Blackout (1940)

Early in World War II, Danish sea captain Andersen, delayed in a British port, tangles with German spies.

Director:

Michael Powell

Writers:

Emeric Pressburger (original story & screenplay), Michael Powell (scenario)

Stars:

Conrad Veidt, Valerie Hobson, Hay Petrie

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Conrad Veidt	...	Capt. Andersen
Valerie Hobson	...	Mrs. Sorensen
Hay Petrie	...	Axel Skold / Erik Skold
Joss Ambler	...	Lt. Cmdr. Ashton, RNR
Raymond Lovell	...	Van Dyne
Esmond Knight	...	Mr. Pidgeon
Charles Victor	...	Hendrick
Phoebe Kershaw	...	Miss Lang
Harold Warrender	...	Lt. Cmdr. Ellis, RN
John Longden	...	Passport Officer
Eric Maturin	...	Passport Officer
Paddy Browne	...	Singer in 'Regency'
Henry Wolston	...	First Danish Waiter
Julian Vedey	...	Second Danish Waiter
Sidney Monckton	...	Third Danish Waiter (as Sydney Moncton)

Storyline

This is the tale of life in a British port in the first year of World War II. Spies and smugglers abound in the blackout and unreal shore life of the "phoney war" (before the shooting started).

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Plot Keywords:

soho london | london england | espionage | british noir | spy | 

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Taglines:

Stop that man and woman! His mission is deadlier than that of the enemy in the sky. Her beauty is a dangerous weapon of war!

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Romance | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English Danish

Release Date:

29 November 1940 (USA)

Also Known As:

Blackout

Filming Locations:

Chester Square, Belgravia, London, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

GBP47,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

British National Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

92 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The first film that Deborah Kerr worked on. She played a cigarette girl in one of the nightclubs visited. But although she impressed everyone, her scene ended up on the cutting room floor.

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Quotes

Captain Anderson: The bigger the ship, the smaller the adventure. The smaller the ship, the bigger the adventure. But you wouldn't understand that. Because you have childish ideas about life. Because like so many women you live only for little excitements like, er...
Mrs.Sorensen: Like what?
Captain Anderson: Well, like going out every night, somewhere new, somebody new. Right?

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Crazy Credits

"White Negro" caberet designed & executed by Hedley Briggs.

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Alternate Versions

Eight minutes were cut from Contraband for its U.S. release; some just snips here and there, others more major. The most regrettable loss is the opening minutes of Veidt's and Hobson's table scene at the Three Vikings Restaurant, which in the U.S. version begins at the point when Veidt and Hobson begin drinking together and look at Veidt's watch. Another cut sequence shows black male dancers and white female dancers in a nightclub production number [The "White Negro" cabaret designed & executed by Hedley Briggs], a racial combination that would have outraged much of white America at the time, especially in the Southern states.

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Connections

References Dr. Mabuse the Gambler (1922)

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Soundtracks

Canteen Con
(uncredited)
Music by Richard Addinsell
Lyrics by Paddy Browne
Sung by Paddy Browne

User Reviews

A delightful war time romantic romp, with just a touch of healthy S&M

What a delightful film this is. It's true that this film is concocted out of the same ingredients of contemporary Hitchcock film - spy suspense and romance between stand offish lovers wrapped up in a crust of a comedy of manners but it's interesting to see the results from a different chef. There is even a climactic scene in a factory which makes busts of Neville Chamberlain. The little sexual mushrooms that Hitchcock likes to strew through his films are here even more perverse with particular emphasis on bondage and pain. Here is Conrad Veidt at his most affable and most romantic, hardly the same man who pisses ice cubes he was in Casablanca, his most indelible role. Valerie Hobson is the perfect combination of repressed middle class woman and devil may care adventuress. They have a brilliant chemistry together, sort of a neo-lithic Steed and Peel. It remains to be seen if any film today can ever capture this type of pairing, with the forthcoming MR. & MRS. SMITH (itself an old Hitchcock title) promising a cartoon like special effects and martial arts based attempt at mutual destruction. O tempes, o mores.

The action can be a little more than the merely concocted. As in farce, people do certain things in certain ways, its seems, just to keep the story moving along. So there are massive plot holes. Its the old John Ford story, about why he didn't have the Indians simply shoot the horses in STAGECOACH (if they did there wouldn't be a movie!). There was another reason d'etre for CONTRABAND - wartime British propaganda.

CONTRABAND was made with the co-operation of two British Government ministries including the Office of Economic Warfare. It would seem that one film's goals was to create a positive sympathy among Scandinavians by having the lions share of defeating the Nazi spy ring accomplished by the hereto neutral Danes handily recruited from a restaurant evocatively named The Viking. This British hope of support was before the German invasion of Denmark and the instantaneous crumbling of Danish military defenses. The climactic fight in the factory making heroic busts of Neville Chamberlain was not meant to be ironic (a bust is used to knock out a spy followed with a Bond like quip "They said he was tough."). It is doubtful that two government ministries would have co-operated with a film which made fun of the Prime Minister during wartime. In fact all Civil servants and serving military men are seen as competent, thoughtful efficient and humane. But all of these elements are held subtly in the background, as is a virtual encyclopedia of ordinary life in London, especially the demands of the blackout.

However all these are subsidiary interests to the real focus of the film, the relationship between Veidt and Hobson. In many way this was a repackaging of their pairing in a previous Powell film, THE SPY IN BLACK, which ends, in romantic terms, unsatisfactorily, i.e. she goes back to her husband and he dies. Here they go on together, no doubt spending the next few years giving the Jerrys conniption fits, in and out of bondage. Oh yes. There is bondage, perhaps even freakier than in a Hitchcock film. There is no mistaking the B&D complete with a pillar.The good old days when you could get right to the edge and it would be read as merely the hero and heroine being tied up but no mistake, this is the real thing.