I was having trouble finding a link to this review of the 1960 film 'Peeping Tom' By British Director Michael Powell (The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus), but I did. The review is by one of the great conspiracy dot connectors Dave McGowan, he saw many angles past what was already a very controversial and unusual film.

here's a link to a clip from the movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9lPXMQzQKo

review by Dave McGowan

http://thegipster.blogspot.no/2012/11/assorted-weirdness.html

.“Peeping Tom” is a remarkable film with a curious history. As the story goes, this cinematic gem was almost lost to the world forever, and remained virtually unseen for the first twenty years of its existence. Upon its release in the UK (it was a British production), it was immediately attacked by the media. The assault was so harsh and unrelenting that the film was pulled from theaters within a week and the movie’s director, previously one of the most highly-regarded film directors then working, left the country and moved to Australia, his career and reputation in ruins....

.....The film's plot-line revolves around a protagonist named Mark Lewis (seen here in the film's brief nude scene - the first in a major studio production - which I have included here in an obvious attempt to increase traffic to my website), an oddly sympathetic psychopath played by Austrian actor Karl Boehm. By day, the creepy yet charismatic Lewis works in the mainstream film industry as an assistant cameraman. But by night, our anti-hero pursues other interests – such as soliciting the services of prostitutes, shooting pornographic films, brutally murdering a series of attractive young women, and, last but certainly not least, producing snuff films.

Quite a heady mix, I have to say, for a film that appeared on movie screens (albeit very briefly) nearly half-a-century ago. And there’s more! As is noted in a British television documentary that is included on the DVD, the Mark Lewis character was “driven to voyeurism and murder by traumatic childhood experiences at the hands of his psychologist father.” Huh?! Traumatic childhood abuse at the hands of a psychologist? ... resulting in the spawning of a serial killer/snuff film maker? Who would have ever guessed that?

In the film, Mark Lewis’ father is depicted as having devoted his life to studying the human reaction to fear. Of particular interest was the fear reaction in – you guessed it – children. And being the depraved and sadistic sort of guy that he was, his favorite test subject was his own son, whom he systematically traumatized throughout the boy’s childhood, while, naturally enough, carefully documenting each act of abuse on film. So now the son, having been properly conditioned by the father, carries on the family tradition by filming the fear on his victims’ faces at the moment of their violent death. To pass the time between kills, our leading man spends endless hours viewing his sizable film library, which includes both the films of his own torture as a child and his own self-produced snuff films.

And where, you may be wondering, did such a deranged, disturbing, yet oddly familiar storyline come from? To answer that question, we must turn to the bonus documentary entitled “A Very British Psycho,” produced for British television in 1997. There we learn that although the film is most closely associated with disgraced director Michael Powell, it was actually the creation of Leo Marks, described by the documentary’s narrator as “a figure as secretive and mysterious as his near namesake, Mark Lewis.”

Mr. Marks, as it turns out, was at one time a high-level intelligence operative. Imagine my surprise at that revelation!..

more here

http://thegipster.blogspot.no/2012/11/assorted-weirdness.html

Interview with Scorsese about the film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GItFNbLVCs&t=1006s