MovieChat Forums > Saboteur (1942) Discussion > Enjoyed the idiosyncrasies of its bad gu...

Enjoyed the idiosyncrasies of its bad guys....

posted 17 years ago by mercutio-8
3 replies | jump to latest

"Saboteur" is a very colorful film. Among the idiosyncrasies I enjoyed were the villains:
1. The well-heeled ringmaster (Otto Kruger) who is the perfect (if a bit too smooth) paternal figure, who simultaneously is ready to finance sabotage.
2. The old coot prospector (Clem Bevans), who works for the ringmaster (and resents being in the boondocks).
3. The bespectacled, administrative bad guy (Alan Baxter), who seems to live in a parallel world while talking to others, and who is obsessed by memories of when he was a beautiful youth with long golden locks. (The car he is riding in starts - a few seconds later, surprised, he says, "Oh, we're moving", as if broken from his memory.)
4. The drivers of this car, singing"Tonight We Love", as they make their way to Manhattan.
5. Norman Lloyd's sneering, lecherous title character.

Very cool film, indeed!

[–] jkholman 12 years ago

Yep!

[–] goldenagefilmstv (178) 2 years ago

I think you mean ringleader. A ringmaster works in a circus and is sort of a circus emcee.

[–] roger1 (3876) 10 months ago

They are a creepy bunch, to be sure.

I first saw Saboteur when I was a pre-teen(NOT on 1942 release) and I remember ALL of those bad guys creeping me out. It is like Bob Cummings found himself trapped in the company of very strange men of varying types(the angelic Alan Baxter, the drunks) all of whom might kill him if they discovered his secret, all of them out to destroy America As We Know It. They seemed like "Nightmare Companions" and I couldn't wait for Cummings and Lane to escape them.

Special kudos to Otto Kruger as the ringleader. So calm and business like in his contempt for "the moron masses." So supportive of "the efficient economies of totalitarian nations."

But scariest of all: his face when showing his pearly whites. looked like a grinning SKULL.