Abstract
This chapter focuses on the image of a ruined London double-decker bus in Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage of 1936. The author, a Londoner, explains that the shot recalled for her two terrorist attacks that took place in the capital city: the Aldwych bus bombing of 1996 and the July 7 bombing on Southampton Row in 2005. Finding the film surprisingly shocking, she undertakes an investigation to find out what the reaction to the scene was at the time the film was released and discovers a history of rejection, as well as attempts to understand what Hitchcock was trying to achieve with the scene. Working through a number of essays she concludes that the film must have been pivotal in Hitchcock's development towards coherent but closed narratives that shut out direct references to the politics of the wider world outside.