CONTRABAND (director/writer: Michael Powell; screenwriter: Emeric Pressburger/Brock Williams; cinematographer: Freddie Young; cast: Conrad Veidt (Capt. Anderson),Valerie Hobson (Mrs. Sorenson), Joss Ambler ( Lieutenant Commander Ashton RNR), Raymond Lovell (Van Dyne), Esmond Knight (Mr. Pidgeon), Harold Warrender (Lieutenant Commander Ellis RN), Eric Maturin (Passport Officer), Hay Petrie (Axel Skold/Erik Skold), 1940)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A minor but most enjoyable tongue-in-cheek Hitchcockian-like spy thriller from the Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger team. Conrad Veidt is Danish Captain Anderson of the merchant ship Helvig, where he is stopped on British waters for a contraband check in 1939 and taken to a control port, where he will have to wait until morning before the boat is cleared. He soon discovers that his landing passes giving to him by the British have been stolen by two passengers, Mrs Sorensen (Valerie Hobson) and Mr Pidgeon (Esmond Knight), which prompts Anderson to row ashore in pursuit of them; it will turn out that both are agents for British Naval Intelligence. He locates them on a train bound for London, but loses him and desperately clings on to her (a wise choice, she is very attractive). In the middle of the blackout a vender is hawking gas masks and torches, and the wartime atmosphere is cleverly made use of, as he courts the divorced Mrs. Sorenson despite the imminent dangers surrounding her. He takes her to dine in the Danish restaurant of the brother of his first-mate, Axel Skold (Hay Petrie), and is given the royal treatment by the owner, Erik Skold (Hay Petrie). Soon the two are captured by German spies and taken for interrogation to an old nemesis of hers, Van Dyne (Raymond Lovell), who discovers she has info about neutral ships helping the Germans, which are hidden on cigarette paper.
When Anderson escapes being tied up, he leaves her behind to make it look like they are both there, and he goes back to the same restaurant and recruits the help of the staff to rescue her and capture the spies. Mrs Sorensen then gives the real message she is carrying to her superiors and the merchant ship sails on time to Denmark with everyone on board.
The brisk pace of the film and its touches of quaintness, made the film seem very comically endearing inspite of the lack of any character study and the one-dimensional tone of the villains. The likable lovers, also, starred in Powell's The Spy in Black... It was strange to see Veidt in a romantic hero role, and even though he is such a fine actor, I prefer him in villain roles and wonder how much better a more romantically inclined hero would have fared in that role.
My favorite line in the film is when Veidt tells Hobson why he is still not in the Danish navy: "The smaller the ship, the bigger the adventure."
REVIEWED ON 9/25/99 GRADE: B-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
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