One of British cinema’s most controversial films, and which was shot on location in and around Rathbone Street in Fitzrovia, will be screened on Friday and followed by a Q&A.
Peeping Tom (1960) nearly ruined director Michael Powell’s career after it was badly received due to its scenes of voyeurism and violence. But it held a cult following and two decades after its release it was reappraised and it is now regarded as a masterpiece.
Loner Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also, he’s making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen (Anna Massey), the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making. She sneaks into Mark’s apartment to watch it and is horrified by what she sees – especially when Mark catches her.
Followed by a Q&A with author and publisher Yak El Droubie and Jean Sporle who was a friend of Pamela Green, one of the victims in the film, and one of the legendary Harrison Marks’s models in the 1950s/60s in magazines such as Kamera.
Peeping Tom, at the Regent Street Cinema, Friday 4 October 2019, 20:30 (ends at 22:11).