Peeping Tom – Special Editin (Optimum Releasing R2 UK)

Peeping Tom aka Face Of Fear, The Fotographer Of Panic

1959 – United Kingdom

Directed by Michael Powell

“Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is …?”

It’s sad but true that sometimes in life things simply aren’t fair; nice guys do finish last, the “hero” doesn’t always get the girl and yes, the good do die young.

Add to this list of life’s unfair misfortunes those who don’t receive the credit they’re truly due, such as in the case of director Michael Powell. Throughout the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s Powell was one of the key British directors of his era, loved by critics and audiences alike, praised for his long lasting working partnership with writer / producer Emeric Pressburger on major films such as A Canterbury Tale, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes.. A directorial track record that would seem almost untarnished and almost beyond reproach.

This winning streak came to a grinding halt in 1959 upon the release of Powell’s masterpiece, Peeping Tom. A film that although released literally three months before Hitchcock’s highly praised and in some ways similar themed landmark, Psycho, was unfairly shunned by audiences and disowned by its distributor, as it was torn down, scorned and denounced by outraged critics of the day. This backlash from all quarters all but prematurely ended the career of Powell who never truly worked again in the UK, instead moving to Australia to work on far more low key projects to those of his glory days.

But why was Peeping Tom so vilified I hear you ask? Well, it would seem that Britain at the beginning of the 1960’s (yes, just a few years prior to the drug culture and casual sex “free love” generation) was still rather conservative and simply not ready for the ahead of its time subject matter:

A “nice” quiet young man, Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Böhm as Carl Boehm), makes his living working on film sets, and as a photographer of “views”; nude cheesecake glamour pictures of the era (one of his featured models, Milly, being famous UK 50’s Pin-up Pamela Green of Naked As Nature Intended fame, displaying the first nudity in British cinema) which are sold under the counter at local newsagents to furtive looking customers such as familiar British character actor Miles Malleson, probably best known to genre fans from Hammer Studios Dracula, Brides of Dracula, Phantom of the Opera or The Hound of the Baskervilles amongst others.

This frank dealing with the issue of pornography may have helped stir up the era’s British establishment alone, but Mark’s other favourite pastime is to walk the streets, equipped with his cine camera and, as in the film’s opening sequence, pick up young women. Here we see him approach a prostitute whom he escorts back to her abode and begins filming as she undresses, to then reveal a spiked tripod and mirror set above his camera, filming the woman as he impales her, capturing her reaction as she watches her own death. He then later watches his home-made snuff movies from the enjoyment of his own screening room, to which there is maybe an implied level of sexual gratification. This is then followed by him revisiting the scene of his crime, camera in hand as he films the police taking away the body of his victim.

Twisted and seedy? Indeed, but the film isn’t mere gratuitous gore or T&A, it was a different era from today and it’s a far, far more sophisticated and intelligent ride than mere exploitation.

The film deals very much with the nature of filming and the idea of implicating the viewer in the crime, it makes voyeurs of its audience, we by default become the “Peeping Tom”, playing upon the guilt by association complex.

A further reason that critics and audiences initially reacted so badly towards the film is maybe because Mark is not really shown as a typical villain of the piece. In Mark Lewis Powell created a character that as with Psycho’s Norman Bates, is a quiet, shy and quite awkward character that rather than being typically “evil” is the product of his environment and upbringing, so the audience is made to feel a level of uncomfortable empathy. Empathy that is stretched further as he begins an awkward romantic involvement with his downstairs lodger, Helen Stephens, an early role played by Anna Massey later seen in De Sade, Vault of Horror and Hitchcock’s Frenzy.

The film also contains a certain level of black humour and several digs at the film industry of the time, including a film-within-a-film scenario in which a director is having problems with a redheaded actress, which would seem to be a joke reference to Powell’s own less than favourable experiences with actress Moira Shearer during the filming of The Red Shoes, the joke itself not being enough, he actually cast Shearer to play the role, then obviously has Mark kill her off!

All of this was way too much for the British establishment and Peeping Tom was buried by its distributor, critics ignoring the strong visual flair and groundbreaking camera techniques Powell had employed, instead focusing upon decrying the film’s taboo subject matter. It wasn’t until the late 1970’s when people, such as director Martin Scorsese heralded the film as a lost masterpiece and sang its praises, introducing it to a new generation of more open minded viewers who could appreciate the film as a fantastic piece of art and being far ahead of its time.

As with Psycho the film can be seen as a pre-cursor to the Slasher genre, it pre-dates films such as Last House on Dead End Street in its dealing with the subject of snuff movies by over a decade and I very much doubt that hardcore gore films such as Maniac or Murder Set Pieces with their murderous cameramen would exist without there having been Peeping Tom.

This is a fantastic piece of cinema that stands as one of the finest British films ever made. If you haven’t seen this film by now, please drag yourself from your cave and do so without fail. It’s something that every self-respecting film fan should have in their collection.

Optimum Releasing’s new R2 Special Edition of Peeping Tom is nothing short of fantastic, a vast improvement on the previous UK barebones release and a more than fair rival to the R1 Criterion Edition with a crisp Anormorphic 1:78:1 presentation. I would say that if like myself you’re a big fan of the film and already own the Criterion edition, it’s still worth purchasing this new edition for the exclusive extra features alone, including:

10 / 10

This disc is available via my associates UK store.