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Peeping Tom

  • 1960
  • Not Rated
  • 1h 41m
IMDb RATING
7.6/10
42K
YOUR RATING
Karlheinz Böhm, Anna Massey, and Moira Shearer in Peeping Tom (1960)
Trailer for Peeping Tom
Play trailer2:26
3 Videos
99+ Photos
Slasher HorrorDramaHorrorThriller

A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.

  • Director
    • Michael Powell
  • Writer
    • Leo Marks
  • Stars
    • Karlheinz Böhm
    • Anna Massey
    • Moira Shearer
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.6/10
    42K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Michael Powell
    • Writer
      • Leo Marks
    • Stars
      • Karlheinz Böhm
      • Anna Massey
      • Moira Shearer
    • 235User reviews
    • 126Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win total

    Videos3

    Peeping Tom
    Trailer 2:26
    Peeping Tom
    Peeping Tom - Rialto Pictures Trailer
    Trailer 1:08
    Peeping Tom - Rialto Pictures Trailer
    Peeping Tom - Rialto Pictures Trailer
    Trailer 1:08
    Peeping Tom - Rialto Pictures Trailer
    Bloody Beginnings of the Summer Camp Slasher
    Clip 7:00
    Bloody Beginnings of the Summer Camp Slasher

    Photos159

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    View Poster
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    + 154
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    Top cast44

    Edit
    Karlheinz Böhm
    Karlheinz Böhm
    • Mark Lewis
    • (as Carl Boehm)
    Anna Massey
    Anna Massey
    • Helen Stephens
    Moira Shearer
    Moira Shearer
    • Vivian
    Maxine Audley
    Maxine Audley
    • Mrs. Stephens
    Brenda Bruce
    Brenda Bruce
    • Dora
    Miles Malleson
    Miles Malleson
    • Elderly Gentleman Customer
    Esmond Knight
    Esmond Knight
    • Arthur Baden
    Martin Miller
    Martin Miller
    • Dr. Rosen
    Michael Goodliffe
    Michael Goodliffe
    • Don Jarvis
    Jack Watson
    Jack Watson
    • Chief Insp. Gregg
    Shirley Anne Field
    Shirley Anne Field
    • Pauline Shields
    • (as Shirley Ann Field)
    Pamela Green
    Pamela Green
    • Milly
    John Barrard
    John Barrard
    • Small Man
    • (uncredited)
    William Baskiville
    • Policeman
    • (uncredited)
    Keith Baxter
    Keith Baxter
    • Det. Baxter
    • (uncredited)
    Jack Carter
    • St John's Medic
    • (uncredited)
    Linda Castle
    • Guest at Birthday Party
    • (uncredited)
    John Chappell
    • Clapper Boy
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Michael Powell
    • Writer
      • Leo Marks
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The critical mauling and public outcry about the film resulted in it being pulled from British cinemas after just five days.
    • Goofs
      The makeup used for Lorraine's lip disfigurement changes markedly between shots.
    • Quotes

      Mrs. Stephens: [referring to Mark] I don't trust a man who walks quietly.

      Helen Stephens: He's shy.

      Mrs. Stephens: His footsteps aren't. They're stealthy.

    • Crazy credits
      There are no closing credits of any kind. The film simply stops.
    • Alternate versions
      In the scene where Mark is about to kill the 'model' "Milly" she lays on the bed bare-breasted. For the US version they had to re-shoot with her breasts covered.
    • Connections
      Featured in Movies Are My Life (1978)
    • Soundtracks
      Happy Birthday
      (uncredited)

      Written by Mildred J. Hill and Patty S. Hill

    User reviews235

    Featured review

    Revered and reviled, but no longer ignored

    In these supposed enlightened times, director Michael Powell is considered a genius of British cinema. Emerging during the War as one of Britain's finest craftsmen, Powell and his partner Emeric Pressburger created the undisputed classics The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp (1943), Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948).

    But despite critical and commercial success, his career was in tatters by the early 1960's. The abrupt death of Powell's career can virtually be pinned down to one film, his most uncompromising portrait of madness, 1960's Peeping Tom.

    Powell's infamous shocker opens with a movie camera-wielding Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) following a prostitute to her boarding house room. Once inside, he slides a spike from his tripod leg and films her action of terror before stabbing her to death. As the credits roll, we find Mark alone in his apartment, replaying the footage with wide-eyed fascination.

    As the film progresses, Mark is revealed as a stuttering loner whose sex drive has been somehow twisted into a murderous voyeuristic mania - working at a movie studio by day, he moonlights as a ‘glamour' photographer above a seedy newsagents. His blonde buxom model (Pamela Green), constantly taunting his virility, is the embodiment of the female he despises. The inquisitive girl downstairs, on the other hand, becomes his ideal and his possible salvation. Ultimately she is doomed by her altruistic attraction when she insists Mark must show her one of his 'films'. Horrified, she watches Mark as a child, tortured by his father's camera experiment of recording a child's reaction to fear. Mark's own experiment of filming his murder victims leads him on a downward spiral of insanity to the film's tragic conclusion.

    Despite Peeping Tom's sensational subject matter, Powell's intention was deadly serious: to make a sober study of sexual violence, as well as a meditation on the audience's role of voyeur. Powell's camera positions us directly behind Mark and his spectators so that we become his unwilling accomplices - the audience watches Mark watching his films. Carl Boehm as Mark gives a chilling performance, at once icy reserve and murderous rage. Powell creates a garish red and pale blue twilight landscape of backstreet London in perfect detail.

    At the film's completion, Powell believed he had made a masterpiece. Peeping Tom is certainly a personal film; Powell and his co-scriptwriter toiled for months until they had mastered a sympathetic three-dimensional serial killer. In later years, Powell would remain tight-lipped about his real reasons for making the film. But Britain's premiere 'glamour' pinup queen Pamela Green - Peeping Tom's photo-model and penultimate victim - would offer clues to Powell's hidden agenda.

    Green became his leading choice for the role, although she had not appeared outside 8mm stag films, after seeing a life-sized nude portrait in her business partner Harrison Mark's studio. Her initial reception on the set was one of polite British reserve - until Powell unleashed his Jekyll and Hyde personality and she became one among many targets for his boorish, intimidating manner. On the day of Green's death scene, Powell changed his former plans of prudence and demanded she sprawl topless across her bed before she is skewered with Mark's tripod leg. She reluctantly gave in. Mid-shot she looked across the studio in horror. Beneath Powell's camera were his two pre-teen sons, watching unwaveringly according to their father's instructions. This incident brought a chill over Powell's casting of his son as Mark junior and of himself as Mark's father.

    Whatever reasons drove Powell to make Peeping Tom, he had effectively signed his career's death warrant. The film opened to scathing reviews in April 1960, just months after the similarly-themed Psycho. Ironically, Hitchcock floated out of the controversy surrounding Psycho as the consummate old trickster, and saved his slowly sinking career. The time seemed ripe for Peeping Tom among audiences and critics alike. Unfortunately for Powell, the critics could find none of Psycho's black humour in his sober tome. 'Sick' and ‘vile' were a small sample of their vitriol. The papers were outraged that a filmmaker of Powell's calibre could sink his talents into material so vulgar and perverse. Powell hoped the distributor would weather the storm and allow the audience to find the film on its own merits. Instead, the plug was pulled on Peeping Tom after five days and at least in Britain the film was buried.

    The print was sold to the American Roadshow circuit, with a lurid ad campaign designed to sell the film to a jaded American public. Shorn of twenty minutes footage, the film was considered too 'British' and was shelved after a limited run. There it sat, gathering dust for almost 20 years. Then in 1978 a cabal of admiring filmmakers led by Martin Scorsese (himself no stranger to controversy) rescued a complete print from Britain. Peeping Tom was thus relaunched in 1979 at the prestigious New York Film Festival to a predictably mixed reception. Correct-minded commentators grudgingly accepted its 'masterpiece' tag but were nonplussed with the Film's treatment of its sexual violence.

    As for Powell, the British film industry no longer considered him bankable after Peeping Tom. He made one more film in Britain before exiling himself to Australia. The antipodean They're A Weird Mob (1966) was on of his final films before his death in 1984. Luckily for Powell, the film he considers his masterpiece is still revered and reviled, but no longer ignored.
    • El-Stumpo
    • Aug 10, 2004
    • Permalink

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    FAQ18

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • May 16, 1960 (United Kingdom)
    • Country of origin
      • United Kingdom
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Face of Fear
    • Filming locations
      • Newman Arms - 23 Rathbone Street, Fitzrovia, London, England, UK(Pub below Dora's flat)
    • Production company
      • Michael Powell (Theatre)
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • £135,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $36,598
    • Gross worldwide
      • $99,129
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 41 minutes
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.66 : 1(original & negative ratio / European theatrical ratio)

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