Contraband [Blackout] ***** (1940, Conrad Veidt, Valerie Hobson) – Classic Movie Review 620

Director Michael Powell and co-screenwriter Emeric Pressburger’s fast-moving, scintillating 1940 World War Two spy thriller Contraband [Blackout] reunites them with the brilliant screen team of Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson, the stars of their previous year’s hit The Spy in Black.

Contraband takes place during the London blackout (hence its US title of Blackout) and the early ‘phoney war’ days of World War Two before the bombing started.

Unusually for him, Veidt plays the hero, neutral Danish sea skipper Captain Andersen (he was a German captain in The Spy in Black), who is delayed in a British port called Eastgate (but shot on location in Ramsgate) when there is a British inspection of his ship transporting trade goods, and two passengers make off with his ship’s log and landing clearances.

Hobson plays Mrs Sorensen, one of the two passengers who spies for the British Admiralty (she was a German agent in The Spy in Black). Andersen makes an unauthorized visit on UK soil to apprehend Mrs Sorensen and her partner. But then Andersen and Mrs Sorensen join forces to tangle with German spies and chase the foreign agents to their cinema hideaway (just like Oscar Homolka’s in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1936 film Sabotage).

It is lightly sophisticated, top-class, tongue-in-cheek entertainment delivered in the best manner of Alfred Hitchcock, mixing romantic comedy with suspense as expertly as Hitchcock did in The 39 Steps. Powell adds some distinctive visual touches of his own, with the help of Freddie Young’s black and white cinematography, though even these are Hitchcock influenced.

Both The Spy in Black and Contraband rank alongside Hitchcock’s finest 30s work (like Secret Agent, Sabotage and Young and Innocent), except for The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, which are in a special category of their own.

The scene shot with Deborah Kerr playing a cigarette girl in one of the nightclubs visited was cut from the release print. It was the first film that she had worked on. She returned big time for Powell and Pressburger in 1943’s The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and 1947’s Black Narcissus.

There is also an early uncredited performance by Leo Genn. Milo O’Shea makes his film debut, uncredited as an air raid warden. And Bernard Miles appears in an amusing scene arguing with two air raid wardens.

Pressburger is credited with the original story and screenplay, Powell and Brock Williams with the scenario. Powell writes in his autobiography A Life in Movies that the US title was better and wished he had thought of it.

When Contraband came out in November 1940, Denmark had been invaded and occupied for several months and the Danes had to ally with the United Kingdom.

Contraband was in production from 16 December 1939 to 27 January 1940 at Denham Film Studios, with location shooting in London at Chester Square in Belgravia, and in Ramsgate in Kent.

Contraband runs 92 minutes (UK) and Blackout runs 80 minutes (US), which might account for the perceived brisk pace it had in the American version.

Berlin-born Conrad Veidt made his name as a murderous somnambulist in Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920) and starred in other silent horror films such as The Hands of Orlac (1924), The Student of Prague (1926) and Waxworks (1924).

Veidt his new Jewish wife Ilona Prager were forced to flee Germany in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. They settled in Britain and Veidt became a British citizen in 1939, appearing in many British films including The Thief of Bagdad (1940). He emigrated to the US in 1941 and played Major Strasser in Casablanca (1942).

Veidt fervently opposed the Nazi regime and later donated a major part of his fortune to Britain to assist in the war effort.

The cast are Conrad Veidt as Captain Andersen, Valerie Hobson as Mrs Sorensen, Hay Petrie as Axel Skold/ Erik Skold, Joss Ambler as Lt. Cmdr. Ashton RNR, Raymond Lovell as Van Dyne, Esmond Knight as Mr Pidgeon, Charles Victor as Hendrick, Phoebe Kershaw as Miss Lang, Harold Warrender as Lt. Cmdr. Ellis RN, John Longden as Passport Officer, Eric Maturin as Passport Officer, Paddy Browne as singer in Regency, Dennis Arundell as Lieman, Molly Hamley-Clifford as Baroness Hekla, Eric Berry as Mr Abo, Olga Edwardes as Mrs Abo, Leo Genn as Van Dyne’s associate, Peter Bull as Van Dyne’s associate, Bernard Miles as man arguing with air raid wardens, Esma Cannon as Skold’s niece, Michael Shepley as helpful man in club, and Milo O’Shea as air raid warden.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 620 derekwinnert.com