Contraband (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Contraband | |
|---|---|
 Contraband DVD Cover |
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| Directed by | Michael Powell |
| Produced by | John Corfield |
| Written by | Michael Powell Emeric Pressburger |
| Starring | Conrad Veidt Valerie Hobson |
| Music by | Richard Addinsell |
| Cinematography | Freddie Young |
| Editing by | John Seabourne Sr. |
| Distributed by | Anglo-American |
| Release date(s) | May 11, 1940 UK |
| Running time | 92 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £47,000 (estimated) |
| IMDb profile | |
Contraband (1940) is a film by the British director-writer team of Powell & Pressburger.
It brought stars Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson together again after their success in The Spy in Black the previous year. Its US title was Blackout.
[edit] Story
Danish Captain Andersen (Conrad Veidt) is stopped for a cargo inspection in a British Contraband Control Port in the early years of World War II. He gets some shore passes for himself and his First Officer but they are stolen by passengers Mrs. Sorensen (Valerie Hobson) and Mr. Pidgeon (Esmond Knight) who take a boat and go ashore. Capt. Andersen decides to follow them and the journey takes them through blacked-out London and to various strange characters and adventures.
[edit] Criticism
- "An odd little comic thriller - who, except perhaps Michael Powell, would cast 47-year-old Cabinet of Dr. Caligari star Conrad Veidt as a light romantic hero?" --- TV Guide online
- "Less stylish than The Spy in Black, this espionage thriller is more fun, with its tongue-in-cheek plot revelling in Hitchcockian eccentricities" --- Time Out
- "A neat Second World War espionage thriller that depicts a London crawling with spies" --- Radio Times
[edit] External links
- Contraband reviews and articles at the Powell & Pressburger Pages
- Contraband at the Internet Movie Database
- Contraband at the BFI's Screenonline. Full synopsis and film stills (and clips viewable from UK libraries).
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Powell and Pressburger The films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger |
|---|---|
| 1930s | The Spy in Black | The Lion Has Wings |
| 1940s | Contraband | An Airman's Letter to His Mother | Forty-Ninth Parallel | One of Our Aircraft is Missing | The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | The Volunteer | A Canterbury Tale | I Know Where I'm Going! | A Matter of Life and Death | Black Narcissus | The Red Shoes | The Small Back Room |
| 1950s | The Elusive Pimpernel | Gone to Earth | The Tales of Hoffmann | Oh... Rosalinda!! | The Battle of the River Plate | Ill Met by Moonlight |
| 1960s | Peeping Tom (not Pressburger) | They're a Weird Mob | Age of Consent |
| 1970s | The Boy Who Turned Yellow |
