Peeping Tom (1960)

[David Alp]

Just watching "Peeping Tom" (1960) which was broadcast on The Horror Channel last night over here in the UK. I am watching it for the first time in about 20 years. I never realized that it was a Michael Powell film, but at the beginning of the film we have that logo of the archery board with arrows in it, the same as in those wonderful Powell & Pressburgh movies of the 1940's. Moira Shearer looks so different in this film from how she looked in "The Red Shoes" just twelve years earlier. The sixties hair-do, and the sheepskin coat etc. I worked out she would have been 33/34 when she made this film, as oppose to just 21 in The Red Shoes. She does just one dance in this film, which upon first glance seems to be free association; but of course I bet it was choreographed to the nth degree.

I think this film resembles "Psycho" in many ways. i.e. lonely young man, (damaged mentally by his parent -- in this case the father instead of the mother), goes around murdering young women in a very macabre manner. One could almost call it a British/Technicolor "Psycho".

Shearer is third billed and yet is only in a few key scenes, which mirror Janet Leigh's part in "Psycho" . (I checked their ages and Leigh was only 18 months younger than Shearer). Again mirroring "Psycho" - Shearer is killed off very early into the picture. Her death scene is less shocking than Janet Leigh's, in that we don't see any blood; we just see her horrified face through Carl Boehms amateur cine camera lens, the knife getting closer and closer; we see her screaming; and then the (studio) camera pans away to the ceiling, with only screaming being heard.

There is a brilliant bit of business early on in this film with brilliant character actor Miles Malleson going into a magazine shop and buying "under the counter" porn. He says "A friend of mine tells me you sell views?" When passed the book of "Views" (obviously of young ladies in various poses) -- he says, "Oh - how much for this one??" and "How much for that one??" and then finally -- "Oh! How much for whole book?" It's so funny -- and brilliantly played. As he leaves the owner of the shop says, "Well he won't be watching the cricket on TV tonight!".

[coolcatdaddy]

There's a UK blu-ray available of "Peeping Tom", but the color and detail is just really "off" on it. Let's hope that Criterion or someone else picks it up and does a better transfer.

I recall that "Peeping Tom" was released a few months before "Psycho" to very negative reviews and that convinced Hitchcock to not have a press screening for his film.

I can see how "Psycho" was the more successful of the two films at the time. Hitchcock's film revolves around the mystery of who is committing the murders and why; it's told from the point of view of the victim for the first half and the victim's sister and the boyfriend trying to figure out what happened in the second half.

"Peeping Tom" puts the audience in the shoes of the murderer, right from the get-go and the only mystery is what the heck he's doing to these women and why.

Hitch's approach allows the audience to step back from the action on-screen and be more of an observer, feeling nervousness about the victims or potential victims. Powell's approach is much more direct and uncomfortable for the audience, particularly with the use of color versus Hitchcock's black and white.

Oddly, I can get out "Psycho" every year or two and still feel the suspense with each scene and discover little things I didn't notice before. I kind of have to force myself to watch "Peeping Tom" - I tend to watch it more as an intellectual exercise, a little cold and harsh.

[Frederica]

I can see how "Psycho" was the more successful of the two films at the time. Hitchcock's film revolves around the mystery of who is committing the murders and why; it's told from the point of view of the victim for the first half and the victim's sister and the boyfriend trying to figure out what happened in the second half.

"Peeping Tom" puts the audience in the shoes of the murderer, right from the get-go and the only mystery is what the heck he's doing to these women and why.

Hitch's approach allows the audience to step back from the action on-screen and be more of an observer, feeling nervousness about the victims or potential victims. Powell's approach is much more direct and uncomfortable for the audience, particularly with the use of color versus Hitchcock's black and white.

Oddly, I can get out "Psycho" every year or two and still feel the suspense with each scene and discover little things I didn't notice before. I kind of have to force myself to watch "Peeping Tom" - I tend to watch it more as an intellectual exercise, a little cold and harsh.

I love P&P, but I genuinely disliked Peeping Tom. I've never felt compelled to watch it a second time.