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Victim

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3 star:		(2)
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A landmark film in 1961, it brought homosexuality out into the open. Well written by Janet Green and John McCormick, the plot tells of a blackmail ring that involves the lives of many "victims". Peter McEnery is a young gay man who is blackmailed and is desperate to avoid his blackmailers and the police. Dirk Bogarde, in a daring move career wise, plays the closeted barrister Melville Farr who had a brief liasion many years ago with McEnery.
When McEnery needs his help, Bogarde rebuffs him which results in tragedy for the young man. As character after character become embroiled in this crime their lives start a downward spiral. Everyone in the film becomes a victim of this heinous crime.
Filmed in black and white against a grey London winter, the cinematography sets the right mood. Dirk Bogarde took quite a risk to play Melville Farr. Homosexuality was still very taboo and could have broken his career. Instead it opened up many more serious parts for him. His performance is intense and very downplayed. Sylvia Syms, as his loving wife, matches Bogarde's performance in quality. Her part could have become a bit melodramatic but Syms and director Basil Dearden avoided that pitfall.
This film also reminds viewers of the narrow thinking that prevailed in the early 60's. This was before Stonewall and Gay Liberation. In England you could be imprisoned for many years. The law was repealed in 1966. It is thought that this film was innovative in getting the repeal.

A bonus to the DVD is an interview with Dirk Bogarde.

Dirk Bogarde gives a tour-de-force performance as a lawyer being blackmailed after his lover's murder. For the sake of integrity, (Farr) Bogarde decides to track down his blackmailers and in the process comes out to a lot of people, including his wife...So what, right? Remember that "Victim" debuted in 1960's when the word "gay" was not used regularly in the U.S. A pioneering British effort to be sure. The treatment the situation receives is civil and realistic, devoid of morbidity. A must for film historians.

Victim (1961)

BY ROGER EBERT / May 23, 2004

Recent critics find "Victim" timid in its treatment of homosexuality, but viewed in the context of Great Britain in 1961, it's a film of courage. How much courage can be gauged by the fact that it was originally banned from American screens simply because it used the word "homosexual." To be gay was a crime in the United States and the U.K., and the movie used the devices of film noir and thriller to make its argument, labeling laws against homosexuality "the blackmailer's charter." Indeed, 90 percent of all British blackmail cases had homosexuals as victims.

The defense of homosexuality was not a popular topic at the box office when the film was made, and director Basil Dearden tried to broaden the film's appeal by making it into a thriller and a police procedural. There is no sex on (or anywhere near) the screen, and while the hero is homosexual by nature, there is doubt that he has ever experienced gay sex. The plot hinges on anonymous blackmailers who collect regular payments from wealthy and famous gays, and on the decision of a prominent barrister to stand up to them.

This man is Melville Farr, who at the young age of 40 has just been offered the opportunity to become a Queen's Counselor. He will lose that appointment, his career and his marriage if he's identified in the press as gay, and yet he decides that someone must stand up to the blackmailers to demonstrate the injustice of the law. As he tracks the blackmailers through a network of their victims, the movie follows him through the London of the time -- its courts of law, police stations, pubs, clubs, barbershops, used bookstores, cafes, drawing rooms, car dealerships -- showing how ordinary life is affected in countless ways by the fact that many of its citizens must keep their natures a secret.

Farr was played by Dirk Bogarde, as a smooth, skilled barrister who projects a surface of strength and calm. He only raises his voice two or three times in the movie, but we sense an undercurrent of anger: He finds it wrong that homosexuality is punished, wrong that gays cannot go to the police to complain of blackmail, wrong that hypocrisy flourishes. There is a moment in the movie when he unexpectedly hits someone who has just insulted him, and it comes as a revelation: Beneath his silky persona is a wound, a resentment, and a fierce determination to act at last on his convictions.

The opening sequences of the film involve him only slightly, as we follow a young man named Jack Barrett (Peter McEnery), on the run from the police. We learn fairly soon that he is gay, but only gradually do we understand he is wanted for embezzlement. Broke, desperate for the money to get out of London, he calls Farr, is rebuffed, and is also turned away by a book dealer (Norman Bird), a car dealer and others. His desperation is closely observed in a pub where many of the characters hang out, including an odd couple: a ratlike little man and his heftier companion, who is blind but hears all the gossip.

Barrett is arrested, and found with a scrapbook of clippings about Farr. To the almost unconvincingly wise and civilized Detective Inspector Harris (John Barrie), it's an open-and-shut case: Barrett has no money, lived simply, had stolen thousands from his employer, seemed gay, and therefore was a blackmail victim. He calls in Farr, who offers no help, but when Harris tells him that the young man has hanged himself in his cell, Farr is deeply shaken. He has good reason: He loved Barrett.

His wife Laura (Sylvia Syms) immediately reads his mood and eventually learns of his friendship with Barrett. She knew when they married that he'd had a youthful infatuation with a fellow Cambridge student, but that it was "behind him." He never had sex with Barrett, he tells her, and stopped seeing the young man when he sensed their feelings were growing too strong -- but for her it's as much of a betrayal as physical contact, because he shows that what he felt for Barrett was different, more powerful, than what he feels for her.

The movie proceeds on two levels, as a crime thriller and as a character study, and it's this dual nature that makes it an entertainment at the same time it works as a message picture. There's a good deal of indirection in the clever script, which conceals motives, misdirects our suspicions, misleads our expectations, and finds truth and dignity in the scenes between Farr and his wife; what a relief that their powerful last scene together ends on a note of bleak realism rather than providing some kind of artificial release.

The movie, written by Janet Green and John McCormick, plays out primarily in a series of dialogue scenes, made rich by the gallery of British character actors who inhabit them. The best is Norman Bird, as the used-book dealer, who turns Barrett away but whose feelings about him (and Farr, as it turns out) are more complicated than it seems.

The book man is one of the contacts Farr calls on in his own investigation; working with a few names supplied by one of Barrett's straight friends, he tries to get someone to say how and when he makes blackmail payments. Almost all the victims are afraid to, and one, an elderly barber named Henry (Charles Lloyd Pack), fiercely tells Farr he has been to prison twice because of his nature, and does not intend to go again.

The photography places this action colorfully within a living, breathing London; it has a feel for the way its characters live and speak. For Pauline Kael, the British speech mannerisms of some of the characters made them seem, to her, more gay than the low-key Bogarde, and indeed we cannot always guess who is hunter and who is quarry. There is a subtle subplot, for example, suggesting that one of the policemen on the case may be gay himself.

For Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999), the role in "Victim" provided a decisive break in his career. He'd been a popular leading man in the 1950s, playing conventional action and romantic roles and even making those "Doctor" comedies ("Doctor in the House," "Doctor at Sea," and "Doctor at Large"). To play a homosexual in 1961 would bring an end, his agent warned him, to those kinds of mainstream roles, and make him unemployable in Hollywood just at the moment when American directors were interested in him.

But he went ahead anyway, just as Melville Farr did, and indeed never again appeared as a conventional male lead. That turned out, oddly, to be the key to his greatest success; at a time when his stock as a conventional leading man would probably have been falling, he was able, having broken free, to work in one challenging film after another: "The Servant" (1963), "King & Country" (1964), "Darling" (1965), "Accident" (1967), "The Fixer" (1968) Visconti's "The Damned" (1969) and "Death in Venice" (1971), Resnais' "Providence" (1977) and Fassbinder's "Despair" (1979).

Bogarde himself was homosexual, but never made that public; even in his touching memoirs about the life and death of his partner Tony Forwood, he cast their relationship as actor and manager, not lovers. For that he has been criticized by some gay writers and activists, but consider: By accepting what looked like career suicide to star in "Victim," wasn't he making much the same decision as his character Melville Farr -- to do the right thing, and accept the consequences? Didn't he, in effect, come out as an actor in that and many other roles (notably as the aging homosexual in "Death in Venice")? Was it anybody's business what he was, or did, in his private life? It is the argument of "Victim" that it was not.

I met him once, on a summer afternoon in Venice when he was making the Visconti picture. We had tea in the garden of a palazzo overlooking the Guidecca Canal, and he pointed out with amusement an old lady in black who lurked behind some trees: "That's the Contessa, who is renting this place to me and thinks I don't know that she didn't move out." He was quiet, crisp, introverted. Not the sort of man who you could imaging making personal revelations for the delight of the press.

Today, yes, things are different, but Bogarde was born in 1921, and homosexuality was only finally legalized in Britain in 1967. As an actor, he risked a great deal to take a crucial role at a time when it made a difference. And didn't he anyway, through his work, tell us whatever it was about him we thought we had the right to know?

Daringly forthright, this suspenseful story of blackmail (expertly performed by a great cast led by Dirk Bogarde) is a valuable time capsule of the pervasive homophobia that dominated all reaches of 1960s society. There are great, timeless moments that remind the audience of simultaneously how far and how little we have progressed since then.

A 30 minute television interview from 1961 with Bogarde is also quite interesting, particularly for American audiences who may only be peripherally aware of his wonderful work on the stage, in film and as an author.

Melville Farr (Dirk Bogarde), a married and highly respected barrister on the verge of making QC, becomes embroiled in a homosexual blackmail plot when a youth he befriended is arrested and commits suicide. As Farr attempts to track down and expose the blackmailers, much to the distress of his secretly gay acquaintances and colleagues, Farr and his wife are forced to confront his own ambiguous sexuality... I hunted this film down because it came up time and again in reviews and discussions about "Brokeback Mountain" and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It was apparently a pivotal moment in the history of British cinema, being the first movie to use the word "homosexual" let alone pitch an argument against Britain's anti-sodomy laws. That's all a bit irrelevant - almost comical - these days, and certainly no reason to bother watching this unless you're particularly interested in film history. What struck me, however, and what prompts me to recommend this film, is the way it still stands up as a dramatic thriller even today. It's beautifully paced, finely crafted in terms of shooting and editing, and the writing is marvellously fresh. It feels almost contemporary. The way the opening thirty minutes unfold are a short course in screenwriting: just enough information is revealed to keep you engaged, while enough is held back to make it intriguing. For the duration it remains true to the demands of a mystery plot. Never becoming just a social essay, it almost completely resists the urge to preach to the audience, notwithstanding the controversial topic. My only reservation is around the ending - Laura's final decision strikes me as both too needy and too generous to be quite credible. But overall this is an excellent film.

...well, 90 minutes...

A wonderful and courageous film that Dirk (Death In Venice) Bogarde literally risked his career on. Thankfully the gamble paid off, and the film was a success both in terms of the box office, and also in opening up the debate over the suppressive and archaic laws regarding homosexuality.

I recall an interview in which Dirk talked about how strong and supportive the divine Sylvia Syms had been throughout the making of this classic of the British film industry; and the chemistry between these two superb actors is a major component of the film's power.

As others have pointed out in their superb reviews, homosexuality was still very much illegal in 1961 while film was being made, and even after it was decriminalized in 1967, the age of consent for homosexual sex was 21, while it was only 16 for heterosexual sex.

After much pressure from the GLBT community and other concerned groups, the age of consent for homosexual sex in Britain subsequently dropped to 18 in 1994 and 16 in 1998.

An essential film that may well have been the catalyst for some long overdue social change.

A groundbreaking film in its day because of its sympathetic treatment of homosexual themes, "Victim" may have lost some of its provocative edge, but it nonetheless remains a sophisticated and engrossing mystery. Both its plot and its political bent are neatly encapsulated in a line of dialogue near the end of the movie when one of the characters sagely notes that the British laws criminalizing consenting homosexual behavior provide a breeding ground for blackmailers. The story concerns a closeted and married barrister (Dirk Bogarde in a powerful and richly nuanced performance) who determines to bring the extortionists who were indirectly responsible for a former lover's suicide to justice, despite the attendant risks to his own career, social position, and marriage. His search through an underground London populated by blackmailers, their accomplices (both willing and unwitting), their victims, and the police is paralleled by his own emotional journey toward personal truth and self-understanding.

The Home Vision Entertainment release of this minor classic is far from perfect. Mastered from a print in the Janus Films collection, there are two major and very distracting breaks in the video that might easily have been repaired with minimum effort. And although the aspect ratio is indeed 1.66:1 as advertised, the film is not letterboxed; therefore, unless you own a widescreen television set, you will be viewing a print that appears to be full-frame but is in fact compressed from side-to-side, making the actors and sets appear unnaturally tall and narrow. Finally, the soundtrack is sometimes muddy and/or marked by background hiss that makes small stretches of dialogue incomprehensible. On the plus side, the DVD does include the Original Theatrical Trailer; brilliant and thoughtful liner notes by film historian David Thomson; and (best of all) a 1961 televison interview with Bogarde in which the actor offers insights into his career to date, as well as his thoughts on the pending theatrical release of "Victim". Recommended for the film itself and the extras ... but not for the overall quality of the DVD itself.

Don't let the title mislead you. Victim is about a man who is anything but helpless. Dirk Bogarde, in a career-defining role, plays a highly respected, but closeted, attorney who risks his marriage and reputation to bring to justice an elusive blackmail ring terrorizing gay men (exposure then meant not only disgrace but prison), and which caused the young man he loved to commit suicide. In the early 1960s, director Basil Dearden's Victim was perhaps the most daring film yet to appear on the British screen. A surprise hit at the box office, many regard it as the work that finally stirred Parliament to begin amending Britain's draconian laws against "homosexual acts."

Historical importance aside, Victim still holds up as a taut and entertaining thriller, with excellent performances and some striking cinematography. After more than 40 years, actor Dirk Bogarde's protagonist remains one of the screen's few out and out gay heroes. He gives a richly nuanced, and powerful, performance. The film uses an unusual structural device: Melville Farr (Bogarde) and Jack Barrett (hauntingly played by Peter McEnery), the young man who loves him and whom he loves, never appear together onscreen. In fact, the first quarter of the film involves Jack's increasingly frantic attempts to contact the nervous Farr, who dodges him every way he can. While that "non-meeting" certainly upped the comfort level for many, it also provides a unique dramatic strength. Here absence is powerful in its suggestiveness. And as the film unfolds, we never forget that Farr's single-minded mission - in his role as part lovesick man, part avenging angel - is to bring to justice the blackmailers who drove Jack to kill himself.

As played by the handsome Peter McEnery, Jack comes across as a likable guy, unpretentious and authentic. We never doubt his feelings for Farr, or his genuine affection for the middle-aged men in love with him. And although Jack dies within the first half hour, he dominates the film, causing not only Farr but, on some level, the audience to ask, What injustice caused this affable young man to kill himself?

And that puts all of British society, both gay and straight, on trial. But it also causes the film's only dramatic limitation when, in the second half, polemics takes over. It tries to show the broad impact of homophobia on the widest possible socioeconomic range of characters, from both the straight and gay worlds. There are simply too many people, representing too many permutations of class and taste. However, there are some very powerful scenes, especially between Farr and his wife Laura (played with emotional complexity by the beautiful Sylvia Syms), as they work out the new contours of their marriage. But overall the film's second half was less effective than its first.

In the opening hour, Dearden brilliantly used cinematic means - expressive lighting, slightly off-kilter compositions, propulsive narrative rhythms, and jazzy music - to explore character and theme (all captured superbly in the DVD transfer). In the first half, I saw and felt what it was like to live in that tense world, while in the second half, I heard characters tell me about it.

Still, I highly recommend this film, not only for its historical importance to both GLBT cinema and rights, but because it is an engrossing, well acted and often strikingly shot film. And although the legal and social situation of GLBT people has improved markedly in the past four decades, there is still much emotional truth and insight in this landmark film.

Basil Dearden's tense, gripping drama was daring for the time in addressing the victimization of closeted homosexuals by unscrupulous criminals. Bogarde is superb as Farr (no relation), and Sylvia Syms shines as his stoic wife. Extremely effective film helped launch a reform of laws against homosexual activity in England.

This film from the Rank organisation directed by Basil Dearden was a landmark in cinema history as allegedly the first to mention the ten-letter word "homosexual" (though the use of "queer" reads as more of a shock). "Gay" had got a lot of usage, in the 20's in innocence, and in the 30's with subtext, but it says something about the sexual prudism of American society that it was the British, of all people, to be the ones to open an adult conversation on the subject. The screenplay by Janet Green and John McCormick uses the thriller form to uncover the blackmail of homosexuals, since the laws that existed to prosecute practicing homosexuals was known as the "blackmailer's charter". The victims of both the legal system and the homophobic blackmailers presente here are all men, with no mention of whether this law also applied to lesbians, though presumably the offence they could be convicted of is less associated with women (and not uncommon in heterosexual behaviour). Since the writers make the main character a barrister, it's clear that the intention is law reform, but this ambition doesn't stop them from using cliched phrases, such as "horrid imaginings", "It used to be witches", "unfortunate devils", "They're good for a laugh but I hate their guts", "The invert is part of nature", and "I find love in the only way I can". The best line is delivered by a Noel Coward-ish actor (his character named is amusingly obscured by the sound of a passing tea trolley), "the rage of Caliban on seeing his own reflection in the mirror", but the worst is ironically delivered by the actor delivering the most interesting performance as a victim, with Charles Lloyd Pack's "Nature played me a dirty trick". Lloyd Pack gives "I'm going to be sensible" a funny intonation. An incriminating photograph of the barrister Dirk Bogarde with a "boy" he has in his car but has rebuffed, is never seen, which is a pity since we are told "there is as much pain in both faces". The screenplay also features a McGuffin subplot, and an odd cruising policeman (one wonders how far he would go with his spying) , but the lead blackmailer is given some nice touches with a motobike, s/m clothing, a fondness for boxing and classical music, and a framed picture of Michelangelo's David. What is interesting is how the writers condemn women as the worst type of homophobes, while at the same time giving Bogarde's wife (Sylvia Syms) such depth of feeling, probably as an acknowledgement that of the couple, she is one who has been deceived the most. Whilst I could have done without making her a teacher of "difficult children", the scene where Bogarde's involvement is exposed has her playing the prosecutor to his witness, with his climactic "I wanted him" yelled in shameful anger and along the same lines as his "If it was love why should I want to stamp it out?" In a role Bogarde declared altered his screen career for the better, he wears aged makeup and sports grey hair, apparently since a man at 40 has entered decay (or is just 40 year old closeted male homosexuals?), and whilst the barrister role allows him a dignified manner, I liked his smile upon being made aware of being in the same room as three less closeted male homosexuals, and the look on his face when he is asked if he knew the boy he had been seeing was homosexual and he replies "Yes, I had formed that impression". It's hard to imagine who the film-makers thought the audience for this film was, since the main character's denial of his sexual impulses insults gays, and as Pauline Kael said in her review to be found in I Lost it at the Movies, it also "gives a black eye to the heterosexual life, with the unwarranted assumption that that if homosexuality wasn't a crime, it would spread and heterosexuality would be unable to survive in a free market".