Saboteur (1942)

A factory worker (Robert Cummings) is accused of sabotage when an aircraft works is set on fire and an employee is killed. To prove his innocence, he escapes and travels cross country to find the real saboteur (Norman Lloyd). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this is one of his lesser films but lesser Hitchcock is nothing to sneeze at. The film comes across as a rough blueprint for Hitchcock's later (and much superior) NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959). It doesn't help that the two leads (Priscilla Lane is the female lead) are bland with no screen presence. But there are still those marvelous Hitchcock touches like the train with the circus "freaks" and the Statue Of Liberty finale. It also comes across as a WWII propaganda film with its speeches (courtesy of Dorothy Parker) about standing up to the enemy, etc. More entertaining than most propaganda films of the era but still, its agenda shows. With Otto Kruger, Vaughan Glaser, Alma Kruger, Ian Wolfe and Margaret Hayes.