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.

This Sporting Life.

Review #1792: This Sporting Life.

Cast: 

Richard Harris (Frank Machin), Rachel Roberts (Margaret Hammond), Alan Badel (Gerald Weaver), William Hartnell ("Dad" Johnson), Colin Blakely (Maurice Braithwaite), Vanda Godsell (Mrs. Anne Weaver), Anne Cunningham (Judith), Jack Watson (Len Miller), Arthur Lowe (Charles Slomer), Harry Markham (Wade), George Sewell (Jeff), and Leonard Rossiter (Phillips, Sports writer) Directed by Lindsay Anderson.

Review: 

"I suppose I'm the boy who stood on the burning deck whence all about he had fled. The trouble is I don't know whether the boy was a hero or a bloody idiot."

The British New Wave may have been just another style of films released in the 1960s reflecting its country, but it surely merits interest for the directors and stars that came out of its brief wake. Sure, it had similarities to the French New Wave (features imitating documentaries trying to capture a form of real life not seen in prior films in its country), but there is still something worth looking into when talking about British voices, particularly Lindsay Anderson. Anderson was born in British India in 1923. He had a scholarship for classic studies at Wadham College, Oxford before he took service in the Army as a member of the 60th King's Royal Rifle Corps and as a cryptographer. He returned to Oxford after the War and shifted his studies to English before graduating in 1948. He took up writing around this period, which included founding a magazine dedicated to film journalism in Sequence alongside people such as Karel Reisz. In the next decade, he would develop a philosophy of cinema that is referred to as "Free Cinema", in which they advocated for a British cinema that focused on being free from the constraints of demands for documentary filmmaking of the time (i.e. one that aimed for the working class to be seen on screen). From 1948 to 1967, he directed a handful of documentary short films (through funding from sources like Ford of Britain), and his earliest noticed short was Thursday's Children (1954), which he did with Guy Brenton about deaf children and their education. The two were awarded an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. He also started doing work in the theatre in 1957, which he would do on-and-off for the next three decades. Anderson had his feature directorial debut with this film, and he would follow it up with six further features and two documentaries before his death in 1994.

You have to understand that the film wasn't exactly a roaring success upon release, since producers saw that people likely preferred escapism more so than gritty or bleak realism movies. This New Wave wasn't exactly long for the world, starting with stuff like Room at the Top (1959) and ending with this film and Billy Liar (1963), all with their varying levels of "kitchen-sink realism". Of course, the British New Wave just happened to come around in the time of "Angry young men" era of playwrighting (well, sort of, since that term was coined to promote John Osborne's 1956 play Look Back in Anger). The movie is adapted from the 1960 novel of the same name, with its author David Storey (generally considered one of the writers in the "Angry young men" group) serving as screenwriter. Storey was a former rugby player before he became a novelist and playwright (incidentally, Harris was also a rugby union player in his native Ireland). Consider it like this: "kitchen sink realism" might not have rocked all of British cinema, but it did influence future directors over the next couple of decades, most notably with Ken Loach. The movie is essentially the story of a blunt instrument more than of a man. We are talking of someone who tries to express feelings with sensitivity yet can only respond with a punch for anything. It doesn't compromise at any point in its 134-minute run-time because anything else would seem like a great lie, particularly since it wants to capture what it means to see such raw emotion pour out on screen, whether on or off the rugby pitch (being familiar with football before seeing rugby being played is interesting though). It captures such a unique dynamic between Harris and Roberts, one that teeters between stormy and clumsy when it comes to the idea of togetherness. Harris (who in later life stated once that he would trade all his accolades to play with a senior team back home in Ireland) fits the bill for everything that Anderson wants from him in terms of a brute that is always fascinating to view in his attempts in bravado or even when he is clenched when singing in public (it is easy to see why he moved from supporting roles to star with this performance). He tries to move in romance like he does on the pitch in terms of force, if only because the pitch is the only place where he is in control of himself (working class or not, this is something one can see quite clear). Roberts and her balance between melancholy and abrasive when one sees her on screen against Harris, one made quite clear in the dinner scene when it comes to seeing just who they are in public. Badel and the other castmates are fairly effective in their contrast to the main two, if only because one isn't watching a movie bound to only to the rugby pitch or bound to sentimentality (Hartnell is the warmest of the folks, and it was this role that helped cast him for his most famous role in Doctor Who). The editing by Peter Taylor and cinematography by Denys Coop help in making such a starkly effective film come through in all the layers required, one that is bleak but always on the level in worthwhile entertainment. Dour or not, the best thing that can be said for this film is that it has managed to endure so well for itself in how it doesn't flinch at looking within misery that makes a winning feature film after a half century.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: Putney Swope (1969).