Michael Powell, Peeping Tom (1960)

Peeping Tom? Horrible! From a moral point of view, of course. It is an extremely well-made film, but a bit hard to support. . . . I would say that this sort of film is potentially dangerous.

—Terence Fisher, director of Horror of Dracula, 1964

At the conclusion of the movie’s premiere screening, Michael Powell waited in the theatre lobby to greet the invited guests and hear what they had to say about the movie. However, no one went near him or shook his hand. Upon seeing him, they turned and headed for the exit.

Due to the vicious critical reactions, Powell’s career was destroyed.

—Gary Johnson, imagesjournal.com

The movie makes us into voyeurs. We sit in the dark, watching other people’s lives. It is the bargain the cinema strikes with us, although most films are too well-behaved to mention it.

—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Culture, Meaning, and Film screening:

Thursday June 3, 2004, 6:10~7:50
Chuo University Faculty of Policy Studies
Room 11400

Derek Hill, London Tribune, April 29, 1960.

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.

Other contemporary reviews @ powell-pressburger.org, here.

Jeffrey M. Anderson, Lights, Camera, Horror, Combustible Celluloid, nd.

Peeping Tom is a cornerstone in film history. There are many great movies, but only a few have served as a turning point, a marker that changed everything that followed.

Laura Mulvey, Peeping Tom, Michael Powell, criterionco.com, nd.

Peeping Tom is a film of many layers and masks; its first reviewers were unable even to see it at face value. Entrenched in the traditions of English realism, these early critics saw an immoral film set in real life whose ironic comment on the mechanics of film spectatorship and identification confused them as viewers. But Peeping Tom offers realistic cinematic images that relate to the cinema and nothing more. It creates a magic space for its fiction somewhere between the camera’s lens and the projector’s beam of light on the screen.

Derek Baldwin, Who’s Looking at Who? Peeping Tom: Cinema’s Visual Pleasures and Discontents, powell-pressburger.org, nd.

Roger Ebert, Peeping Tom, Chicago Sun-Times, nd.

David Ehrenstein, Is the Filmgoer the Murderer?, New Times, 1999.

Pamela Green on Peeping Tom: “‘Britain’s Bettie Page’ debuted in a shocker that made Psycho look like a tempest in a teapot . . . .”

Gary Johnson, Peeping Tom, imagesjournal.com, nd.

Peter Keough, Peeping Tom Looks at the Primal Screen, Boston Phoenix, March 18-25, 1999.

Peeping Tom and Psycho: Reinventing the Horror Film, BBC h2g2, August 29, 2000.

Another comparison of Peeping Tom and Psycho, @ powell-pressburger.org, here (short version, with images) and here (full text, no images).

Michael B. Scrutchin, Peeping Tom, flipsidemovies.com, February 4, 2001.

Eliott Stein, “A Very Tender Film, a Very Nice One,” Film Comment, Sept. / Oct. 1979, @ powell-pressburger.org.

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Bill Kelly, Reviled but Resurrected, interview with Michael Powell on Peeping Tom, October 1978, Femme Fatales, July 1996, @ powell-pressburger.org.

Steve Crook, The Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Pages. Enormous archive of Powell and Pressburger materials, reviews, critical studies, stills, biographies, obituaries.

Kim Newman, Michael Powell, 1905-1990, British Film Institute, screenonline, nd.

Adrian Danks, The Director as Peeping Tom: A Matter of Life, Cinema, and Death, Senses of Cinema Great Directors Database, May 2002.

Michael Powell @ Best British Directors, futuremovies.co.uk.

Powell @ IMDb.