While a few recent films had touched on the issue obliquely or through a historical setting (e.g. The Trials of Oscar Wilde), Victim stood out as a contemporary drama focusing unambiguously and sympathetically on homosexuality. Star Dirk Bogarde recalled in his biography “countless letters of gratitude flooding in” from gay men after the film’s release. The role presented a major career risk for him; he was then known for ‘matinee idol’ roles for the Rank Organisation such as the Doctor in the House series.

The film marked a change of direction in his career towards working with auteur directors such as Losey, Visconti and Fassbinder. He went on to win two BAFTAs (The Servant, Darling) and receive a knighthood, and enjoys a lasting reputation as one of the great British screen actors. Bogarde was himself gay and had a partner with whom he lived for many years, but never came out publicly.

Director Basil Dearden and producer Michael Relph were already known for their pioneering films dealing with issues such as racial tension/intolerance and ‘juvenile delinquents’ (including their 1950 film The Blue Lamp, which gave Bogarde his breakthrough screen role, as a hoodlum who kills a policeman). While to modern eyes their treatment of the issue may seem mild and even timid, within the context of the social climate of 1961 it was very daring – e.g. the dialogue including terms such as ‘homosexual’ and ‘homosexuality’. Too much so for the American censor, who denied the film a Production Seal of Approval (effectively restricting its distribution in the USA to arthouse cinemas), and the influential Time magazine which attacked it as a ‘plea for perversion’.

Within Britain however the film was more sympathetically received, although it received an X certificate from the censor. It was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 1961 Venice Film Festival, where an Italian critic declared that “at last the British have stopped being hypocrites”. It is widely credited with having helped create the change in public attitudes which enabled homosexuality to be decriminalised in Britain in 1967.

“It is a thriller (and a good one), with characters which could not have been shown and on a subject which would have excited horror or ribaldry a few years ago.” Dilys Powell, The Sunday Times

“1961’s ‘Victim’ may come to be valued, 50 years on, not as a study of homosexuality, but of blackmail and paranoia … its evocation of the strange, occult world of blackmail, conspiracy and shame, and the seediness of a certain type of London.” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

This is an LGBT History Month screening.