Peeping Tom (1960)
On the 29th of January 2024 The fully restored and remastered version of Michael Powell’s masterpiece Peeping Tom is out to purchase on 4K Ultra HD Disc.
Peeping Tom (1960) is one of my favourite films of all time.
Directed by one of the best English film directors that has ever lived Michael Powell.
Powell had enjoyed a career making wonderful films for 30 years directing over 50 movies.
Most famously being half of the film making team known as “The Archers” which was Powell and his production partner Emeric Pressburger. Most notably they made,
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Black Narcissus (1947)
The Red Shoes (1947)
These are all essential viewing for any self-respecting movie buff.
Other recommended titles from his filmography are
The Spy in Black (1939) spy thriller set on Orkney
I Know Where I’m going! (1945)
Probably one of the most romantic films I have ever seen (that isn’t A Matter of Life and Death)
In the late 50s, Powell started making “Peeping Tom” The script was written by Leo Marks who was an ex-WW2 British spy turned writer/poet.
The cinematographer was the massively accomplished Otto Heller who had been shooting films since 1918.
Powell produced the project himself and I think he even self-funded the movie putting up £134k of his own money.
The film is about a young man who is a psychosexual serial killer of women due to deep childhood trauma.
The killer is obsessed with film and works as a focus puller in a movie studio and he films his victims as they are dispatched.
This film was shredded by critics on its release "It stinks" said one critic, another said “It should be flushed down the sewer” and a third dismissed it as "perverted nonsense".
So… a great gifted veteran English filmmaker made a low-budget film in 1960 about a psychosexual male serial killer that shocked critics but regardless of this it became a massive hit and launched another phase of his career and he went from strength to strength over the next decade… OH SHIT NO! That was Alfred Hitchcock making “Psycho” in America.
Powell's film sank without a trace and ended his career as a director in the UK.
The film languished in obscurity until the late 70s when Martin Scorsese funded a re-discovered 35mm print to be screened in New York and started its road to being rediscovered.
It is now hailed as the classic it always has been.
Luckily Powell got to know that Peeping Tom was getting the credit it was always due before he passed away.
One of the reasons I think it jarred with critics in 1960 it was shot in colour and not only in colour they opted to shoot on Eastman Colour film which featured vivid reds almost lurid reds along with the nudity and murder in Peeping Tom it just triggered people.
Where Hitchcock to save money shot Psycho in black and white with the crew from his TV show so when he was pushing what was acceptable in mainstream cinema it was delivered wrapped in the safety blanket of black and white.
But in my opinion, Hitchcock was jealous of Powell’s Peeping Tom in a big way!
Near the end of Hitchcock's career, he made a film called “Frenzy” (1972) which is such a nod to Peeping Tom. Set in London, vivid colour, psychosexual male serial killer and he even Cast Anna Massey who starred in Peeping Tom in one of the leading roles.
In my humble opinion “Peeping Tom” is better than “Frenzy” and “Psycho”
There! I committed that to the Blog !!!
Do yourself a favour and watch Peeping Tom.
You can rent it on Amazon Prime for £2.49
