text: An entertaining first draft for "North By Northwest", "Saboteur" has some wonderful Hitchcockian moments (one of the best occurs at a table, when the hero is asked by a woman who hasn't yet seen that he's wearing handcuffs, to give her a plate; trying to do that, he also drops a knife to the floor, exposing himself even more!) but suffers from a poorly chosen lead (whether he's delivering patriotic speeches, romancing Priscilla Lane, making jokes or trying to look worried, Robert Cummings is wooden), and from a lack of really distinct villains (oh, there are villains, many of them, but hardly anyone has enough screen time). (***)