Victim (1961)
Victim is a 1961 British neo noir suspense film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Dirk Bogarde and Sylvia Syms. It premiered in the UK on 31 August 1961 and in the US the following February. On its release in the United Kingdom, it proved highly controversial to the British Board of Film Censors, and in the U.S. it was refused a seal of approval from the American Motion Picture Production Code. Despite this the film received acclaim and is now regarded as a British classic, as well as having been credited for liberalizing attitudes towards homosexuality in Great Britain.
Director – Basil Dearden
Writers – Janet Green, John McCormick
Cast –
Dirk Bogarde as Melville Farr
Sylvia Syms as Laura Farr
Dennis Price as Calloway
Nigel Stock as Phip
Peter McEnery as Boy Barrett
Donald Churchill as Eddy Stone
Anthony Nicholls as Lord Fullbrook
Hilton Edwards as P.H.
Norman Bird as Harold Doe
Derren Nesbitt as Sandy Youth
Alan MacNaughtan as Scott Hankin
Noel Howlett as Patterson
Charles Lloyd-Pack as Henry
John Barrie as Detective Inspector Harris
John Cairney as Bridie
David Evans as Mickey
Peter Copley as Paul Mandrake
Frank Pettitt as Barman
Mavis Villiers as Madge
Margaret Diamond as Miss Benham
Alan Howard as Frank
Dawn Beret as Sylvie
John Bennett as Undercover Detective (uncredited)
John Boxer as Policeman in Cell (uncredited)
Frank Thornton as George, Henry’s assistant (uncredited)
Watch “Victim” (1961)
Plot
A successful barrister, Melville Farr, has a thriving London practice. He is on course to become a Queen’s Counsel and people are already talking of him being appointed a judge. He is apparently happily married to his wife, Laura.
Farr is approached by Jack “Boy” Barrett, a young working class gay man with whom Farr has a romantic friendship. Farr rebuffs the approach, thinking Barrett wants to blackmail him about their relationship. In fact, Barrett has been trying to reach Farr to appeal to him for help because he himself has fallen prey to blackmailers who have a picture of Farr and Barrett in a vehicle together, in which Barrett is crying with Farr’s arm around him. Barrett has stolen £2,300 (£54,500 today) from his employers to pay the blackmail, is being pursued by the police, and needs Farr’s financial assistance to flee the country. After Farr intentionally avoids him, Barrett is picked up by the police, who discover why he was being blackmailed. Knowing it will be only a matter of time before he is forced to reveal the details of the blackmail scheme and Farr’s role, Barrett hangs himself in a police cell.
Learning the truth about Barrett, Farr takes on the blackmail ring and recruits a friend of Barrett to identify others the blackmailers may be targeting. The friend identifies a barber who is being blackmailed, but the barber refuses to identify his tormentors. When one of the blackmailers visits the barber and begins to destroy his shop, he suffers a heart attack. Near death, he phones Farr’s house and leaves a mumbled message naming another victim of the blackmailers.
Farr contacts this victim, a famous actor, but the actor refuses to help him, preferring to pay the blackmailers to keep his sexuality secret. Laura finds out about Barrett’s suicide and confronts her husband. After a heated argument, during which Farr maintains that he has kept the promise he made to Laura when they married that he would no longer indulge his homosexual attraction, Laura decides that Farr has betrayed that promise in having a relationship with Barrett, and decides to leave him.
The blackmailers vandalise Farr’s Chiswick property, painting “FARR IS QUEER” on his garage door. Farr resolves to help the police catch them and promises to give evidence in court despite knowing that the ensuing press coverage will certainly destroy his career. The blackmailers are identified and arrested. Farr tells Laura to leave before the ugliness of the trial, but that he will welcome her return afterward. She tells him that she believes she has found the strength to return to him. Farr burns the suggestive photograph of him and Barrett.