Victim is an outstanding, undervalued film. It’s a compelling, quirky thriller from a time gone by, a forgotten piece of film noir that equals Peeping Tom (released the year before) in taking full advantage of that uniquely British pint-at-the-pub, Myra Hindley creepiness. Even better, it presents a very clear contemporary polemic about decriminalising homosexuality in Britain without having to flip flop between narrative and instruction. We hear the characters - gay hairdressers, detectives - discuss the need for Britain’s anti-homosexuality laws to be overturned (which they were, more or less, six years after this film’s release) but we never feel that these conversations are out of context. Most remarkably, it manages to argue a convincing case for gay rights and dignity, without resorting to unbalanced and contrived characterisations, or exhorting the audience to do the right thing and love their fellow men.

A group of homosexuals are being blackmailed. Some of them have received photos of themselves in clinches with other men, others “photostats”** of love letters, and so on. They pay up - if they go to the cops, they’ll end up in prison - homosexuality was at least as serious a crime as blackmail. Apparently, at the time, 90% of blackmail cases in Britain were homosexuality related, hence the nicknaming of Britain’s anti-homosexuality laws as “the blackmailers charter”.

**(The swinging sixties language, delivered in clipped British accents, is a giggle-inducing highlight. “Gay” still meant happy in the sixties, and is, of course, never mentioned. Instead the guys marvellously refer to themselves as “inverts” (pronounced “in-vuhts”). Non-gay characters on the other hand use descriptive terminology like “that kind” and “them”.)

A young man, Jack Barrett (Peter McEnerny) seems to be more under the thumb than the others - badly in debt and on the run, he ends up arrested trying to flush the contents of his scrapbook down a roadside reststop loo. After the scrapbook’s been dried out and sticky-taped back together by forensics, detectives flip through it and find it’s chock full of news clippings about successful lawyer Melville Farr (Dirk Bogarde).

Farr doesn’t initially reveal much about his connection with Barrett, but it soon becomes clear that they have been homosexually involved. We know this is going to cause more than legal problems for Farr, as when Barrett desperately rings the Farr house, it’s the devoted Mrs Farr (an excellent Sylvia Syms) who answers the phone.

Victim doesn’t look to make martyrs, and it succeeds - its characters resonate with truth and contradiction. We want them to succeed, and we support the social message that concerns them because we relate to them and empathise, in one way or another.

The resourceful and brave Melville Farr gets himself out of a bad situation by facing his problems head on with ingenuity and resolve, not by appealing to higher powers, or blaming social systems. Dirk Bogarde approaches the part with real conviction, and Sylvia Syms plays well against him, as a wife who believes in her marriage, but who’s not stupid.

The only weak link in Victim is located at the police station, where Detective Inspector Harris (John Barrie) leads a fairly by-the-numbers team of plods who are a little too predictable.

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The Killing of Sister George
The Laramie Project