In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based on where my interests lead me and what’s available from the public library.
It’s the rare film that can torpedo the career of its director, nearly do the same for its lead actor, and also be recognized as a masterpiece, but Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) managed all three. Not simultaneously, of course: the career destruction came first and the recognition decades later. Both responses speak to the power of this film, because if it had it been mediocre, no one would have really cared about it.
Peeping Tom doesn’t keep us in suspense regarding its lead character, Mark Lewis (Carl Böhm, a.k.a. Karlheinz Böhm): in the film’s opening minutes we see him accost, surreptitiously film, and murder a streetwalker (Brenda Bruce). Then he goes home to calmly review the film in his private screening room; when the police come to remove the body, he films that also. Mark’s entire life revolves around photography: he works days as a focus puller on a film crew, and he has a sideline shooting pin-up shots for soft-porn magazines (“girls on the front covers, and no front covers on the girls”).
How did this shy, polite young man (seriously, he wears a duffel coat!) arrive at this particular combination of employment and avocation? Pushed by an inquisitive neighbor (a radiant Anna Massey), Mark reveals he was used as a test subject by his psychologist father (Michael Powell; young Mark is played by Powell’s son, which some critics took as yet another reason to condemn the director), who would deliberately frighten him and film his reactions (shades of the infamous “Little Albert” experiments carried out by John Watson at Johns Hopkins University). Mark is just taking it a notch further, and that proves to be unfortunate, particularly for the women around him.
Peeping Tom is an astonishing film that doesn’t lose its power upon repeated viewings. Powell was at the height of his powers when he directed it, as was screenwriter Leo Marks: every scene fulfills its purpose, from a comical early scene with Miles Malleson as a customer for the “views” sold under the counter at the local newsstand to the chilling denouement, which concludes this story in the only way possible. Powell’s expressive use of color is superb, and the slightly stagey quality of the story is expertly captured by cinematographer Otto Heller (the opening scene is so obviously set on a soundstage that it might as well be early television).
Sadly, neither critics nor the general public could see this film for the masterpiece it is when it was first released: it was a financial failure (although the sex angle seems to have provided some box office draw) and was widely panned in the press, who nearly wore out their thesauri finding new ways to express how disgusted they were with it. When you get a reaction like that, you know you’re doing something right, but that was little consolation for Powell, who never worked again in the British film industry (Martin Scorsese eventually rescued him from a life of penury, as detailed in the documentary Made in England).
I suspect the reason Peeping Tom elicited such a strong negative reaction upon its initial release has to do with the question of just who is the “peeping Tom” of the title: the lead character could easily have been named Thomas, but he’s not, and anyway he’s more of a serial killer that someone who confines his efforts to looking in at windows. No, in this case it’s the audience who are the voyeurs, and no one likes to see themselves in that role. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 58
Technical details: 101 minutes; color; screen ratio 1.66:1; English.
Edition reviewed: Blu-ray edition (single disc)
Extras: audio commentaries by film scholar Ian Christie and film scholar Laura Mulvey; 2007 introduction by Martin Scorsese; interview with film editor Thelma Schoonmaker; 2005 documentary featuring Scorsese, Schoonmaker, Columba Powell, and Christie; documentary about screenwriter Leo Marks; 2023 documentary about restoring the film; trailer; pamphlet with essay by Megan Abbott.
Fun Fact: Some consider this to be the first ever slasher film.
Parting Thought: Which is more common: a director’s career is ruined by a really bad film, or a director’s career is ruined by a really good film (like this one) that people just weren’t ready for?