Bob Rusk

Hi

I was reading a Biog of Harrison Marks and it said “He was the photographic consultant for the film Peeping Tom“. I’m a fan of Peeping Tom and Powell and Pressburger, but I’ve never heard of this.

Has anyone else?

Steve Crook

Nor have I. I thought he and Pamela Green had just about gone their separate ways by then. There's an interview with her about PT at the P&P site. She mentions Harrison Marks a few times in that, but only when she's explaining her own background. She does say that the set used by Milly in the film was one of her sets from her own studio.

Did you notice the calendars on the door of the newsagent's shop? They're Pamela in her Rita Landré red wig

And who's the beardie feller in the room where Milly's having her photo taken? I think that's meant to be a sly reference to Harrison Marks although it isn't him. We still don't know who the actor behind that beard is.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

penfold

I always thought that was you Steve....quite a resemblance...!!

Bit of a Bay Window, what??

Steve Crook

To be alone with Pamela Green, now there's a thought

Steve

Wee Sonny MacGregor

Why would the great Michael Powell need a "photographic consultant"!

Great scene where Miles Malleson decides to buy all of the "studies" at Bartlett Mullins's newsagent's.

JamesM

Maybe 'photographic consultant' might just mean someone who advises on the set-up of certain photographic studios?

Steve Crook

But Pamela told him all about that. She even supplied a lot of the props.

Steve

julian_craster

According to Simon Sheridan's book, Marks and Green did not go their separate ways until 1965, so I think Pamela's memory is playing up here....


After PEEPING TOM, Marks photographed Pamela Green for NAKED AS NATURE INTENDED (Released by Compton Films 1961) and THE NAKED WORLD OF HARRISON MARKS (Released by Gala 1965), both shot on 35mm....

Steve Crook

It took her a long time to get rid of him :rolleyes:

But I don't think that Marks was involved in PT

Steve

Bob Rusk

Hi Steve

When I posted the question about peeping Tom I was worried that everyone would have known about it. When you said Steve you hadn’t, I felt a sense of relief.

I never noticed Pamela in the calendars on the door I’ll look out for that next time.

Bob

Bob Rusk

Sonny

I think everyone loves that scene with Miles in the paper shop when he has his views put in a brown paper envelope marked educational books. Then walking out forgetting his Times and Telegraph the supposed reason he went in the shop, Wink wink.

Steve Crook

Even more so because up until then he usually played very respectable types of characters like judges or vicars :eek:

Steve

Wee Sonny MacGregor

The notion that the critics universally condemned "Peeping Tom" seems to be slightly wide of the mark. OK, one wrote "the nastiest film I have ever seen", while another commented "It's a long time since a film disgusted me as much as 'Peeping Tom' - beastly picture". But the Times reviewer found in it "finesse and that first essential of a thriller, the ability to thrill".

Michael Powell, in an interview with the Times said "I tried to go beyond the ordinary horror film of unexplained monsters and instead show why one human being should behave in this extraordinary way. The interviewer suggested to MP that one reason for the outraged response was the casting of a normal, handsome young man in the role of the murderer instead of a conventional fairy-tale devil. MP responded "I think that had something to do with it - he was a figure to disturb the audience by asking to be identified with, understood. My wife's criticism was that he was not in fact ordinary enough to achieve this; that criticism makes sense to me. I think she might be right."

Steve Crook

Do you have any details of that review?
We (i.e. Penfold working his way through the BFI library) found quite a lot that we've put online on the PaPAS site. We found one from The Times dated 8th April 1960
Reviewer unknown

THE MURDEROUS CAMERA-MAN
The central character of Peeping Tom at the Plaza Cinema, was to all intents and purposes driven mad by his scientist father, who used him throughout his childhood as material for experiments into the psychology of fear. Now he can satisfy himself only by filming the actual terror of death, which means that he must ingeniously murder his victims while filming them. His situation is complicated by a love affair and the suspicions of his girl-friend's blind mother.
So far so good, and Mr. Michael Powell, who produces with the finesse one expects of him, works all this up into a sufficiently nasty climax; earlier horrors, one feels as they arrive, are curiously muted, but their quietness allows a hard turn of the screw at the end, and the encounter between Miss Maxine Audley, the blind mother, and Mr Curt (sic) Boehm in the film's centre reminds us that Mr Powell is a director who knows where he is going; if he makes a thriller, it will thrill.
That this does so only intermittently is due to a clinical interest in the hero's psychopathology, which plants a good deal of text-book evidence for the obvious and gives us ample time to inspect it. There is, too, a fair amount of parochial humour about the film industry, for the photographer is a camera-man. The acting does its best to supply the missing tension: Miss Moira Shearer is a notable victim with an unusual (for her) dancing sequence, Miss Anna Massey an appealing innocent, Miss Audley as terrifying in her quietness as the eldest of the Fates. Mr Boehm sees the subtleties of his part and plays well, creating a good deal of sympathy by his realization that he cannot escape from his mania.


Is what you quote maybe a slight rewording of that review?
That is the only one from the mainstream press that comes close to appreciating the film. All that rest are quite manic in their attacks on it. So much so that there are suspicions of collusion.

But the Trade Reviews were mainly supportive saying that it'd be a good film to show.

Those two pages both link back to a main page for that section where I attempt to analyse their reaction and the aftermath.

Steve

Steve Crook

PaPAS

Wee Sonny MacGregor

Steve,

Details will be provided tomorrow.

In the meantime John Trevelyan in "What the Censor Saw" said: "In the following year, 1960, a British film, 'Peeping Tom', made by the distinguished film-maker, Michael Powell was really troublesome, featuring a psychopath who had the compulsion to kill girls with the spike of his camera-tripod while filming their death agonies. I had been sent the script and had thought that the film would contribute to a public understanding of mental illness, but the film seemed to be totally different. Having accepted the project at script stage we did not feel able to reject the film, so we made extensive cuts and hoped for the best. as it turned out the public did not like the film, although it was well made, and it was not a commercial success."

Shame we can see a restored version.

Sonny