The Woman Alone

This loose adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novel “The Secret Agent” is one of the high-water marks of Alfred Hitchcock’s early British period. Sylvia Sidney is the unsuspecting wife of a London cinema owner (Oskar Homolka) whom a Scotland Yard detective (John Loder) comes to believe is behind a string of terrorist attacks. The gripping centerpiece—involving a boy, a film canister, and a ticking time bomb—stands as one of the most heart-stopping moments of pure suspense in all of Hitchcock. (Criterion)