Peeping Tom
00:37:27
About
Last episode we watched “The Red Shoes”, considered by many to be the masterpiece of directors Powell and Pressburger, by contrast we now turn to the film that practically ended Michael Powell’s career, as we discuss 1960’s “Peeping Tom”. A film in which we learn that a surprise lizard is an excellent substitute for a child’s alarm clock; that even a policeman involved in a serious investigation can become a slave to hot jazz rhythms; and that sometimes cold blooded murder is the only way to stop someone dancing around like a tit. A British counterpart to Hitchcock’s “Psycho” from the same year, “Peeping Tom” was released to near universal condemnation, for both its serial killer plot and portrayal of the seedy underbelly of ‘respectable’ England. It gradually experienced a renaissance; becoming an acknowledged early prototype of the slasher film, as well as taking its rightful place alongside the other jewels in Michael Powell’s crown. Watch (or re-watch) to avoid spoilers and join us.
Whatever I photograph, I always lose.
Famous lines
- "Do you know what the most frightening thing in the world is? It's fear."— Mark
- "Take me to your cinema."— Mrs. Stephens
- "Photographing you photographing me."— Mark
- "The morbid urge to gaze."— Dr. Rosan
Quotes verified against Wikiquote.
Transcript
Show full transcript
LeeGood evening and welcome to horror. I'm Lee.
ChrisI'm Chris.
AdamI'm Adam.
AdamAnd we are here for the second part of this directors special month covering 1960s Peeping Tom.
Leea film that I've not seen before either, so yes.
ChrisYeah, and this none of us have seen this one.
AdamOh no, I had.
ChrisOh, you had? Oh, okay.
AdamCuz typically enough it's like, you know, Powell and Pressburger like we discussed on the last episode, considered to be sort of like finest British directors pretty much of all time. But of course the one that I had to see was the sleezy one that ruined Michael Powell's career.
ChrisOh that's that's interesting. Yeah, okay. I I either didn't remember the details you gave us last time, but so yeah, all right, well that will be quite interesting to get into then.
ChrisBecause, yeah, okay.
AdamYeah, it's it's a weird one.
AdamSo well, as I am the only person who had seen it before.
LeeLee.
AdamYeah. what's come to you first, what were your thoughts on pooping Tim? Sorry. Peeping Tom.
LeeI really enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to.
ChrisCool.
LeeIt's one of those films that's always on clip shows and films you must see and those type of things.
LeeSo I was obviously very aware of it.
LeeBut yeah, it just never really appealed to me to watch.
LeeAnd I I'm gutted really because it's just excellent.
LeeI mean the performances alone are absolutely exceptional.
LeeAnd it's and as you say, I think the problem is I was expecting it because of the uproar it calls to be a lot more graphic and a lot more unpleasant than it actually is.
Leebut yeah.
LeeObviously it's because it was way before slash. It's funny, you know that people were in such an uproar and then you're like 20 years later every third movie is going to be like this and they're going to be way loads of, you know, way more gore and really graphic and or tasteless.
LeeWhereas I thought this was quite I thought it was really well handled.
LeeIt wasn't gratuitous and yeah, I I I thought it was a fantastic movie.
AdamOh, fantastic. And and Chris, where where do you sit my dear?
ChrisYeah, so after watching Red Shoes.
ChrisThen you can see this there's a lot of, you know, similarities perhaps, but it seems well shot and well directed. And yeah, there's there's a lot in there that I was thinking you know what was it, it was 1960.
AdamIt's 1960, yeah.
ChrisYeah, so it does, you know, again similar to Red Shoes, it seems more modern than I would have expected.
ChrisNow I still I'm perhaps not used to the different eras fully.
ChrisBut yeah, they really did cover a lot like the psychology of it, did seem it was perhaps harder hitting than I would have expected.
AdamYes, and I think that's part of the I think that was part of its sort of like the reaction it called.
ChrisIt was so yeah.
ChrisSo it was funny setting me up it's called Peeping Tom. I would say that's not the best title necessarily, at least for me.
AdamIt's an awful name, yeah.
ChrisIt hasn't quite got the I wouldn't have connected it fully from what I expected. I expected a cheaper film than it is, right?
ChrisSo and then the start was quite.
ChrisSo I know Lee you said it's not graphic, but it was still that seemed again quite hard hitting for the time.
ChrisTo go straight into a like a the footage of the camera you were like we're not messing around this is, you know, Yeah.
AdamPOV murder and POV POV I'm going to say POV used correctly, not as in how people think POV works online for some reason.
ChrisYeah.
AdamWhereas it's like POV. No, what you mean is this is you doing this, not.
ChrisYeah.
AdamYeah, but anyway.
ChrisSo yeah, so so what yeah, you know, there is, I think there was a lot to unpack in this. It like it was quite you know, it was quite intense or quite tense for a lot of it, I'd say.
Chrisit may have been my mood, but it I sort of felt like Red Shoes had a few more lighter bits throughout but perhaps I just didn't get them as much.
LeeI think.
AdamOh no, I think.
LeeSorry.
LeeI put a lot of it down to Mark's the performance of the character Mark. Even when he was doing very normal things, he managed to do it in such a horrendously creepy way.
ChrisCould be.
LeeIt was amazing.
ChrisYeah, no, that's it. And it's like that is perhaps what they're going for, fair enough.
AdamHe really watching it this time round that character it really reminded me he really reminded me of Peter Lorre.
LeeYeah.
AdamAnd it's not just the accent, it was very much that same sort of thing of just off.
Chris
AdamYou know, although although weirdly enough, I think still in an oddly sympathetic way in so much as at least you sort of get some insight into why he is like.
ChrisYeah, yeah, no, that was that was interesting, definitely.
ChrisYeah.
AdamAnd it's and I love the fact, it's interesting that like Helen's mum is blind, but that means that she only she doesn't get taken in by handsome young blonde chat. She just is aware of everything else and kind of has built a picture of know your you're not right. There's something wrong here.
ChrisYeah.
ChrisAnd and he is nice, you know, he's not like he's not but but it's also funny how he's I mean he's he's quite introverted, I guess, and but it's funny how people are warm to him and like you say, yeah, he's attractive and seems harmless enough and is relatively pleasant when you speak to him.
ChrisOffering you drinks when he doesn't have one, but then he has some milk, you know, it's like.
ChrisBut he's quite he's quite likeable, you know, once you sort of get past the fact that he's just off being distant and trying to be unapproachable.
AdamYeah, I think it's a lot of people take it a lot of people seem to take it that he's either because he's young because he's nervous or he's shy.
AdamWhich he is, but it's because there's a far worse secret going on other than I'm introverted or whatever like that, you know, he's.
ChrisI I am actually psychologically disturbed.
AdamYeah.
AdamAnd but interesting enough when I was reading about it.
AdamThe the script the script writer, guy called Leo Marx.
Adamhe worked he was a cryptographer.
AdamBasically and he was part of what were they called the the Special Operations Executive.
AdamWhich is basically the spy the spy group that was set up during World War II.
ChrisYeah.
Adamwhose role was conducting espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in territories occupied by the Axis powers and aiding local resistance movements.
AdamAnd so something else.
ChrisCool stuff.
AdamWell they called the Baker Street Irregulars which I kind of like they're nickname.
Adambut he was actually there as his role was prepping agents to not reveal codes and security details under torture.
Chris
AdamAnd so he basically basically he was sort of he was into codes and cryptography and stuff like that, but he was also into psychoanalysis, particularly Freud.
AdamAnd so he there's a quote from him which was all when he was sort of training agents, all I had to do during these exercises was to watch them unobtrusively, to photograph them when they were coding, I became convinced that all cryptographers are basically voyeurs.
Chris
AdamWhich really sort of speaks to the film and how it sort of developed and everything. but yeah.
AdamIt's it's weird because it comes out the same year as Psycho.
Chris
AdamAnd feels and I think there's a lot not just the fact that it's like a a serial killer film or a slasher film, proto slasher film, but the fact you've got like a sympathetic but ultimately evil young man at the at the heart of it.
ChrisAnd what's funny is one was caused by the dad and one was caused by the mom.
AdamYeah.
AdamBut also but but really in a weird way, Michael Powell was probably in a similar sort of way to how Alfred Hitchcock was, was very much like already a known director who was lauded and had done a lot of films.
ChrisOkay.
AdamBut the weird thing is Psycho basically renews Hitchcock's career and leads and is a massive success and leads on to him going on further and everything.
AdamWhereas Michael Powell, it was basically this got pulled out of distribution after about 10 days.
ChrisSo Yeah, okay, so you said this at the start, so.
ChrisSo what this was a serious this just like.
AdamYeah, basically he was he was up and coming or he he had some good hits already.
AdamWell, he he'd done the Red Shoes, he'd done like Matter of Life and Death.
Adamsorry, Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus.
AdamBasically he this was sort of like him a lot of the big stuff that he'd done was him with Emeric Pressburger who was the co-director on the Red Shoes.
AdamAnd then they sort of went their separate ways and Emeric Pressburger basically went on to be a script writer and Michael Powell continued as a director.
Adamand he did some more films and at this point, because when Powell and Pressburger's stuff was first coming out, the public really liked it and the critics were sort of look warm.
AdamBut by this point, they were actually doing retrospectives of their films from like the past 20 years and saying, look at this amazing stuff that these people have done and everything.
AdamAnd then I think possibly it was like all the critics were like, oh, Michael Powell's doing a new film.
AdamAnd then this comes out and they're so utterly sort of nonplussed but like completely sort of thrown by it.
AdamAnd it was I think it was partially the subject matter, partially the fact that it's kind of like actually about the seedier side of cinema and photography and stuff like that.
Chris
AdamBecause obviously you've got he's a glamour photographer.
Adamand then they've also sort of like the the film in inverted commas that he tells Vivian that he's making out of hours, which could possibly be a skin flick or something like that.
AdamAnd just the like the bit where I mean, that is a pure that feels very Hitchcock because like you said, there's few and far laughs in there, but there are a few.
AdamAnd like the bit in the news agents where Miles Malton comes in and have you got views.
AdamAnd he's just going he's just going through the book like yes. Oh yes.
AdamAnd I think again that was like a thing where a lot of people were like, no, that's you know, you can't be saying that. That's not respectable people do.
Adampretty much yes.
ChrisSo this was kind of showing a truth of society and a lot of people were not too keen on that.
AdamYeah, I think so.
LeeI commented on that. The fact that they're in a news agent and it's just absolutely covered with photographs of topless women.
ChrisYeah.
LeeThat young girl just comes and picks up a, you know, bar of candy or whatever it is.
LeeAnd I'm just like yeah, that's not on. You can't just no, that's terrible.
AdamBut but then weirdly enough, I mean, it's only probably sort of even the 90s onwards was the time when suddenly it was like, oh yeah, we're not going to have nudy pinup calendars in public areas or whatever like that, you know, and sort of.
AdamI think it's you know, it was definitely saying something about the time and obviously this is Britain just pre Swinging 60s really.
AdamSo it's still that sort of 50s, well we've won the war and now we're rebuilding and isn't everything jolly and actually no, there's this sort of very dark underbelly to that.
Chris
Adambut I I had to I had to print out some of these review quotes because frankly, I'd put them on the fucking poster.
ChrisYeah.
AdamBecause you would you would be it this would sell your film brilliantly.
ChrisYeah.
AdamBut so the spectator went with the sickest, filthiest film I remember seeing.
Adamthe Daily Express leads with more nauseating and depressing than the leper colonies of East Pakistan, the back streets of Bombay and the gutters of Calcutta.
LeeOh my God.
LeeThe Evening Standard just went with loathsome.
AdamI mean, Jesus Christ.
Adamessentially vicious, the Sunday Times.
AdamAverted nonsense.
AdamAnd I love this from its slumbering mildly salacious beginnings to its appallingly masochistic and depraved climax, this film is wholly evil from the Daily Worker.
AdamAnd apparently Michael Powell's favorite quote was from the Tribune paper, which was 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.
ChrisOh.
LeeOh, man.
AdamSo they went to fucking town on this film.
AdamAnd Michael Powell basically thinks that a lot because he was well, as he described it, he was kind of troublesome in so much as he was a successful director who would always demand to do new things and try things and stuff like that. And like we said, the Red Shoes went ridiculously over budget and at the time the studio were pissed off with him and stuff like that.
AdamAnd I think for a lot of it, it was there were a lot of sort of people involved in the movie industry where it was just their opportunity. It's like, right, Powell's pissed on his chips. We don't have to deal with him anymore.
AdamAnd you know, he did do films after this, but essentially he was never.
ChrisDidn't reach that.
AdamYeah, this was the last film that he released as a star director who was like a respected like you sold it on his name like you would Tarantino or Hitchcock or whatever like that.
AdamAnd yeah, it really I mean, they pulled it within I think they pulled it out of distribution in about 10 days.
ChrisThat is insane. What they pulled it in the same year that everyone's screaming about Psycho.
LeeLike if you put them side by side, it's as you say, it's effectively, it's a perfect double bill because they're they've got so much in common and so little difference. How can one be fine and the other be the worst film ever made?
LeeI really don't see it.
AdamI wonder if it's the I wonder if it's the setting and the time though.
AdamBecause Psycho comes out and you know, it's a hit in America and then and over here.
AdamWhereas I I don't know what the there was like I it was a bit like Bill Hicks used to say about he could go he could come over here and be a star, but in America he wouldn't get any traction because he spent too long bashing America.
Chris
AdamAnd I wonder if it's a similar thing where it's.
ChrisYeah, Psycho didn't really show seediness of of any.
AdamBut it was it was the seediness we expect from America, so we so over here the critics were fine with it. And even though and in America it was rightly seen as a fucking masterpiece. And then Peeping Tom, I don't think came out for another year because of how it was received over here and then it came out to very little fan fair.
AdamAnd actually the the distributors sold the basically they I think as Michael Powell described it, they sold it to like a black market film distributor to bury it on a shelf somewhere so that it just never be seen again.
Chris
AdamAnd weirdly enough, one of there was a there were a few champions for it. Weirdly enough, one of them's Martin Scorsese, who is a massive fan of Michael Powell and Powell and Pressburger.
AdamAnd he'd seen Peeping Tom and he actually bought a copy like he tracked down a print of it because he couldn't see it anywhere, so he could take it to a New York film festival and that was like mid 70s, I think.
AdamAnd that's when it sort of the resurgence started of people going, now actually this is a good film and actually not just a good film, this is a fucking great film and it is as good as stuff like the Red Shoes and things like that.
AdamYou know, it's not you know, I think a lot of it over here was portrayed as almost like, well, look at, you know, how can they go from this?
AdamI mean, how can you go from this marvelous film about a woman tormented to the point of suicide, you know, how can you go from that lovely thing to this horrible thing?
LeeYou know, See, now I I would agree with that, but only in as much as Moira Shearer's dancing.
LeeSo obviously her ballet dancing in the Red Shoes was amazing as she is a ballet dancer.
LeeWhen he gets her in that closed off studio and she starts dancing around and dicking about with stuff, I was like, I know she's going to go, but I wish she'd hurry up because she's getting on my tits with all this behavior to be honest with you.
AdamI mean the one good thing is at least she is a dancer, so it looks like she's dancing.
AdamBecause if you'd have given that to someone who gives someone a clear point of it is just like, yeah, but if someone who couldn't dance just did exactly the same thing, they'd look it would look fucking clownish.
AdamBut at least you can see she has a talent there to.
Adambecause there are because there's obviously she's like the main person who's in this, who was in the Red Shoes.
Adambut also the the director of the film, you know, that who's probably the only other real bit of comic relief in the film is the director.
AdamAnd he was the conductor in Red Shoes, it was Livy, who was the conductor, who then the other character comes in and sorts of starts conducting as well.
AdamBut he yeah, I mean he was as the director of the film, I mean just that bit where it's a silly bitches faded in the wrong path.
LeeOh.
AdamYou know, and again, it's that sort of thing that the Red Shoes had where it's that sort of there are there's a lot of humor in this.
AdamYou know, and like the police are sort of mildly you like you've got like Baxter where he's like they put on the music and he starts fucking clapping away and he's just like, you mind.
Chris
AdamAnd it's sort of yeah, there are sort of there's a lot of fun in it or funny moments in it. And again that feels like that feels like Hitchcock as well, but it's also that thing that makes it feel quite modern.
AdamBecause without those, it would be probably too overly melodramatic.
AdamBut those sort of ground it and take that away and it's like no, you know, we're not we are taking this seriously, but not everything in this is serious.
AdamIt's you know, it's relief that you need really in something like this.
LeeOh, definitely. It's full on tension, isn't it?
LeeEvery minute of it is uncomfortable when you're just waiting for him to select his next victim.
LeeI mean, Anna Massey, who I think this is the first time I've I don't think I've seen her in anything probably after this for about 20 years or whatever, so I always remember her as an older actress and I just kind of assumed she'd come to it older.
Leejust cuz I'd not seen her in anything.
LeeBut yeah, she was excellent, so I can see why how she became such a a stalwart character in, you know, the in the British film industry really.
AdamYeah.
AdamAnd and obviously we what she's in which anthology is it? It's it's not is it Vault of Horror she's in there where she's in the vampire one, yeah, Vault of Horror, she's in the midnight mess story, you know, the the one where it's the vampire restaurant where they go to the vampire restaurant.
LeeOh, yes, yes.
Adamand also she was married to Jeremy Brett for a few years.
LeeOh, I didn't know that.
AdamYeah.
AdamBut but yeah, I mean I mean she's she's fantastic in it.
AdamAnd also I don't know if you spotted her, but Brenda Bruce who plays Dora, the the victim at the start like the the sex worker, who is again like you said, she's someone who's much more familiar to me as an older actress because she was in she was Alan B's mum in the new statesman and she's in Jeeves and Woster and Paradise Towers like Dr. Who and stuff like that.
AdamIn in which she plays a cannibal granny.
AdamSo but but yes, I think that again, she's sort of like someone there's familiar faces in there like like we said there's Miles Malon in there and
AdamBut yeah, it's it's a weird sort of it's a weird thing to go back on and look at it and you see and all you see is like, oh this is a good film that feels almost inexplicable.
Chris
AdamAs to the reaction to it other than it was too much for 1960 for some reason.
ChrisYeah.
LeeYou know, and and I did think that watching it, I was I was kind of like, yeah, I can see why it was what what people weren't ready for it.
LeeBut as you say that was the shocker was when you sort of said, oh yeah, it was the same year as Psycho, you think, oh God, yeah, it was.
LeeAnd it's so yeah, I mean and Psycho I mean, if you compare anything, as you said Chris, it does come in quite hard from the off.
LeeBut compared to like the shower scene, it's it's a lot more there's no blood in it, there's no.
LeeBecause it all happens just out of shot of the camera, so you see the face of the person, but there's no gore, there's no.
LeeA bit apart from the body that you see in the in the trunk. But even that, there isn't any blood or anything.
AdamYou you never actually see the body though.
Chris
AdamThat's the clever thing is you never see the bodies.
AdamYou she opens the trunk and she feints and you see them looking into it, but I don't think they actually ever show you the body.
AdamAnd similarly you never see Milli after she gets killed.
LeeNo.
ChrisYeah.
AdamYou know, they they report about it and everything else like that, you know, like the news agent's on the phone and telling the police and stuff like that.
Adamand but again, that's and that was another thing that was quite shocking for it.
AdamIt was because at one point you Milli is topless.
ChrisYeah.
AdamAnd apparently she's she's one of the I think they it's probably the first nude female body in a mainstream English film.
AdamI mean obviously they'd been making pornography since they fucking started making celluloid, you know.
ChrisBut yeah, not in a film that big.
AdamSo again, even though it's very, it's extremely brief, but again, that was another thing where it was kind of like a to be quite quite a big deal.
ChrisYeah.
ChrisIt's just all the elements that are just enough to bring it into this.
AdamAnother thing that came that seems to have got with a lot of people. Because obviously they've got the videos of Mark as a child with his dad's experiments.
AdamAnd that kind of is you know, it goes it actually goes deeper than because Psycho weirdly enough.
AdamYou just get that weird bit at the end where Kolchak's boss comes out and tells them what's you know, what is wrong with him almost. It's almost like tacked on after the after technically after the film was really finished.
ChrisAlmost the end, yeah, really, yeah.
AdamAnd then he comes in and just says, oh, you know, it's because of his domineering mother and so on and so forth.
AdamWhereas this kind of you're immediately again, you're immediately of the murderers essentially and you're almost the first thing you're told is why he is a murderer or a reason why he is or could be a well certainly is a contributing factor to why he is the way he is.
ChrisYeah.
ChrisYou'd think that would probably mess up most most boys.
AdamOh, fuck me, yeah.
AdamYou know, I mean wake me up with a lizard tomorrow and I'll be fucked.
ChrisAnd not only that, not only that, but filming right in your face to get it.
AdamWell filming you coming in to see your dead mother, you know, and sort of it's.
AdamIt's a but this was something that the critics picked up on as well because that the person who's playing person who's playing Mark as a child is Michael Powell's own son and the person who plays Luke Luke, person who plays Mark's dad is also Michael Powell.
LeeOh, really?
AdamYeah, and Michael Powell was not really Michael Powell didn't he wasn't like Hitchcock or sort of, you know, he wasn't like an actor director like Woody Allen or anything else like that. This was a very rare instance of him appearing on camera. And so a lot of people were like, oh, so you obviously identify with this guy who created the sex.
ChrisYeah.
AdamYou know, and stuff like that. And actually the the mother in the death bed is Michael Powell's wife and the mother of their child.
ChrisI can see how if you started with the idea that this is a sordid awful film and then you add those elements to it, I can kind of see how you'd be like, well, yeah, this is absolute filth.
ChrisThis is just wrong on so many levels.
AdamBecause I think people sort of almost mistook that those like because Michael Powell's son Colombo has basically said, well, yeah, I'm it, but it was fun.
ChrisYeah.
AdamAnd I was filming with dad.
ChrisDidn't really need serious acting for those parts.
AdamWell also, it's like as he said, it wasn't like a traumatizing thing or anything else like that.
AdamBut I think because of the way it's filmed, the context it's used in the film is almost like, oh Michael Powell tortured his own son to make this fucking film and his son's probably going to grow up and sharpen the end of his tripod and if you the expression.
ChrisYeah.
AdamAnd and actually the weird thing that I always forget with it is because I think because it was a film I'd read about a lot before I actually finally saw it.
Adamso they said about like the murder weapon, but they also used to say all of them would say, but it's kind of like a big reveal in the film that he has that mirror because there's the weird reaction, particularly Vivian's reaction where she's like going, no, not that.
LeeYeah.
AdamAnd it's not the knife.
AdamBecause the knife comes out and she's like, what are you doing and are you messing about and whatever.
AdamAnd then he does something else, which is obviously him putting the mirror above the camera and that's when she really freaks out and starts reacting and screaming and is in mortal fear.
ChrisYeah.
AdamAnd actually the that's another thing with it is I think everyone in it's everyone in it's so good that you genuinely feel that fear during those sequences, you know, there it's not overly done, it's just pure, it feels like just absolute terror.
ChrisYeah.
AdamAnd it's so again but again that was like something where I was aware of that thing whereas actually it's a big reveal in the film that it's like, oh no, he's making them watch themselves die.
LeeYeah, I thought the big reveal was going to be, you know, that it's the the leg of the tripod, which you see quite early.
LeeAnd the other bit of misdirection is whenever I've seen exerts from this, most of it is the POV stuff. So I had a feeling it was going to be you weren't going to know who the killer was until the last 10 minutes and it was all just going to be this mysterious figure beyond the character, beyond the camera. Yes, so I was quite shocked when, you know, literally five minutes it especially because you have the POV stuff and then you see him filming the police and his face is very much covered by the camera.
LeeSo I thought it was going to be like that all the way through and we'd find out right at the end.
LeeBut of course then when the copper comes up to talk to him and he drops the camera, I was like, oh right now we know it is immediately, it's that guy.
AdamYeah, cuz I think that's probably the main difference between that and Psycho is the fact that Psycho has a mystery element.
AdamAnd again, because Psycho's so well known, we all know that Norman Bates is the killer, but actually when you watch Psycho, that is not the that is misdirected or is intentionally misdirected for most of the film.
AdamBecause it's meant to be, oh, the mom's going around killing and he's mopping up for her.
AdamAnd then you're like, oh, the mom's a corpse. Oh my god, he dresses his mom.
AdamAnd whereas with this, this is much more just like I think and again, maybe that was the thing because it wasn't a mystery. This is more like a character study. This is basically this is like Mark Lewis portrait of a serial killer.
ChrisYeah.
AdamBecause you you're you're from the off, you know what's happening and everyone else is clueless. You're the you're you have more info than anyone else in the film, apart from Mark. So it's sort of yeah.
ChrisSo all things almost almost too realistic.
AdamYeah.
AdamSo I don't know if that was something that sort of worked against or or what got under people's skin, but it certainly did.
AdamI mean that's if anything, that's the point. This is a film that is it's a horror film, it's designed to get under your skin and it did.
ChrisYeah.
AdamBut it just got under people's skin so much.
ChrisToo many people just couldn't handle it.
AdamYeah, and I think it was yeah, I think far too many people were sort of absolutely.
ChrisIt's it's funny just how unfair that is really, isn't it?
ChrisYou know, imagine that that that happened to you, you know, you you really are putting sort of passion into your work and yeah, it's it's just ruined.
ChrisYeah, that's got to be so harsh.
AdamI mean it's like that there's that story about I can't remember who it was, but it was like someone was interviewing David Lynch and he was they were driving along somewhere and they saw a poster for Steven Spielberg's latest movie and David Lynch just went, you know, sometimes I wish my brain worked like Steven Spielberg's. And he just meant in terms of because Steven Spielberg is always kind of in the sort of public consciousness. Whereas obviously David Lynch is drawn to all things that are never going to be drawn to cult repeat.
ChrisYeah.
Adambut equally it's just about how your brain works and I think at this point, this is what Michael Powell wanted to do.
AdamI don't think Michael Powell had ever done in a weird way that was the problem with that a lot of people have with him is I don't think he'd ever sort of done anything other than what he wanted to do.
Chris
AdamBut this was just seriously out of step with what people wanted from him.
ChrisYeah.
LeeBut again, it's that that ironic thing of but this is the film that's lasted, you know, far beyond all his stuff which was highly popular at the time but has aged terribly. This film is the opposite. This film has aged really well and we were all, you know, we just were just blown away by how modern a film it felt.
ChrisYeah, that shows that it was all of society that were wrong.
ChrisIt turns out lots of people can be wrong.
AdamOh, I mean and this is this is something that I think really.
AdamI was again when I was reading about this, this was so Carl Bohm, who plays Mark or Carl Heinz Bohm.
Chris
Adamin 1981, so he was an actor. This was I think this was the first thing he'd done in Britain and at no point does anyone actually ask, if you've lived in England all your life, why have you got a German accent?
AdamBut he in 1991, he appeared on.
AdamDo you remember the TV show you bet? Yeah, so that was based on a German show called Wetten, dass, which was you bet and the same sort of thing. And he went on there and it was like, oh, it's Carl Baum and you know, he's come on, what's your what bet would you like to do?
LeeYeah.
AdamYeah.
AdamAnd his was I'm going to bet that not every third viewer will donate one mark, one Swiss franc or seven Australian sholings for the needy people in the Sahel zone in Africa.
AdamAnd that night he raised 1.2 million deutsch marks to go to the starving of Africa.
Chris
AdamAnd so that year he formed a charity called Mention for Mention, which is humans for humans, to raise money for the starving in Ethiopia.
AdamAnd he basically gave up acting to concentrate on doing this charity work.
AdamAnd by and by this time Mention for Mention still going, they've built 400 schools, 2,000 fountains and benefited around 5 million people and Carlheim was made an honorary citizen of Ethiopia in 2007.
AdamSo just out of the blue of this, you sort of like you've got this, you know, you're in Peeping Tom and then totally out of the way just goes off and becomes this incredible charitable sort of like philanthropist and charity worker.
Chris
AdamAnd yeah.
ChrisVery impressive.
AdamYeah.
LeeYeah, excellent.
LeeVery impressive.
LeeRight.
LeeSo our next episode.
Leeis going to be a what we've been watching, so I had better pull my finger out because I've not been watching a lot.
Leeso yeah, the the timer has been set.
LeeI was very pleased actually Adam that you said that your scientific advisor had watched this.
LeeI was thinking just today actually our this this was our goal along, you know, when we started this podcast was to try and reach out to people who were convinced that horror wasn't for them and try and try and show them that it's a much bigger world and it isn't just about having a horrible uncomfortable time.
Leeyeah, and I was very pleased when she had such a positive response to it.
LeeSo yeah.
AdamYes, so for Chris, I don't think I told you but Claire asked for her birthday to watch Theater of Blood with the League of Gentlemen commentary.
LeeHey.
ChrisExcellent.
AdamSo yeah, so so we've got we've got another convert.
ChrisRight.
LeeSee, it's working, it's working.
AdamWell, in fair in fairness, the poor cow's been living with me for 10 years, probably Stockholm syndrome.
LeeYou can only fight it off for so long.
AdamWell, I mean 10 years you get less for Arson, didn't you?
LeeOh yeah.
LeeRight, and on that note, thanks ever so much for listening everybody. We'll see you in a Fortnite's time. Good night.
ChrisGood night.
AdamGood night.
