suspicion of setting fire to his Glendale, California manufacturing plant during World War II, an act of domestic sabotage.

Kane discovers that the ranch's owner, Charles Tobin, is secretly collaborating with a group of saboteurs that includes Fry.

Kane successfully poses as an accomplice and infiltrates the group, who is next planning to sabotage the launch of a new battleship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Fry flees, terrorizing a movie audience at Radio City Music Hall at gunpoint, and eventually taking the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.

[6] He settled on Robert Cummings who had a new contract with Universal, while Priscilla Lane was borrowed from Warner Bros. although her scenes had to wait while she finished Arsenic and Old Lace, a production that was eventually shelved until its 1944 release.

[7] In November 1941, Universal announced that Hitchcock would make the film for the studio, and it would be produced by Frank Lloyd and Jack Skirball.

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.

"[9] Filmink later wrote "it’s clear Cummings didn’t command the screen as well as a Gary Cooper or Joel McCrea (who Hitchcock wanted); nonetheless he and Lane bring a fresh-faced young enthusiasm to their performances.

It was originally meant to finish with a climax at the movie theatre which was showing Abbott and Costello's film Ride 'Em Cowboy.

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.

[11] 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.

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."

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.

[24] Driving along the New York waterfront, Kane's car passes by the capsized hulk of the liner SS Normandie, an ominous warning of what could happen if the conspirators succeed in their plans.

"[27] Crowther commented that "so abundant [are] the breathless events that one might forget, in the hubbub, that there is no logic in this wild-goose chase"; he also questioned the "casual presentation of the FBI as a bunch of bungling dolts, [the film's] general disregard of authorized agents, and [its] slur on the navy yard police", all of which "somewhat vitiates the patriotic implications which they have tried to emphasize in the film.