MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > Psycho-Peeping Tom-- Frenzy

Psycho-Peeping Tom-- Frenzy

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
6 replies | jump to latest

October 2020is awash in horror and thrillers "on streaming." Some of the movies on offer are gory, sick, perverse. Halloween used to mean trick or treating kids and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein on TV; now on cable and streaming, there are lots and lots of movies with bloody visceral gore and sexual torture ...to celebrate such a "fun" holiday. The world got sicker.

But there are "levels" of choices, and I elected to NOT sample the worst of the stuff on the tube, but rather those fun horror movies from my youth and one or two "classics" that I never saw.

Peeping Tom is in that category.

Its is 1960 British film directed by Michael Powell, a director of great reputation with a number of British classics on his resume. I'm not familiar enough with those classics to know if what I am about to say is really true -- but -- the word on "Peeping Tom" is that its frank and sometimes graphic take on a sex killer and voyeur was enough "to ruin Michael Powell's career." This is put in greater relief given that Hitchocck released Psycho within a few months of Peeping Tom, and Hitchcock got massive audiences and the box office of his career.

Not all of this story quite checks out, really. Evidently Michael Powell DID make some movies after Peeping Tom, and came the 70's Powell had a champion of Peeping Tom in Martin Scorsese who got the film a restoration and re-release.

Meanwhile, Hitchcock may have gotten rich off of Psycho, but among some critics and Hollywood folk, he was considered to have become as "sick" as Michael Powell and was shunned in some quarters(by Walt Disney, for instance, who refused to let Hitch film a movie at Disneyland in the wake of Psycho.)

There also seems to be this disconnect. In England, Psycho and Peeping Tom came out close together, but in America, Peeping Tom's release was held until 1962, and an edited version was released in the states.

Thus, Peeping Tom and Psycho may not have been so "together" in 1960 as it might seem, and whereas Hitchcock got a blockbuster in Psycho, Powell did NOT get one in Peeping Tom.

An analysis is revealing.

Yes, in the Hays Code year of 1960, both Hitchcock and Powell made films about sexual psychopaths, and were pretty direct about how the murders took place (a big knife in Psycho; a small knife at the end of a camera tripod in Peeping Tom) and thus in creating a "fear factor" in the audience about witnessing such murders.

But the two films diverge rather quickly. Peeping Tom is British and in color; Psycho is American and in black and white. Psycho was designed as an "audience scream machine': Peeping Tom is more of a psychological study.

As often with Hitchocck, we need to take him at his word. He said "The processes through which we take the audience in Psycho are much like those when you ride a roller coaster or go through the haunted house at the fair. I see Psycho as a FUN movie."

And it WAS. Whatever deep-seated psychological perversities lie beneath the surface in Psycho, the SURFACE (in 1960) was a roller coaster ride and a trip to the haunted house. Audiences screamed hard at the murders, at the fruit cellar climax, and pretty much through the entire exploration of the Bates house by Lila Crane til that climax. People lined up around the block to experience the "ride" of Psycho.

I can't find much evidence of Peeping Tom drawing big crowds. Rather, it drew a reputation. British critics(some of whom WERE disgusted by Psycho) were MORE disgusted by Peeping Tom, because it dug deeper into sexual pathology and lingered longer on the lead up to sexual crimes(without showing them; there is nothing as graphic as the shower murder in Peeping Tom.)

i watched Peeping Tom start to finish for the first time ever this week. I had seen clips and had watched parts on TV, but never...start to finish.

The film states its theme from the first image: We are looking through the crosshairs of a camera lens, in the POV of the man operating the camera as it approaches a "lady of the evening" on a street corner. We never lose this POV(Halloween would copy this; Hitchocck would reject it -- HIS POV travelling shots were comparatively short) as the woman looks at us and says "It'll be two quid," and leads the camera across the street, down the alley, up some stairs, into an apartment, into a bedroom, onto the bed, into undressing and then -- looking out at US in terror -- for she is about to die, and the killer wants her final moments of terror on film. Which he watches later in his private screening room and...very likely it is implied...enjoys for pornographic pleasure. Yes...these are his snuff films.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Its funny. I know that some American films of 1960 like Elmer Gantry and Butterfield 8 featured prostitutes, but not necessarily at the "brutal basics" of a woman saying "It'll be two quid." Unlike Psycho with our guessing game as we meet Sam and Marion half dressed in a hotel room...with Peeping Tom we KNOW we are watching a sexual transaction. And soon, we are witnessing (from the killer's POV) how that sexual encounter becomes instead, a murder of the hooker in question.

I can figure that on the basis of its first 10 minutes alone, Peeping Tom alienated some critics and maybe some viewers. A woman as a desultory sex object becomes a woman as a victim of horrific violence and the killer's desire to see the fear in her eyes(we don't know this yet, but WE see the terror in her eyes.)

Its not too soon after this murder that we see the purveyor(Carl Boehm) at home, in his private screening room, surrounded by cameras and dark room developing equipment...watching the film of the murder HE committed. Unlike Psycho, there is no twist ending here, no delay in confronting just how sick this killer is.

And something else: this guy --"Mark Lewis"(not so Gothic a name as Norman Bates) is a creep. He has a voice like Peter Lorre's and a manner rather the same. (The actor was German, so perhaps his accent played better with international audiences -- but I hear Lorre.) Seeing Boehm revealed as the killer in the first ten minutes of Peeping Tom, you get EXACTLY what Hitchcock did right in casting Tony Perkins in Psycho: Hitchocck gave us a handsome, shy, boyish man...someone women could mother(or lust after), someone men saw as harmless...and sad...and a little bit funny. And by 1960, Tony Perkins was something that Carl Boehm was not: a bonafide American Studio movie star. We liked him from the get-go in Psycho, and then slowly...started not to.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Peeping Tom goes overtly for what Psycho pursued covertly: the idea that the killer might attract a woman's interest. In Peeping Tom, things are more blunt and direct: downstairs neighbor Anna Massey is intrigued by her mysterious neighbor, has a crush on him, wants to see his apartment and get to know him better -- likely seeks romance. Whereas in Psycho, Marion Crane has no such long-term knowledge or Norman nor romantic interest in him BUT (like Massey in Peeping Tom), she is drawn to Norman's shyness and reticence, agrees to talk to him, feels a little sorry for him.

Anna Massey's pursuit of a clearly troubled man(she learns very quickly HOW troubled, even before she knows he's a killer) is a bit reminiscent of how fallen nun Diana Scarwid pursues Middle-Aged Norman for romance in Psycho III. Psycho III isn't that good a movie, but movies can SHARE qualities, and what Peeping Tom and Psycho III teach us is that "damaged people are attracted to other people whom they think are damaged."

Mitigating elements color Anna Massey's pursuit of Carl Boehm in Peeping Tom. Anna is not a gorgeous woman; there is sex appeal but there is also plainness and a lack of self-esteem. And she lives alone with her blind, domineering mother -- the two elements combined impact Anna's freedom and push her toward Boehm . (All of this contrasted with what seems like a perfectly nice and handsome young man in the same apartment building who fancies Anna -- but she'd rather concentrate on the geek upstairs for now -- figures.)

My revelation of Anna Massey as one of the stars of "Peeping Tom" leads quite directly(as it always does in film writings) to Hitchocck's Frenzy. Frenzy was made 12 years after Peeping Tom(and Psycho) but Anna Massey looks roughly the same . Both Peeping Tom and Frenzy put the red-haired Massey in roughly the same orange dress so she "travels" from one movie to the next.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

"Frenzy" matches up much more directly with "Peeping Tom" than with Psycho, of course. Both "Frenzy" and "Peeping Tom" are British films with location footage in London. Both "Frenzy" and "Peeping Tom" star Anna Massey. Both "Frenzy" and "Peeping Tom" focus on a serial killer - a man who is killing attractive young women exclusively. (Thus both "Frenzy" and "Peeping Tom" feel more misogynistic in ways that "Psycho," which at least has ITS psycho kill a man too.)

I even noted that both "Frenzy" and "Peeping Tom" have a Chief Inspector and his sidekick sergeant assigned to the case. Again, Hitchcock's eye for casting shines throught. The cops in Peeping Tom are rather anonymous(though the Chief Inspector has a kind of rugged, Robert Shaw look to him.) But Hitchocck cast in Alec McCowen a man pleasant of face and precise of voice as HIS Chief Inspector, and gave him a distinctive mustachioed, tweedy sergeant in Michael Bates("I've always been a Quaker Oats man, myself.")

I'd say in both Psycho and Frenzy, Hitchcock's penchant for keeping even the most dire material somewhat witty and entertaining shines through versus the eventually downbeat, churning and melodramatic nature of Peeping Tom.

And again in "Frenzy," as in "Psycho" and as NOT in "Peeping Tom," Hitchcock cast his psycho villain as a very likeable, pretty handsome guy...who only reveals his true murderous monstrousness when it is too late. And yet, we LIKE Bob Rusk for the first half hour of Frenzy,(before we know he's the killer) much as we LIKE Norman Bates for most of Psycho.

Hitchocck in Psycho and Frenzy "doles out the set-pieces." Murder scenes(two in Psycho, one and a half in Frenzy). Camera movements on staircases. A climax with a zombie in a fruit cellar in Psycho. A marvel of sight and sound in a potato truck in Frenzy.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Meanwhile, in Peeping Tom, Michael Powell rather backs himself into a corner with HIS murder scenes(he cuts away right before each actual killing), and he has no other set-pieces.

That said, the "piece de resistance" murder scene in Peeping Tom is a long, sexualized ands suspenseful bit in which gorgeous red head dancer Moira Shearer(the star of Powell's ballerina epic "The Red Shoes") dance vivaciously and sensually as Mark Lewis photographs her and moves slowly towards the inevitable kill. Watching the female victim haplessly and rather giddily putting herself in position ..only to realize too late that she's in position to be killed is...memorable.

And: in 1960, Peeping Tom no doubt brought up memories of ANOTHER Hitchocck movie from the past, rather than the Hitchcock movie currently in release. The older Hitchcock was "Rear Window'" of course, and "Peeping Tom" carries forth from James Stewart("normal guy" photographer) to Carl Boehm ("psycho" photographer) how both men use their phallic lenses to spy on others, often with sexual intent of voyeurism. In a nice bit in Peeping Tom, Anna Massey takes note of how Carl Boehm never removes the camera case strapped to his shoulder, no matter where they go. The camera case and the cameras within do "double duty" as extensions of both the killers eyes and the killers' phallus.

Peeping Tom posits Anna Massey as a woman who is willing to love Carl Boehm even after he shows her films and lets her hear audio tapes, of the cruel, mad experiments in fear that his father imposed on him in his childhood years.
More than Norman Bates(of whom we learn a lot back story wise0 and Bob Rusk(of whom we learn nothing, back story wise), Carl Boehm in Peeping Tom is clearly a victim of prolonged, years-long child abuse and the sympathy card MUST be dealt to him for his murders. But we never really like him, and Anna Massey seems both pathetic and in danger as she comes closer to him.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

SPOILERS The film's most "sickening" aspect, i suppose, is that Boehm, with the psychosis instilled in him by his psycho scientist father, MUST see his female victims' look of fear as he kills them on film.

At the climax, rather like Norman Bates in Psycho III, trying to "defuse" Mrs. Bates because he loves the fallen nun and doesn't want to kill her...Carl Boehm demands that Anna Massey show absolutely no fear as he tries to calm the killer inside him. (She moves her face to "blankness" -- great acting, really.) And then, ensuring that there will be no "Peeping Tom II," Boehm turns both his camera and his bladed tripod leg on HIMSELF, and we clearly see(from a distance), the blade puncture his neck(it is a rather bloodless and non-violent moment...Psycho implied better stabbings without showing everything.)

You can see how Peeping Tom in its own way fits well into the Hitchcock mosaic from Rear Window to Psycho to Frenzy. I think that the three Hitchcocks are better because Hitchcock knew more about how to MAKE them better. But "Peeping Tom" has its own story to tell, and its own mood to convey.

I'm not inclined to keep a LOT of psycho thrillers on my list of favorite movies, but there are some great ones. Hitchocck made at least four of them, and indeed Robert Powell made one.

But I like the Hitchcocks better.

PS. So did Vincent Canby. He was the NYT critic who loved Topaz(a surprise) and Frenzy(less so) and his review of a 1978 re- release of Peeping Tom is pretty much a pan. You can read that review at IMdb.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

PPS. I surely wasn't allowed to see "Peeping Tom" on its initial release, but I WAS familiar with Carl Boehm, because he played one of the Brothers Grimm in "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm," a 1962 Cinerama kids attraction. Laurence Harvey played the other Grimm brother. And wouldn't you know it -- Harvey was offered the killer's role in Peeping Tom first. Oh well...Harvey was his own memorable psycho in "The Manchurian Candidate" in 1962.

And on another early 60's occasion, Carl Boehm brought his international bona fides to join the suspect list on a Burke's Law(home of such suspects as Ronald Reagan and Paul Lynde.) Boehm indeed proved to be the killer, and wielded a killer cane much as he wielded his tripod in Peeping Tom.