Peeping Tom (1960)

Review #2294: Peeping Tom.

Cast:

Karlheinz Böhm (Mark Lewis; Columba Powell as young Mark Lewis), Moira Shearer (Vivian), Anna Massey (Helen Stephens), Maxine Audley (Mrs. Stephens), Brenda Bruce (Dora), Miles Malleson (elderly gentleman customer), Esmond Knight (Arthur Baden), Martin Miller (Dr. Rosan), Michael Goodliffe (Don Jarvis), Jack Watson (Chief Insp. Gregg), Shirley Anne Field (Pauline Shields), and Pamela Green (Milly, the model) Produced and Directed by Michael Powell (#400 - The Thief of Bagdad, #1367 - A Matter of Life and Death, #2062 - A Canterbury Tale)

Review: 

"I make a film that nobody wants to see and then, thirty years later, everybody has either seen it or wants to see it."

It's easy to say the critics of a certain time were just stupid with some films, particularly in horror. This is especially strange to think about when you have 1960 to look at with prominent directors dipping their toes in horror. You might remember Powell as part of the duo The Archers, where he wrote, produced, and directed a handful of classic British films together with Emeric Pressburger before he struck out on his own after they split in 1957. The movie was written by Leo Marks, who actually had served at the Special Operations Executive in World War II for cryptography (having enjoyed Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold-Bug" at a young age along with breaking his father's price code for books) before becoming a writer in plays and films, with this being his most noted. The screenplay apparently came from his perception that all cryptographers are "basically voyeurs". You might see a few similarities with this and Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho: both involve mild-mannered leads with parent problems that we follow for the film, both could be claimed as "the early slasher", and both have an interesting way of basically making one be the voyeur themselves (interestingly, the poster for this film in saying to "See it from the beginning" matches loosely with the demand of no late admission for Psycho). But Peeping Tom, released a few months before the other film...and critics treated it like it murdered their parents. Seriously, what kind of movie is controversial enough to have one guy wish they would "shovel it up and flush it swiftly down the nearest sewer"? Even a subsequent 1979 release campaign spearheaded by Corinth Films that saw money provided by Martin Scorsese (an admirer of the film back then) saw a critic call it among the "limper suspense movies". Powell directed just four theatrical films after the failure of this film, but he at least saw the vindication of the film play out before his death in 1990 at the age of 84. 

Yes, you do get your killer movie involving the camera capturing death (four in total, which come from a blade located in the tripod), but one obviously looks further when it comes to the deeper elements that come with knowing who the killer right from the get-go. Sure, you don't actually see that much violence beyond the realm of seeing people show fear for what is being shown in front of them, but I'll stake the idea that this is still a pretty unnerving horror film at any rate (others may disagree, but whatever). It has a compelling lead performance precisely because of the manner it goes to actually let one wonder just what could compel someone to be so absorbed in their pho-I mean, their camera, to see the world. I think we can find people with an obsession that seems more useful to them than being outgoing now, if you catch my idea. Hell, Powell cast himself not as the director in the film that our lead character works for, he cast himself as the little-heard but important father of the lead, one who made him a guinea pig for experiments about fear (complete with having his own son play the young kid captured in fear). Consider the way he handles a woman with a cleft palate in photographing (which he does on the side in the seedy places), where he remarks of it as a "first time". Böhm (a regular actor since the late 1940s) was apparently cast by Powell because as the son of famed Austrian composer Karl Böhm, he figured he would understand the role well when it comes to being in the shadow of one's father. Suffice to say, he sure pulled off a worthwhile performance here, inspiring curiosity over this stunted creature, one that we wonder about because of his fetish to stare isn't exactly that much different from our desire to see horror play out on camera. Powell clearly saw himself in this character, and Böhm clearly took it to heart for a sincerely sad triumph. Massey (as opposed to Shearer, who gets offed pretty quickly) actually matches well with Böhm in considerable curiosity because of her attempts at understanding such a strange creature come off convincingly to us, because her interest matches right in with our interest more than just being an ordinary last one out type. With a carefully constricted level of curiosity (101 minutes), there is plenty to recommend for a viewer to watch in the grand display of chilling patience and probing curiosity in obsession and where it could all lead to when left to one's devices. depending on where you define it in the realms of horror, it is a worth a watch at some time in someone's horror curiosities. 

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

A Canterbury Tale.

Review #2062: A Canterbury Tale.

Cast: 

Eric Portman (Thomas Colpeper), John Sweet (Acting Sgt. Bob Johnson), Dennis Price (Sgt Peter Gibbs), Sheila Sim (Alison Smith), Charles Hawtrey (Thomas Duckett), Esmond Knight (Narrator/Seven-Sisters Soldier/Village Idiot), George Merritt (Ned Horton), Edward Rigby (Jim Horton), Hay Petrie (Woodcock), Freda Jackson (Mrs Prudence Honeywood), Eliot Makeham (Church Organist), and Betty Jardine (Fee Baker) Directed, Written, and Produced by Michael Powell (#400 - The Thief of Bagdad and #1367 - A Matter of Life and Death) and Emeric Pressburger (#1367)

Review: 

A Canterbury Tale was the seventh feature film made under the company of The Archers, who I'm sure you remember is the combination of two worthy talents in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger that had started collaborating with each other that took place mostly in the 1940s, with both of them first being credited as director with One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942), after Pressburger had first written for a number of previous Powell productions. They had followed that up with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), which is often called one of the best British films made. Among the first couple of films by the two, this one was known as being just modestly successful with audiences (the next three years after 1944 were as follows: I Know Where I'm Going!, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus). Title or not, the film did accomplish one thing more than anything else in reminding me of the varied experience I had in having to talk about the Canterbury Tales in college. If you remember, those were a collection of tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 14th century that were presented as being told by a group of pilgrims travelling from London to Canterbury on their way to a shrine. The prologue of the tales even is read for the opening of the film right before one cuts from a falcon right to a spitfire. The American release apparently had 20 minutes (of a two-hour feature) cut while including narration by Raymond Massey alongside sequences with Kim Hunter. Of course, some of the tales I remember were at least amusing such as the Miller's Tale (which involves the backside), but I'm sure you know that when it comes to films of the countryside, sometimes the past really does haunt the present.

It is a three-pronged story within people of the countryside that involves folks trying to figure out just who is spraying glue on the hair of women that isn't really a mystery or really any sort of genre film. One does, however, think more of the English landscape rather than any sort of mystery about glue or where the story really will go, which is likely a testament to Erwin Hillier and his cinematography (supposedly the only thing that bugged Powell about his cinematographer was an obsession for clouds to break up a clear sky in order to start shooting). The black-and-white photography (done because of war shortages) is quite engaging to look at when it comes to this pilgrimage of ordinary folks that involve two sergeants and a member of the Women's Land Army. In their trip of circumstance and curiosity is figuring out what really matters most when looking upon the countryside in a time of need: clarity. Portman is the uniting force between the three pilgrims in mysterious graciousness that (culprit or not) reminds one of what really matters when it comes to knowledge of history and people in the countryside. Each of the key three travelers in Sweet, Sim, and Price represent the weariness that comes with travelers that perhaps need reminding of life in the countryside rather than just passing through life. Sweet was actually not an actor but instead a sergeant in the U.S. Army during the ongoing war, for which he was selected over the original idea of Burgess Meredith (who instead served as script editor). While he did try his hand at acting with the theater after the war, Sweet eventually went back to his real passion in teaching (while donating his $2,000 salary for the film to the NAACP). As such, what comes out is what you would expect for a one-time actor in terms of stiff curiosity that is about on par for what the film is asking for anyway. This proves about right for Sim and Price (each making their film debuts) when it comes to building these people up for their eventual fate in warmth, mostly for the latter, since the sequence at the Canterbury Cathedral involving the organ is probably the highlight to listen and view to. From the battle of kids playing pretend, I'm sure you can tell that this is a local passion project. Powell was from Kent, England (specifically the village of Bekesbourne), and it is evident that he made a passion project that loves the region, even if he couldn't quite shoot in the famous Canterbury Cathedral (due to bombings and preparations made in reaction to it that saw the stained-glass windows be removed), which therefore required a mix of set-work and miniature replicas. As a whole, its attempt at morale boosting may have rung a bit hollow when it first came out, but the film has endured nonetheless because of its spirit for the countryside that makes for an intimate accomplishment.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

The River (1951).

Review #1234: The River (1951).

Cast: 
Nora Swinburne (The Mother), Esmond Knight (The Father), Arthur Shields (Mr. John), Suprova Mukerjee (Nan), Thomas E. Breen (Capt. John), Patricia Walters (Harriet), Radha Burnier (Melanie), Adrienne Corri (Valerie), and June Hillman (Narrator) Directed by Jean Renoir.

Review: 
Admittedly, some films can stick out for their cast and crew, while others can stand out for their style and tone. This one does both in spades, the first color film shot in India along with the first color feature of its director. Jean Renoir (son of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir) had been a director for decades prior to this film, directing films such as La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939). By this point his career, he had spent a decade in Hollywood after fleeing invaded France in 1940. His last film had been The Woman on the Beach (1947), which had been re-edited prior to release. Renoir spent two years in India to shoot this film, for which he collaborated with Rumer Godden on converting her semi-autobiographical novel of the same name to film. Godden grew up in colonial India with three sisters for a time in her childhood; she wrote numerous fiction and nonfiction books, such as Black Narcissus and The Diddakoi, with numerous works being adapted into media (such as the 1947 film of the former). He directed the film along with serving as writer and co-producer. At hand as co-producer was a man named Kenneth McEldowney, a florist and real estate agent. He had complained about the quality an MGM film to his studio publicist wife, and she had dared him to make a better one. From 1947 to 1951, he spent his time trying to bring this film to fruition, having sold off their home and his floral shops. The resulting film opened in New York with a 34-week run at reserved-seat prices, a record for the time. McEldowney's first and only produced film proved to be a hit, and it is easy to see why that proved the case then as is now over six decades later.

It is a clear slowburn of a film, wrapped in a sense of spirituality and focus on telling a coming-of-age tale with sincerity and lack of Hollywood pretense. It flows like a river from one end to the other with a tone that spins like a globe, where life and death interweave with each other and so on. It has a mix of professional and amateur actors, such as Walters, a girl that Renoir described in his memoir as a "daughter of a man on the staff of one of the local industrial concerns" - this was her only film appearance. Hillman hadn't had a credited role on film in over a decade prior to serving as narrator for this feature. Breen was the son of film censor Joseph Breen (head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America) and he had lost his right leg due to a combat injury in World War II, and this was his last movie appearance. Knight (who was half blind after a war injury) and Swinburne had been married for several years before this feature. In any case, it certainly makes for an interesting experience to see a variety of acting take place, which goes without much of a hitch. Seeing each of the perspectives of the three growing young ladies in Walters, Burnier, and Corri in their moments with the arrival of Breen makes for some interesting moments, and Burnier comes off best in that regard, where moments don't need to spelled out in detail for a viewer to absorb it fruitfully. Through its 99 minute run-time is something that has some nice photography (with cinematography done by Claude Renoir, Jean's nephew) and diverting lighting choices with color. The others do fine with their moments on screen, with Breen's vulnerability shining through well; it isn't the kind of film that would win many acting accolades, but it is certainly one that merits a look for its vision about growth through a prism of passion and tragedy that doesn't have an easy finish for anyone. It strives for something special with a natural concept idea and lands in the middle with a fairly compelling entertaining piece that shines for the curious viewer interested enough to seek it out.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.