# Peeping Tom (1960)

### reviewed by
Dennis Schwartz

PEEPING TOM (director: Michael Powell; cast: Carl Boehm (Mark), Moira Shearer (stand-in murder victim), Anna Massey (Anna), 1960-GB)

Can you imagine that this innovative, creative film, a groundbreaker for its time, managed to virtually end the career of its great and noted director, as the subject's sexual content was too much to take for so many of the self-righteous critics of that time! This is a film about Scoptophilia (voyeurism): the morbid urge to gaze, or as it is more commonly called, being a peeping Tom.

Mark Lewis (Carl) is a cameraman with a great psychological problem, he is fixated on taking pictures of females, bringing on a fear in them by pointing a spear at them, then having them watch themselves in a mirror as he kills them. His father was a scientist, who experimented with Mark when he was young, by filming him constantly, shining lights in his eyes to wake him from sleep, throwing lizards in his bed, and always testing his young son to see how he reacts to fear. When Mark's mother dies, the father (Michael Powell plays this part in the home movies shown) quickly remarries, upsetting the youngster, even further. He gives Mark a camera as a gift, and this starts Mark's obsession with voyeurism.

When his father dies, Mark inherits the house, which he rents out to an assortment of tenants. Coming home one evening, a 21st birthday party is being given for one of the tenants, Helen (Anna), who is strangely attracted to this very shy, awkward man, who she doesn't realize is the landlord. She visits him in his apartment and he takes her into his darkroom and shows her his ghastly home movies. And, even though, he acts very peculiar, she remains interested in him, and he shows that he likes her and will not harm her.

Meanwhile there is a murder that occurs in the same style as the previous one reported in the newspapera, where the victim has died with a dreaded look of fear, this one takes place in the film studio where he works as a focuser, which brings in the police to investigate. On his other job, where he works for a newstand dealer, he takes pictures of models who pose for him in sexually alluring ways. He murders one of the models knowing full well that the police are tailing him. He even films the police as they are closing in to catch him. He says that this is all part of the documentary he is shooting.

Mark Lewis is this pathetically gentle psychopath, who has a compulsion to kill, brought on by his early childhood years, who cannot even be saved by love, as his compulsion to kill and die is stronger than anything else. This fascinating film is as intensely good as any thriller done by Hitchcock or Chabrol. Its intensity and compelling characterization of Mark, is a landmark in films.

    REVIEWED ON 1/4/99                                         GRADE: A

                                        http:www.sover.net/~ozus

    Dennis Schwartz: "Movie Reviews"                      ozus@sover.net

=A9 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews