Blackout

In mid-July, a Dartmouth Film Society buff (Class of '69) who also happens to be a newspaperman near New York City, sent us this report:

I have the Great Blackout story, of which the one this week reminded me. I was one of the people watching the Film Society's showing of the Hitchcock film Sabotage (or Saboteur) based on Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. The film begins with a blackout in the City of London caused by anarchists. The action climax of the film involves the half-wit brother of one of the anarchists, who is carrying a parcel that he does not realize is a time bomb to Big Ben. It's to go off at 1:45. He gets held up watching clowns on the street and is riding a tram in blissful Hitchcockian ignorance. It is 1:30. We see him on the tram. It is 1:35. We see him on the tram. The clock hits 1:45. The film stops. It is only 45 minutes into the movie. We boo the Film Society. We gradually learn it's a blackout of huge dimensions. That was the eeriest experience of my life.