Red hair spells danger... Peeping Tom (1960), BFI Restoration, Cinema Unbound

 

This screening showcased a sparkling digital screening of the BFI's new 4k restoration of Michael Powell’s controversial big budget masterwork and it was followed by a discussion panel involving Archer’s expert Ian Christie, filmmaker Carol Morley and fashion designer John Foley, hosted by Doesn’t Exist magazine’s editor, Victor Fraga. Two shibboleths were dismantled, the first by Ian and concerning Peeping Tom being the film that basically ended Powell’s career. As he pointed out, Powell’s career had already been in trouble before Peeping Tom and not just because of the Honeymooners (1959); the kinds of films Powell wanted to make were at odds with the cinema of angry young men (and women) and he wasn’t about to make a Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, A Taste of Honey or Room at the Top. The Archers had made two crowd-pleasing war films for their last two collaborations but when it came to magical realism and post-expressionism, the early 60’s were not welcoming.

Another point Christie made was that far from ending his career, Peeping Tom was an enduring statement of his talent that would be picked up in the late 1970, 80s and 90s by film studies departments. Indeed, Carol Morley remembers watching it for the first time as she screened it at St Martins. Mr Fraga seemed intent on asking about the male gaze and the film’s treatment of women, whether such a film could still be made, and Carol’s was the voice we needed to hear on this question, remining us that Peeping Tom is restrained in its violence and that so many contemporary dramas offer sexualised violence against women regularly and on mainstream television too.

Ian Christie, Carol Morley, John Foley and Victor Fraga

Her point is also that here, as elsewhere, Powell’s women have agency and are not just victims, tokens or plot devices. Anna Massey’s Helen, Redhead no. 1, is the film’s hero and, when finally confronted with the horrific crimes of Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm), she doesn’t runaway, she doesn’t cower, she wants to know why he has done these things and her force of personality provides Mark with the only unconditional support he has ever experienced in a life ruined by the cruel experimentation of his father (Michael Powell… yes, of course). As Carol points out, the men are largely rubbish, the Police not enquiring enough, the film-within-a-film Director (Esmond Knight) seemingly incapable of motivating his female star, Diane, Redhead No. 3 (Shirley Anne Field, so vibrant here and sadly, now just today she has passed… what a fabulous talent and an amazing career she had) and the consumer of under-the-counter pornography who looks remarkably like a certain director (Miles Malleson, take a bow sir!).

There was some debate about whether the title was appropriate given that Mark doesn’t really fit the traditional model of a Peeping Tom but then surely, it’s the audience who are Peeping Tom’s too along with the director who, was perhaps reflecting on his contemporary from Hackney who once stated that he wanted to turn the audience into voyeurs. Carol Morley referenced the origin of the phrase, Tom the only one in Coventry who looked at Lady Godiva. Like Tom, Mark just has to “look” and, so do we.

RIP, Shirley Anne Field (1938-2023)

One of the subjects of that business, the renowned Pamela Green (don’t tell me you don’t know her…) plays a world-weary model called Milly and sees through every male gaze in her direction. Murderee and Redhead number 2. Vivian (Moira Shearer) expresses the intelligence and clear talent that have been overlooked by the film company whilst dancing for her would-be killer; yet another director who just wants her to react to his prompting, a Lermontov… a Powell. Given their history, it is interesting to see Moira dancing for Powell again and by this stage she’d decided to not only dance but live and had married and had four children. She danced here and again in the French film Black Tights (1961) and we’ll simply never know why she wanted to dance but she was an incredible talent and person.

Insert subliminal message here: go watch The Red Shoes, go read Pamela Hutchinson’s wonderful book on The Red Shoes… then go watch The Red Shoes over again and repeat.

Anyone who has already followed one of both of those instructions could see a film like Peeping Tim coming, the intensity of the men around Shearer’s character, Victoria is controlling, passionate and bordering on the indecent. You can see both films as not such much an exploitation but an exposure of the damage the obsessive male gaze can do and, if Moira ever wanted an apology from Mickey, here it partly is.

Carl Boehm and Anna Massey

Sadly Vivian – not Vicky – dies in vain as Mark is not satisfied with her demise on camera and goes off in search of another victim. It’s not that they must die but that they must die in the way he wants. He’s a relentless perfectionist, with his own rules and that cruel upbringing, guiding him ever onward to record the perfect, most cruel and terrifying death imaginable. This is what his own upbringing has brought him too and when he plays his father’s recordings of incessant cruelty to his childhood self, Helen feels pity and even love. Forgiveness perhaps not but understanding and sympathy… no wonder contemporary critics were so aghast. Is it so much to ask the audience to reach out to this murderous character at the same time?

All of which is why Ian Christie is right, how many have created so many timeless pieces of work with a supremely talented collaborator such as Emeric Pressburger and then gone on to make a film of this depth and quality? As ever, it’s about what we have seen and not what we might have seen and we are lucky that we not only have the very best of Powell but so many of his other solo efforts that only hint at what’s to come and what has gone.

"'ere mate, got any copies of Sight and Sound?"

I'm a location saddo so today I went to Newman Passage where the first murder takes place and it's pretty much unchanged, well, apart from the lack of police presence and crowds trying to glimpse the body as Mark calmly records everything...

I think the studio were up for anything.. Cert X

Conny and Valerie II - Contraband (1940), BFI, Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger

Powell and Pressburger’s second film was also their second with Conrad Veidt and intended to be a follow-up to their first, The Spy in Black (1939). Released in May 1940, it was a propaganda film aimed at highlighting Britain’s readiness for action during what was still The Phoney War, with volunteer sailors beefing up the Royal Navy to help in protecting out extended coastlines and preventing the wrong kind of goods, contraband, from ending up in enemy hands.

It's a stirring film that also re-unites Veidt with his SIB co-star, the vibrant Valerie Hobson and for both Powell quotes Pressburger as having written “… two stunning parts… which they simply could not refuse, even if England were to be invaded the next morning.” It’s another one of those films in which Hungarian and Kentish humour percolates through and the two leads are entangled in a sure fire rom-com scenario from their meet-cute when Valerie’s Mrs. Sorensen refuses to put her life jacket on only to be threatened with being put in irons by Veidt’s Danish merchant seaman Captain Andersen. He might be joking but don’t worry fans of human bondage, they’ll be tied up together later in the film.

Hobson has been a revelation to me, I’m way behind on 30s-40s British film, and although I have seen her in Great Expectations and Kind Hearts and I know that she had a very unfortunate second marriage to a certain John Profumo, whom she never gave up on. Here she is just about 23 and for a girl from County Antrim, sounding very English, and matching the embodiment of Weimar cinema, 47, blow for blow as the kind of confident female lead war seems to bring out in British cinema: she can look after herself, is forthright and decisive and only gets caught by the Captain if she wants to.

Conrad Veidt

This season is also highlighting Pressburger’s writing – I know, I know, late to the party… - with the programme notes quoting Powell’s A Life in Film and Emeric’s grandsons providing ample evidence of the family skillset: they’re both filmmakers of note. Having now seen 11 of the surviving 13 Powell “quota quickies” you can appreciate the impact the Hungarian had on their collaborations. Certainly, Spy in Black showed his instant success in turning a predictable story into an exciting one with edgy male and female leads. Powell appreciated Pressburger’s novelistic range and there’s no doubt that he fills his characters with so much personality and purpose his decade in German film being well spent.

The film moves quickly and manages to balance its drama with a light touch and it’s great to see Veidt in such a role, cracking jokes, being somewhat relaxed and playing a hero for once. His freighter Helvig is stopped in the channel by the Royal Navy who send them for cargo inspection at what were termed Contraband Control Ports. All his well but their cargo full of iodine is “contraband” and has to be cleared before they can proceed to Denmark. They must wait a night in port and, as Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin would later demonstrate, a lot can happen to a sailor in just a few hours on shore.

Valerie Hobson in a hat

Firstly, the troublesome Mrs. Sorensen steals Anderson’s landing passes along with and spivvy “talent scout” called Mr Pidgeon (Esmond Knight). Knowing he’ll be in a lot of trouble without them, he sets off with first mate Axel Skold (Hay Petrie), to track them down to London via the train to Victoria. He finds both on the train and, after Pidgeon flies away, sticks to Mrs S like a glue man.

 

From this point the film becomes something of a travelogue for London in the Blackout, with the couple eventually united and trying to find their way across town using torches and taxis in a shadowed capital bracing itself for what may come. Mrs S has had a very suspicious phone call with her Aunt in Chester Square, filmed in that very square, and there’s more geography to come as Anderson takes his new companion to dine at the restaurant of Skold's brother Erik (also Hay Petrie), where there’s lots of funny business as Danish food is delivered in copious amounts and the Captain explains the significance of his fob watch and its Danish sailor song. The characters are rooted in another country, neutral at this time, which, all things considered, is odd. But they knew what they were doing.

 

Our heroes are tied up at the moment.

All the while the Captain is checking this watch as the clock counts down on the train they must catch at Victoria but they soon find themselves with even more serious worries when they are captured at her aunt’s house by a group of German spies led by Van Dyne (Raymond Lovell), who knows Mrs. Sorensen is a British spy after an incident in Düsseldorf. Away to the elaborate hide out where the interrogation begins as Van Dyne tries to establish ways of making our girl talk.

 

Powell marvelled at Alfred Junge’s work on the set for this hideout and the final third of the film is played out here as our heroes try to escape and prevent the German’s from spreading deadly misinformation. After the two escape they enlist his countrymen from the restaurant to try and locate the secret base, knowing it’s next to a cabaret with a singing man playing a ukelele and in a certain direction based on Anderson’s reading of the stars… they pore over the map calling out locations from Piccadilly to Soho; the old town ain’t changed that much! All is set for a fast-paced finale and lots of West End frolics, one of which originally featured a young Deborah Kerr as a cigarette girl… Mickey was suitably impressed.

 

There's also some very funny business in the workshop next to the hideout where busts of Neville Chamberlain are manufactured. As Powell said, Mr Peace in Our Time was already a laughing stock by ths stage and the delays in the film's release only increased the dark humour of the former Prime Minister's likeness being shot at by enemy agents and, when he uses one to knock out one of the baddies, Veidt says "they always said he was tough..."

Pieces in our time... Neville and Conny

Contraband is less cohesive than The Spy in Black, and less suspenseful but it’s still enjoyable given the two leads chance to play off each other and for the writer and director to evolve their technique. It’s another step on the way to the more playful and deeper efforts of Blimp and Canterbury but the War was just starting as were the Archers. Next up was a hugely successful diversion, Korda’s epic The Thief of Bagdad (1940) for which Powell directed most of the action sequences and the famous Genie section, along with several others as production was switched to the US following the outbreak of the Blitz. There was nothing phoney about the war from this point onwards and the cinema had to reflect this more and more.

Andrew Moor argues in Powell and Pressburger, a Cinema of Magic Spaces, that these early films show a more Germanic influence, unsurprisingly given Pressburger’ s background and Powell’s time at UFA, and even treat British soil as “alien”, certainly for the main protagonists. Only after the war progressed do the two start addressing Britain as “home”, given the needs of a patriotic industry supporting the home front. That said, this England and Scotland, will be one full of strangeness and wonder and there will always be sympathetic, humanity from around the globe, friends and enemies alike.

An expressionist flurry as Conrad awakes from a dream

Ice cool as the Nazi spies put the pressure on

Imperious

Hay Petrie in hospitality mode.

The film was called Blackout in the US, which Powell preferred.