Michael Powell’s peeky blinder
THE EMPIRE
MASTERPIECE
PEEPING TOM
WORDS NEV PIERCE
DAVID FINCHER ONCE said he
built his career on the assumption “people are
perverts”, but the same thought wrecked Michael
Powell’s. Peeping Tom — his morbid, compelling
depiction of a sensitive serial killer — was
released on 16 May 1960 in the UK. Before then,
Powell was Britain’s most respected filmmaker.
After, he barely worked again.
As the megaphone-wielding half of
a partnership with screenwriter Emeric
Pressburger, Powell had received audience and
expert acclaim for a series of classics, from The
Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp to The Red
Shoes. Peeping Tom, his second post-Pressburger
pic, received the sort of critical reception that
might now be reserved for a documentary in
which Adam Sandler barbecues puppies.“It’s a long time since a film disgusted me
as much as Peeping Tom,” wrote C.A. Lejeune
in The Observer. Derek Hill, in the Tribune,
was rather more florid: “The only really
satisfactory way to dispose of Peeping Tom
would be to shovel it up and flush it swiftly
down the nearest sewer. Even then the stench
would remain.” The funny thing is, he isn’t
entirely wrong. Peeping Tom remains a film
that makes you want to have a shower —
possibly with bleach.
The UK distributor pulled it and Powell
became persona non grata. The descent wasn’t
quite immediate — he followed Peeping Tom
with another commercial flop, The Queen’s
Guards, and that probably expedited his
filmmaking exile to Australia. The British1960 / RATED M