Is there a better work at the intersection of filmmaking, cinephilia, and their attendant madnesses? However evident its genius, Peeping Tom has awaited a proper upgrade––its Criterion is long out-of-print, Blu-rays are region-locked for the U.S., and whatever copy’s streaming is a bit of an eyesore. But 63 years after effectively killing Michael Powell’s career it’s just debuted a 4K restoration at the London Film Festival, will start playing U.K. theaters on October 27, and get a UHD release on January 29––one hopes with equal treatment stateside.
There’s now a trailer that’s impressive in clarity if not, perhaps, a bit concerning for its jaundice––an all-too-common issue in modern restorations. The legitimacy of concerns notwithstanding, it’s also quite possible this has a bit more fidelity to the original image on a big screen, uncompressed.
Find the trailer below:
An influential cinematic masterpiece written by Leo Marks (Twisted Nerve) and starring Carl Boehm (Sissi), Anna Massey (Frenzy), Moira Shearer (The Red Shoes) and Maxine Audley (A King in New York), PEEPING TOM will also play as part of the BFI’s Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell and Pressburger season at BFI Southbank and across the UK (16 Oct – 31 Dec) and at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon (14-22 Oct). Mark (Carl Boehm), a focus puller at the local film studio, supplements his wages by taking glamour photographs in a seedy studio above a newsagent. By night he is a sadistic killer, stalking his victims with his camera forever in his hand trying to capture the look of genuine, unadulterated fear – an obsession that stems from his disturbing and terrifying childhood at the hands of his scientist father. Mark slowly becomes enamoured with Helen (Anna Massey), who lives with her blind mother (Maxine Audley) in the flat downstairs, but how long before he turns the deadly gaze of his camera towards her?