Espionne à bord

The plot is well paced and fun, although a bit convoluted. But, Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson are the hidden pleasures in this film. She's beautiful and witty. He's tall (very), handsome, and debonaire. Together they're very sexy: their relationship here is reminiscent of that of William Powell and Myrna Loy in the Thin Man and Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in North-By-Northwest. The scene in which they break the bonds in which the villains have tied them is wonderfully erotic. Above all, Contraband demonstrates how film makers (outside of Powell and Pressberger) missed the boat in not taking advantage of Veidt's sophisticated persona, understated acting skills, and comedic flair.

Just watched this on TCM, where it appeared in their day-long tribute to Veidt - parenthetically, their August programs featuring one actor per day have unearthed some marvelous stuff (eg, early Ann Dvorak). TCM aired it as "Contraband", the original British title - and it's a very British piece indeed. The plot is complex & often nonsensical, but I don't think one ever watches Michael Powell films for tidy screenplays. Veidt and Hobson encounter one another on his ship, and then whiz across London, first pursuing/eluding one another, then working together to undo a German spy ring. Much hugger-mugger, with a multitude of British character actors working in blackout darkness and then brightly-lit, often chaotic interiors (train compartments, restaurants, ship's lounges, nightclubs, elevators ....) Veidt and Hobson are charming in tandem, with a grownup sexual tension that for this viewer was a striking contrast to the more standard youthful leads of that time (and ours). As other commenters have noted, the filmmakers include a subtle thread of delight in bondage, mild fetishism, etc (eg,Hobson's shoes & feet during her captivity). Ah, the British. Clearly made on a budget, the entire production nonetheless looks & feels terrific - gritty shipboard all-male scenes, a couple of nightclub production numbers that have to be seen to be believed, a swell Art Deco townhouse - and underneath it all, maneuvering through the London blackout as a necessary given, a condition of life that the Brits seem to take for granted as the darkest days of the war approach. I had never seen Veidt so sympathetic - here a memorable leading man, versus his more well-know villains..And I was until now unfamiliar with Hay Petrie, here in a double role as Veidt's shipboard second-in-command, and that character's brother, a volatile (& hilarious) Danish restaurateur (don't ask!) All in all - a delight.

... from British National Films and director Michael Powell. Danish merchant ship's Captain Andersen (Conrad Veidt) is irritated enough when his ship is ordered into dock for inspection for contraband by British authorities. It only gets worse when two passengers, Mrs. Sorensen (Valeriea Hobson) and Mr. Pidgeon (Esmond Knight), sneak off the ship. Captain Andersen tracks them down through the darkness of London in an enforced blackout, only to end up targeted by a Nazi spy ring.

There's a light-heartedness that runs through this entertaining thriller. Veidt, cast against type, is good as the put-upon ship's captain that just wants to get back home. Hobson is excellent as the mysterious Mrs. Sorensen. Some of the comic relief bits with Hay Petrie in a dual role can get a bit long, but it's not too awful. Contraband was the original British release title, which was changed to Blackout for the US market, as well as having 12 minutes shaved off the running time.

What a delightful film this is. It's true that this film is concocted out of the same ingredients of contemporary Hitchcock film - spy suspense and romance between stand offish lovers wrapped up in a crust of a comedy of manners but it's interesting to see the results from a different chef. There is even a climactic scene in a factory which makes busts of Neville Chamberlain. The little sexual mushrooms that Hitchcock likes to strew through his films are here even more perverse with particular emphasis on bondage and pain. Here is Conrad Veidt at his most affable and most romantic, hardly the same man who pisses ice cubes he was in Casablanca, his most indelible role. Valerie Hobson is the perfect combination of repressed middle class woman and devil may care adventuress. They have a brilliant chemistry together, sort of a neo-lithic Steed and Peel. It remains to be seen if any film today can ever capture this type of pairing, with the forthcoming MR. & MRS. SMITH (itself an old Hitchcock title) promising a cartoon like special effects and martial arts based attempt at mutual destruction. O tempes, o mores.

The action can be a little more than the merely concocted. As in farce, people do certain things in certain ways, its seems, just to keep the story moving along. So there are massive plot holes. Its the old John Ford story, about why he didn't have the Indians simply shoot the horses in STAGECOACH (if they did there wouldn't be a movie!). There was another reason d'etre for CONTRABAND - wartime British propaganda.

CONTRABAND was made with the co-operation of two British Government ministries including the Office of Economic Warfare. It would seem that one film's goals was to create a positive sympathy among Scandinavians by having the lions share of defeating the Nazi spy ring accomplished by the hereto neutral Danes handily recruited from a restaurant evocatively named The Viking. This British hope of support was before the German invasion of Denmark and the instantaneous crumbling of Danish military defenses. The climactic fight in the factory making heroic busts of Neville Chamberlain was not meant to be ironic (a bust is used to knock out a spy followed with a Bond like quip "They said he was tough."). It is doubtful that two government ministries would have co-operated with a film which made fun of the Prime Minister during wartime. In fact all Civil servants and serving military men are seen as competent, thoughtful efficient and humane. But all of these elements are held subtly in the background, as is a virtual encyclopedia of ordinary life in London, especially the demands of the blackout.

However all these are subsidiary interests to the real focus of the film, the relationship between Veidt and Hobson. In many way this was a repackaging of their pairing in a previous Powell film, THE SPY IN BLACK, which ends, in romantic terms, unsatisfactorily, i.e. she goes back to her husband and he dies. Here they go on together, no doubt spending the next few years giving the Jerrys conniption fits, in and out of bondage. Oh yes. There is bondage, perhaps even freakier than in a Hitchcock film. There is no mistaking the B&D complete with a pillar.The good old days when you could get right to the edge and it would be read as merely the hero and heroine being tied up but no mistake, this is the real thing.

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 seen British film classic.