Peeping Tom
Anglo-Amalgamated Productions, 1960

starring: Carl Boehm, Anna Massey, Bartlett Mullins and Moira Shearer
directed by: Michael Powell

the plot: Shy Mark Lewis (Boehm) spends his mornings working at a British film studio as a cameraman and his afternoons shooting “glamour photography” for a newsstand agent. His nights, however, are spent stalking hapless young women around London, filming them with his camera and, in some cases, murdering them. Mark is looking for a way out of his madness, though, and salvation seems to arrive in the form of Helen (Massey), a comely young author who lives in Mark’s apartment building. Helen falls quickly for the socially inept Mark, despite his showing her a batch of twisted home movies his father shot when Mark was a child. But even the love of a good woman can’t keep Mark from his voyeuristic, murderous ways and soon more bodies are turning up across London. As insanity overtakes him and the police close in, Mark must decide between turning himself in or murdering the only woman who could save him.

why it’s good: Somber and unsettling, Peeping Tom is widely credited with being a thriller ahead of its time. Released the same year as Hitchcock’s masterpiece Psycho, Peeping Tom was quickly relegated to obscurity, mostly because of the public backlash in Britain surrounding the film—apparently, 1960s audiences were OK with murderous transvestites but not killer voyeurs. Peeping Tom succeeds because it’s more than just a simple thriller. Boehm gives Mark Lewis both a crazy-eyed intensity and an air of sympathy, an unfortunate soul trapped in a fog of madness and desire. Massey shines as the film’s moral anchor, the only person who seems to sense Mark’s psychosis and wants to help. It’s a difficult film to watch. Powell films the murder scenes from Mark’s perspective, making the viewer an accomplice in all the mayhem. However, Boehm’s skillful, sympathetic performance and Massey’s eagerness to save Boehm’s character throw the viewer into doubt—is Mark a psychotic murderer beyond redemption or a man in need of a savior? Powell doesn’t offer any answers, only the uncomfortable feeling of watching someone descend into madness. 

why you should own it: Though Peeping Tom didn’t get a fair shake from critics until the late 1970s, the film got the full treatment from The Criterion Collection in 1999. The disc contains commentary by film theorist Laura Mulvey and "A Very British Psycho," a documentary on the making of the film.
—Larry Clow