Yes, Pepping Tom has a fascinating plot and yes, some of the images are haunting. Anna Massey is very, very good in her part as a kind and intelligent young woman who likes the extremely-flawed hero. And certainly the movie is nowhere near as bad as the British critics made it out to be. But...Carl Boehm looks, but doesn't act, the part. As little as he speaks, his strong German accent is still apparent, and mystifying in a character who has supposedly been born of British parents and spent the whole of his life in London. This wouldn't matter so much if Boehm were a better actor, if he inhabited the role and made Mark Lewis a real person. (Veteran Miles Malleson puts more oomph into his bit part as a dirty old man, and he's only on the screen for about three minutes). The inclusion of Moira Shearer was, surely, just a favor between old friends--she is too old, too glamorous, too star-like for her very small part. What was the significance of the disfigured woman earlier in the movie? It's a fascinating minute or so, but the idea of how Mark sees imperfection is not picked up again. (If he's that fascinated, surely the heroine's mother, with her ruined eyes, would be more interesting to him?). Better casting and, I think, more money overall would have achieved a better movie--a real masterpiece, where this movie is just the germ of one.
Review of Peeping Tom
