Sabotage and The Secret Agent

Recently I read the Joseph Conrad novel The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale. The book tells the tale of an ordinary man who gets caught up in London's anarchist community in the late 19th century.

I had seen 1996's The Secret Agent starring Bob Hoskins, Patricia Arquette, Gerard Depardieu, Christian Bale, Robin Williams, and Eddy Izzard a couple of years ago. This film was well worth watching and true to the Conrad book. In fact, the movie spurred me to read the book.

Last night I watched Alfred Hitchcock's 1936 film Sabotage based on the Conrad novel. Starring were Sylvia Sidney and Oscar Homolka. I was delighted to stumble upon this old film and looked forward to watching it. I was disappointed that this movie did not stay very faithful to the book. This movie was rather superficial and the characters were not well developed. Had I not known something of the characters going in, I wouldn't have understood the motivations behind some of the events.