Sabotage, released in the United States as The Woman Alone, is a 1936 British espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, and John Loder. It is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel The Secret Agent, about a woman who discovers that her husband, a London shopkeeper, is a terrorist agent. Sabotage should not be confused with Hitchcock's film Secret Agent, which was also released in 1936, but which instead is loosely based on two stories in the 1927 collection Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. It also should not be confused with Hitchcock's film Saboteur (1942), which includes the iconic fall from the torch of the Statue of Liberty which presaged the Mount Rushmore scene in North by Northwest (1959). In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine ranked the film 44th best British film ever. In 2021, The Daily Telegraph ranked the film at No. 3 on its list of "The 100 best British films of all time". Plot In London, sand is put into the bearings of an electrical generator, causing a power blackout. At a cinema owned by Karl Verloc (Oscar Homolka), people demand their money back. Verloc enters through a back entrance to the living quarters above. He washes sand from his hands, but when his wife (Sylvia Sidney) comes for him, he pretends to have been asleep. He instructs her to refund the money, saying he has "some money coming in" anyway. As the money is about to be disbursed to the customers downstairs, the lights go back on. The next day, Verloc meets his contact. They are part of a gang of terrorists from an unnamed European country who are planning a series of attacks in London, though no exact motive is made clear. Verloc's contact is disappointed that the newspapers mocked the short loss of electricity, and instructs Verloc to place a parcel of "fireworks" at the Piccadilly Circus tube station on Saturday, during the Lord Mayor's Show. Verloc is not comfortable with killing, but his contact says to get someone else to do it. Verloc is given the address of a bird shop, whose owner also makes bombs. Scotland Yard suspects Verloc's involvement in the plot and has placed Detective Sergeant Ted Spencer (John Loder) undercover as a greengrocer's helper next to the cinema. He