Peeping Tom (1960)

Country of Origin: UK
Year of Production: 1959
Running Times: 86 mins (US cut version)     101 mins
Format: Eastmancolor     35mm
Ratio: 1.66:1
Sound: mono

CREDITS

PRODUCTION
Production Companies: Anglo-Amalgamated Productions / Michael Powell (Theatre)
Producer: Michael Powell
Production Manager: Al Marcus

SCRIPT
Script: Leo Marks

DIRECTION
Director: Michael Powell
Assistant Director: Ted Sturgis

PHOTOGRAPHY
Director of Photography: Otto Heller
Camera Operator: Gerry Turpin
Chief Electrician: Vic Smith
Photographic Consultant: George Harrison Marks

EDITING AND POST-PRODUCTION
Editor: Noreen Ackland

MUSIC
Music: Brian Easdale
Percussion Music: Wally Stott (real name: Angela Morley)
Dance Music: Freddie Phillips
Solo Piano: Gordon Watson

SOUND
Sound Recordists: Gordon K. McCallum, C.C. Stevens
Sound Mixer: Gordon K. McCallum
Sound Editor: Malcolm Cooke

MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Make Up: W.T. Partleton
Hair: Pearl Orton
Wardrobe: Dickie Richardson

DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Art Director: Arthur Lawson
Assistant Art Director: Ivor Beddoes
Set Dresser: Don Picton
Construction Manager: Ronald Udell

MISCELLANEOUS
Continuity: Rita Davison
Production Assistants: William J. Paton, Judith Coxhead
Publicist: Bill Burnside

LOCATIONS
Locations: 29 Rathbone Place, Bloomsbury, London, England, UK; 5 Melbury Road, Holland Park, London, England, UK; Clitterhouse Housing Estate, Claremont Road, Cricklewood, London, England, UK; Newman Passage, Soho, London, England, UK; Whitefield Secondary Modern School, Claremont Road, Cricklewood, London, England, UK
Studio: Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

CAST
Carl Boehm (real name: Karlheinz Böhm) (Mark Lewis)
Moira Shearer (Vivian)
Anna Massey (Helen Stephens)
Maxine Audley (Mrs Stephens)
Brenda Bruce (Dora)
Miles Malleson (elderly gentleman)
Esmond Knight (Arthur Baden)
Martin Miller (Dr Rosan)
Bartlett Mullins (Mr Peters)
Michael Goodliffe (Don Jarvis)
Nigel Davenport (Detective Sergeant Miller)
Jack Watson (Chief Inspector Gregg)
Shirley Anne Field (Diane Ashley)
Pamela Green (Milly)
Brian Wallace (Tony)
Susan Travers (Lorraine)
Maurice Durant (publicity chief)
Brian Worth (assistant director)
Veronica Hurst (Miss Simpson)
Alan Rolfe (store detective)
John Dunbar (police doctor)
Guy Kingsley Poynter (P. Tate)
Keith Baxter (Detective Baxter)
Peggy Thorpe-Bates (Mrs Partridge)
John Barrard (small man)
Roland Curram (young man)
John Chappell (clapper boy)
Michael Powell (A.N. Lewis)
Columba Powell (Mark as a child)
Frank Singuineau (1st electrician)

PLOT SUMMARY

Mark Lewis, damaged as a child by his father's cruel experiments, works as a focus puller for a movie studio, and earns extra money by taking 'glamour' pictures in a seedy studio above a newsagents. But the outwardly charming Mark has become so unhinged that he takes to murdering models and prostitutes and filming their death agonies. But things start to get very complicated for Mark when he meets and falls for Helen Stephens who moves into one of the rooms in the apartment block he lives in.

CAPSULE REVIEW

Even now, decades after the furore that greeted its release, Peeping Tom remains a powerful and deeply disturbing cinematic exploration of a severely damaged psyche. Though clearly in a different league, playing an entirely different game even, it's a satisfactory conclusion of what David Pirie identified as Anglo-Amalgamated's "Sadian trilogy", pursuing concerns that informed the first two films (Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) and Circus of Horrors (1960)) with a ruthless intellect that its predecessors lacked. All three films are explorations of voyeurism, though Peeping Tom is a much more focused and incisive film, with Marks - a much more courageous writer than those employed on the earlier films, one who isn't afraid to confront head-on issues that were merely hinted at, leeringly, in those productions - making this concern more blatant than in the other films. It remains a shocking masterpiece, one of the finest horror movies of all time.

AVAILABILITY

Canada
Theatrical Distributors: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

UK
Theatrical Distributors: Anglo?American Film Corporation Ltd
Video Distributors: Warner Home Video

USA
Theatrical Distributors: Astor Pictures Corporation; Rialto Pictures LLC (1999 re?release)
Video Distributors: Admit One Video
Laserdisc Distributors: Image Entertainment Inc; Criterion (CC 1299L)
DVD Distributors: The Criterion Collection (PEE 040)

CENSORSHIP HISTORY

Argentina
Rating: 16

Finland
Rating: banned in 1960; K-14

Spain
Rating: 13

Sweden
Rating: banned from 1961 - 1973; 15

UK
Rating: 18

USA
Rating: unrated

West Germany
Rating: 18

TIMELINE

1960
April
7: UK – theatrical premiere

May
16: UK – theatrical release

1961
February
17: West Germany – theatrical release

November
27: Denmark – theatrical release

1962
May
15: USA – theatrical release

1973
April
21: Sweden – theatrical release

1998
June
19: Switzerland – theatrical re-release

2000
July
21: Finland – theatrical release

2002
February
17: Finland – shown at Night Visions Film Festival

November
8: Argentina – shown at the Clásicos de estreno

1999
November
16: USA - DVD release (The Criterion Collection (PEE 040))

POSTER TAGS

"Do you know what the most FRIGHTENING thing in the world is ...?"

Terror Meets Art in a Deadly Game of Cat and Mouse

WARNING! Don't see Peeping Tom unless you are prepared to see the screaming shock and raw terror in the faces of those marked for death!

Can you see yourself in this picture? Can you imagine yourself facing the terror of a
diabolical killer? Can you guess how you'd look? You'll live that kind of excitement, suspense, horror, when you watch "Peeping Tom".

Don't dare tell the ending to anyone - you'll be blamed for nightmares!

What made this the most diabolical murder weapon ever used?

An adventure into terror

More Horrible Than Horror! More Terrible Than Terror!

Marked for death by Peeping Tom - To Look Meant Danger, To Smile Meant Death!

Han fotograferede sine smukke ofre i dødsøjeblikket!

Den stærkeste kriminal-gyser De nogensinde har set

ALTERNATIVE TITLES

Augen der Angst - West Germany title
El fotógrafo del pánico - Spanish title
Kurkistelija - Finnish title
De loerder – Flemish Belgian title
L'occhio che uccide - Italian title
Peeping Tom - en smygtittare - Swedish title
Pelon kasvot - Finnish title
Tres rostros para el miedo - Argentinian title
A Vítima do Medo - Portugese title
Le voyeur – French / French Belgian title

LINKS

FOOTAGE INCLUDED IN
100 Years of Horror (1996)
Doing Rude Things (1995)
Hollywood Uncensored (1987)
Long Live the New Flesh: The Films of David Cronenberg (1987)
Murder by Numbers (2001)
A Very British Psycho (1997)

KEYWORDS

blindness, child abuse, fetishes, film makers, insanity, photographers, photography, pianos, psychoanalysis, sadism, serial killers, snuff films, suicide, voyeurism

Last Updated: 15 October, 2008