Contraband (1940)

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Movie
Original title Contraband
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Publishing year 1940
length 92 minutes
Rod
Director Michael Powell
script Emeric Pressburger
production John Corfield
music Richard Addinsell
John Greenwood
camera Freddie Young
cut John Seabourne
occupation

Contraband is a British drama directed by Michael Powell in the first winter of the war in 1939/40 with Conrad Veidt in the leading role. At his side, Valerie Hobson took on the female lead.

action

November 1939. There has been tense calm in Europe since the Wehrmacht overran Poland. The West is preparing for the war on its front, and the British are imposing a naval blockade on Germany. In this situation, the Danish cargo ship SS Helvig under the command of Captain Andersen is seized by the British in the North Sea on its way home from New York to Copenhagen and directed to one of their ports to check the cargo. Cargo that could ultimately reach Germany is viewed by the Allies as contraband, contraband. While the Helvig is being felted by the British, two Royal Navy ship officers invite the Danish civil colleague to dinner and issue him and his first officer Axel Skold permits for the coastal region. According to the British, Andersen should be able to continue his journey next morning. But the important passes and a motorized dinghy are stolen from Captain Andersen. Since the pretty, idiosyncratic and sometimes even unruly Mrs. Sorenson and the talent scout Mr. Pidgeon are missing from the passengers, the captain rightly assumes that the two British have taken possession of both things and have set off for London.

Andersen is quite angry about the behavior of the two English passengers and clings to their heels. Sorenson and Pidgeon have now reached the train station, from where the young woman makes a phone call. Instead of her aunt, however, she only reached a certain Mrs. Lang, supposedly a secretary. Then the two board the train and drive to London. There Captain Andersen catches up with her and blames Mrs. Sorenson heavily. She promises him to return to the ship in good time before casting off at dawn. The captain invites the pretty lady to dinner in a London restaurant owned by Erik Skold, brother of the SS Helvig's first officer. The two fighters come a little closer. Then Andersen leads the young British woman to her aunt Kate. There, however, the two are not received by their aunt, but by that ominous secretary and some of her accomplices. These strangers belong to a German spy ring under the leadership of a certain van Dyne. It turns out that van Dyne, on the one hand, and Mrs. Sorenson and Mr. Pidgeon, on the other, already knew each other from pre-war times in Germany and were adversaries even then. The young woman and the supposed talent scout are in fact British agents who have now fallen into the hands of their German opponents.

This espionage matter concerns German ships that sail under a neutral flag in order to undermine the English blockade against the German Reich. Two ship names are scribbled on a cigarette paper that Van Dyne finds with Mrs. Sorenson. Sorenson and Pidgeon wanted to hand this information over to the British Admiralty in London so that countermeasures can be taken. Van Dyne exchanges the note and instead adds the name of a freighter from the United States, which was still neutral at the time (1940). This is said to sow discord between the British and the Americans in the event of a British attack on the ships. Mrs. Sorenson, the also captured Mr. Pidgeon and the Danish cargo captain are kidnapped and tied up by the German agents, but Andersen manages to free himself a little later. He hurries away and returns with reinforcements, the restaurant owner Erik Skold and his employees. Together they overpower the Nazi agents. Captain Andersen and Mrs. Sorenson return to the SS Helvig and then continue their journey to Copenhagen. As before, before all the excitement on the British mainland started, the Danish captain has to grapple with Mrs. Sorenson's refusal to wear a life jacket. But instead of falling into quarrel again, the budding lovers embrace.

Production notes

The shooting of Contraband began a few weeks after the outbreak of war in 1939. The premiere took place on May 11, 1940. The film was not shown in Germany. The same team - Powell and Pressburger, Veidt and Hobson - had filmed the war and espionage drama The Spy in Black a few months earlier . These two films were the beginning of a collaboration between Powell and Pressburger that spanned numerous film classics into the 1970s.

Roland Gillett took over the production management, Anthony Nelson-Keys took over the production management. Alfred Junge designed the film structures, Raemonde Rahvis the costumes. Muir Mathieson took over the musical direction.

Deborah Kerr's tiny role as a cigarette seller was cut out of the finished film. It was her first appearance in front of a film camera.

Even Milo O'Shea made his film debut here.

Reviews

The Movie & Video Guide stated: "Outstanding espionage story from the Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger team that was very much designed in Hitchcock style."

The British Film Institute made the following analysis: “Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's second collaboration captures the darkness and disorientation (both literally and metaphorically) of London in the early stages of the war while explaining the importance and operation of British smuggling controls. Although made as a propaganda piece with the support of the Ministry of Information, Contraband never sacrifices storytelling in favor of dry and informative detail. Instead, the film falls more clearly into the comedy spy thriller genre, of which Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935) and A Lady Vanishes (1938) are prime examples. The attraction between the stubborn but charming Captain Andersen (Conrad Veidt) and the lively Mrs Sorensen (Valerie Hobson) is cleverly handled when the couple gets into various tricky situations during the course of the film. "

Halliwell's Film Guide found the film to be "a delightful, lightweight comedy melodrama on Hitchcock tracks."

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 260
  2. ↑ Analysis on BFI Screenonline
  3. ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 220

Web links