Customer Reviews

Contraband

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's November, 1939, and Captain Anderson (Conrad Veidt) has a problem. His neutral Danish freighter, sailing from the U.S. to Denmark, has been stopped by the British navy and forced to an English port while its cargo is inspected. He has several passengers on board who are forbidden to disembark. He and his first mate (Hay Petrie) are invited that night to dinner with the British officers of the port. They receive two passes enabling them to leave the ship. As they get ready, Anderson discovers the passes are missing...and so are two of the passengers, Mrs. Sorensen (Valerie Hobson) and Mr. Pidgeon (Esmond Knight). Yet apparently neither knew each other or had even conversed during the long sea voyage. Anderson is determined to bring them back to his ship. He realizes they must be on their way to London and sets out to stop them. Within hours he finds himself entangled with Nazi spies, British agents, Danish waiters and thuggish heavies. In fact, he finds himself in the middle of a stylish, funny, romantic and patriotic espionage adventure which takes place almost entirely in the blacked-out streets of London and in some fine looking restaurants and nightclubs.

This was the first movie Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger fully collaborated on, following The Spy in Black the year before. With Spy, Pressburger had been assigned the writing job and he and Powell realized how much they agreed on the kind and style of movies they wanted to make. With Contraband, they set to work on the movie together. They cemented their partnership with The 49th Parallel (1941) and followed it with One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942). In 1943, with The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, they had become The Archers, agreeing to take joint and equal credit for the writing, directing and producing of their movies. And what movies they were. Through 1949, The Archers created, in addition to Blimp, A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going (1945), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948) and The Small Back Room (1949). I can't think of any individual or pair of movie makers who were responsible for so many creative, idiosyncratic, different and just plain great movies as these two.

Contraband, like all their movies, doesn't fit the norm of any genre film. One critic said of it, "It's worth thinking about how such a lighthearted film could be made out of such a dire moment in British history...but it's not to missed." Conrad Veidt, the great actor who fled Germany in 1933, plays Captain Andersen as a stern, imposing man who has a taste for adventure and a liking for a smart, resourceful woman like Mrs. Sorensen...who, of course, is not married, is not named Sorensen, and is as brave and smart as they come. The movie is fast-paced and uses the dark streets of London at night to great effect. Powell builds amusing and effective set pieces which keep driving the story forward. I liked a lot Andersen and Mrs. Sorensen having a duel of a dinner at Erik Skold's restaurant, the escape from the darkened room, Andersen's recruitment of the Danish waiters and his navigation skills with a map of London to locate where he and Mrs. Sorensen had been held. Powell uses the busts of the Patriotic Plaster Products Co. for a dramatic and amusing shootout. If you look closely, you can briefly see a handful of actors, mostly unbilled, some in their first movie roles, who later became well known, such as Leo Genn, Deborah Kerr, Bernard Miles, Milo O'Shea and Peter Bull.

Contraband is highly recommended if you are a fan of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It's also recommended if you just like well-made, amusing, romantic espionage movies. There are no extras. The DVD picture looks better than average, but the movie qualifies for a major restoration.

'Contrabond' is only the second of the mighty Powell and Pressburger collaborations, and already we can see perfectly formed the unique, treasurable characteristics of their exhilerating genius. A tale of spies tryig to outfoil the Nazis, if the film was intended as a propaganda effort, than it goes off the standard rails pretty quickly. true, the central narrative arc, of an indifferent neutral forced to take a moral stand during the war, inspired by romance, is similar to the later 'Casablanca' (in which star Conrad Veidt featured) and many Humphrey Bogart films of the 1940s.

But it is in comparison to another future Bogart film that 'Contraband''s true flavour lies - 'the Big Sleep'. Ken Russell has called it ' a light, romantic comedy with bondage overtones', and the relationship between the two leads begins with ship captain Veidt threatening to put intransigent passenger Valerie Hobson in irons. Later scenes include the pair being roped toether in a dark basement spied on by Nazi voyeurs (including a coded lesbian), an escape involving Hobson's long legs as a knife, and badinage on a bus of flagrantly transparent doubles entendres. the emphasis on grills, lifts and confined spaces, or fetishistic imagery such as an all-female nightclub band whose legs are mannequins', or the surreal attic stuffed with plaster busts of Chamberlain, add to this sexually fantastic atmosphere. this is a spy thriller in which genre mechanics and development are always erotic, and in which the centre of activity is appropriately a cinema. you could look at 'Contraband' as a benevolent version of Powell's later, darker masterpiece 'Peeping Tom'.

this is not to say the wartime setting is mere backdrop. Like many of the Archers' films, there is a strong documentary element underpinning the fantasy, with a gorgeous montage of ships that could have come from an (unusually good) Grierson factual film (or Powell's earlier 'Red Ensign'). There is a rare vision of the London blackout with its practical difficulties (providing the film with its metaphors of light and darkness). Magically, solid, urban London is turned by the enterprising captain into a navigable ocean.

Most characteristic of Powell and Pressburger is the tacit opposition between Nazism, with its nihilistic form of nationalism, and the beautiful portrait of the Danish emigres. this at first seems to be a pretext for stereotypes and jokes about modern Vikings, but it soon becomes apparent that the Archers are celebrating this form of nationalism, free from blustering jingoism, one at ease in and with other cultures, one based on shared experience, history, friendship, loyalty and memory, on the civilised bonds of culture - food and music. A remarkable film, with some of the most extraordinary, emotive camerawork and idiosyncratic editing in British cinema.

This is a movie that just clicks. It is just funny enough while also being just suspenseful enough with just enough of a nice romance. It opens with some close ups of some very real ocean freighters which are just grubby enough to know that they are not staged. Conrad Veidt, probably best known as the cruel Gestapo Major in Casablanca does comedy quite while while looking the part of an iron tailed sea captain. Valerie Hobson is so cute and so funny that she also passes as a secret agent. See this one and enjoy yourself.

I bought this movie because it was directed by Michael Powell, scripted by Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and starred Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson (a great important British director/producer/writer and two great stars). I knew this hailed from just before Powell & Pressburger hit their stride as THE ARCHERS. Boy, what a pleasant surprise; this is FIRST-RATE suspense/spy thriller which takes place in the early days of wartime Britian but before Pearl Harbor. It's about a Danish sea captain who's forced to follow two missing and suspicious passengers while his ship is being temporarily held by the British. What follows is a spy mystery through London during the days of Blackouts....and is ever bit as clever, amusing and suspenseful as any of Hitchcock's superb British sound films. I URGE you to check out this great and little seeen British film classic.

The 'old brands' are dead, so the newspapers say. Owners of copyrights of The Three Stooges are desperately trying to get young people interested in them again, the Looney Tunes gang are being tricked out in hip-hop clothes (ick ick ick) to try to interest todays kids.....well, Conrad Veidt needs no such crutches. True, the movie is in black and white which means today's youth won't watch it...til they grow a little older and learn that blacker is better (sort of like Gene Wilder and his Young Frankenstein.) It's WWII and Veidt, a German actor, here plays a Danish ship captain (have to explain his accent) whose ship is halted overnight by customs on a through voyage. A passenger (Valerie Hobson) jumps ship and Captain Andersen (Veidt) is determined to get her back at all costs. They arrive via train in London in the middle of a blackout (one of the film's original titles) and Hobson proceeds to lead Veidt on a merry chase. An excellent screen duo, if you like this movie you absolutely must get their first pairing, The Spy In Black. That one will have you in tears at the ending!

This was one of the very first films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger before they cemented their partnership and called themselves "The Archers." It's also one of their best films, and a delight from beginning to end. As always with their films it's basically one-of-a-kind, although it is a spy film (like most of their early work during the war). You know something's up in the first scenes when the stern captain (Conrad Veidt) of a Danish freighter asks one of the passengers, Mrs. Sorensen (Valerie Hobson), to wear a life vest, which she refuses; when the ship is brought into a British harbor to determine its cargo (Denmark at this point was a neutral country, and might carry contraband), two of the passengers disappear--and one is Mrs. Sorensen. The captain determines he will hunt them down on the English shore and get an explanation. From there, the plot keeps turning in ways you won't expect; it's got all the touches of Hitchcock's British spy films from the 30s (there's a wild shootout in a warehouse full of busts of Neville Chamberlain, which seems to have all sorts of cathartic political implications for the UK at this time), but it's as much a screwball comedy as a thriller, and there are charming scenes in a Danish restaurant with its singing staff, and a great nightclub brawl. The use of Conrad Veidt as a romantic lead may be unprecedented for this point is his career, but he's tremendously helped by the unusual, swan-necked Valerie Hobson, who seems to match him somehow. The use of light is absolutely spectacular, as might be expected in a film by the Archers called "Blackout" in the United States (Powell himself later admitted this was a better title).

"Contraband" (1940) is one of the first films to be released after WW 2 began in Europe. It was renamed "Blackout" for its US release. Conrad Veidt stars as a Danish ship captain and Valerie Hobson plays a passenger who steals a landing pass and travels to war-time London prompting Veidt to follow her. This was the second teaming of Veidt and Hobson (actor/actress) and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (writer/producer/director) following the popular "The Spy in Black" (aka "U Boat 29"), a 1939 anti German film set in WW 1.

Conrad Veidt was one of the best known German silent screen stars, appearing in "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari" (1920) among other classics. An anti-Nazi married to a Jew, Veidt fled Germany in 1933 when Hitler took power. He moved to England and then the US in 1940 where, ironically, he played a Nazi in several films such as "Nazi Agent" (1942) and most memorably "Casablanca" (1942). Veidt died of a heart attack in 1943. his was one of his few heroic roles.

Perky Valerie Hobson (1917-98) was popular in the 30s with films like "Clouds Over Europe" (1939), "Werewolf of London" (1935), and "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935). In the 50s she married John Profumo and was his wife during the Christine Keeler scandal.

Hay Petrie (1895-1948) is a hoot in a dual role as Veidt's first officer and a restaurant owner. Look for Leo Genn (1905-78) as a villain. Genn was nominated for an Oscar for his role as Petronius in "Quo Vadis" (1951). Big Peter Bull (1912-84) is another Nazi. You'll remember Bull from his role as the Russian ambassador in "Dr Strangelove" (1964). And if you're fast you'll see the great Milo O'Shea making his film debut as a porter.

The film was produced and directed by Michael Powell (1905-90) and written by Emeric Pressburger. This was their second of 20 collaborations. Powell was a producer (30 films), writer (35 films), and director (60 films). Among his films are "Pursuit of the Graf Spee" (1956), "Black Narcissus" (1947), and "A Canterbury Tale" (1944). He was active in the WW 2 period with films like "The Lion Has Wings" (1939) and "49th Parallel" (1941).

Pressburger (1902-88) was a Hungarian Jew. He was nominated for an Oscar 4 times, for "49th Parallel" (1941), "The Red Shoes" (1948) and "One of Our Aircraft are Missing" (1942) and won for Best Writing for "49th Parallel". He worked often with Michael Powell on films such as "49th Parallel" (1941), "Stairway to Heaven" (1946), "Tales of Hoffman" (1951), and "Pursuit of the Graf Spee" (1956).

FWIW - Powell and Pressburger got into trouble with Churchill with "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" (1943) in which they argued that the British concept of honor made no sense when faced with an enemy like the Nazis. You can see the beginning of that idea in this film, a concept that was entirely absent in their earlier film "Spy in Black" (1939).

In his autobiography Michael Powell described the film as "pure corn, but served up by professionals"

The top grossing films in 1940 were "Fantasia", "Pinocchio", "Rebecca", "Boom Town", and "Santa Fe Trail". "Rebecca" won for best picture, James Stewart ("Philadelphia Story" was best actor, and Ginger Rogers ("Kitty Foyle") was best actress. Other notable films that year were westerns like Spencer Tracy in "Northwest Passage", Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan in "The Westerner", and Errol Flynn in "Virginia City", comedies like Irene Dunne and Cary Grant in "My Favorite Wife", Cary Grant and Roz Russell in "His Girl Friday", and W.C. Fields as "The Bank Dick" and with Mae West in "My Little Chickadee".

Interestingly enough war films were not so popular in 1940 - Joel McCrea in "Foreign Correspondent", Charlie Chaplin in "The Great Dictator", and James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan in "The Mortal Storm" were among the only war films released that year.

The film is witty, fast paced, and filled with sexual innuendo. It has a vague feeling of being like a Hitchcock film, a characteristic of many of Powell/Pressburger's films. There are also traces of German expressionism, given the blackout conditions and the unusual locales. Even though made with the cooperation of the British government, it doesn't seem to be overtly political.

Bottom line - a fast paced witty suspense spy thriller from the early 40s.

This movie is a spectacular fast-paced British movie with Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson. I rate it excellent.

Not a P&P masterpiece (it looks very low budget in places and the acting but some of the minor characters is a bit ropey) but still an entertaining sub-Hitchcockian spy thriller making great use of the London Blackout as a plot device.

If you like P&P movies it's a must have.

Conrad Veidt has those Caligari eyes that have always made him seem so sinister, and together with his thickly accented, nasal voice, they hurt an otherwise fine attempt at being a likeable hero. The movie itself has a British-era Hitchcock feel to it, essentially a light-hearted espionage tale that begins aboard a Danish freighter (helmed by Veidt) confined at a British port for examination during wartime, and then leads by train into London during a blackout. Veidt makes a good staunch captain, but his foray into romance with Valerie Hobson and the general equanimity of his written character don't jibe with his pinched appearance. Not as charming or engaging as it could have been.