Peeping Tom (1960, UK)
D. Michael Powell

Although now widely praised (like Hitchcock's psychological horror film counterpart Psycho (1960) - and the film's thematic counterpart Rear Window (1954)), this chilling and disturbing film about voyeurism, child abuse, and serial murder by honored and best-loved film-maker Michael Powell was originally widely hated, universally loathed and denounced as sick, especially by British critics, who drove it off the screen.

They pronounced it amoral, masochistic, perverted, wholly evil, necrophilic and trashy. It was called nauseating, depraved, depressing, filthy and stench-filled -- and allegedly destroyed the career of its director. It suffered from the devastating, vitriolic reviews and was removed from theaters and excised by its distributor. This censored version was briefly available in trashy US theatres in 1962 and in selected arthouse venues, but then removed for almost two decades. Not until 1979 was a full-length version viewable -- at the New York Film Festival. Over time, it has been critically re-evaluated and vindicated, and is now universally regarded as a masterpiece of psychological terror.

It was a twisted portrayal of shy studio cameraman (and morbid serial killer) Mark Lewis (Karl Boehm) who filmed call girls and then killed them with the metal-spiked leg of his hand-held camera tripod (with a mirror attached so that victims could watch themselves dying). In the film's shocking opening, filmed from the point-of-view of the voyeuristic camera's cross-haired viewfinder, a prostitute negotiated for two quid, walked upstairs, disrobed, and then gave a look of horror as she was being murdered. The photographer would then watch the projected grisly footage over and over in the darkness of his lab-studio. His viewing of this particular death was accompanied by the film's opening title and credits.

The infamous film with dark subject matter, made more lurid by its Eastman Technicolor, was criticized for its unsavory view of the perverted and morbid crimes perpetrated (and witnessed almost as "snuff films") upon unsuspecting female victims (a prostitute, an actress-dancer, and a nude model). In a subtle way, it appeared to implicate the voyeuristic viewer and force the audience to identify with the awful and perverse crimes committed by the madman.

However, it masterfully told the back-story of how the monstrous killer had a very troubled and abused childhood with a sadistic father (played by director Powell in a cameo) who filmed him for his studies on the physiology of fear in children. He had contributed to his son's violent and conflicted subconscious (by observing his reactions to a lizard dropped on his bed, his mother's corpse, or his father's new young wife). The much vilified film ended with Lewis' own suicidal death in the same horrific manner that he often used - as police arrived. He impaled himself in the neck with his own spiked device, as he spoke to spared female friend Helen Stephens (Anna Massey): "Helen, Helen, I'm afraid...And I'm glad I'm afraid," and then slumped dead to the floor. The words of a tape recording ended the film: "Don't be a silly boy. There's nothing to be afraid of." - "Good night, Daddy. Hold my hand."

Victim (1961, UK)
D. Basil Dearden

This film was most notable for reportedly being the first to speak the word "homosexual". Director Basil Dearden's non-judgmental, ground-breaking film-noirish thriller was a daring landmark film with its head-on presentation of the 'un-talked about' topic of homosexuality in the early 60s, when Britain still had anti-sodomy statutes as law.

The film was advertised with the tagline: "The Screen Comes of Age!" - with its story about a self-confessed, beleaguered, non-practicing homosexual and wealthy London lawyer (barrister) named Melville Farr (Dirk Bogarde, in a role as the screen's first gay hero - and remarkable since the virile Bogarde later was revealed as gay in his private life) who risked his marriage and career to track down a creepy, slimy blackmailer (Derren Nesbitt) over accusations of closeted homosexuality. Peter McEnery co-starred as Jack "Boy" Barrett (Farr's chaste 'boy friend' from his past as a Cambridge student, who eventually committed suicide by hanging himself in a police jail, where he was incarcerated for embezzling money to silence the blackmailers), and Sylvia Syms as Laura - Farr's stressed, estranged but supportive wife.

In one of the film's most tense moments, Laura asked her husband: "I want to know the truth. I want to know why he hanged himself ... Someone found out he was a homosexual and blackmailed him? ... It takes two to make a reason for blackmail. Were you the other man? Were you?" He burst out an admission of his past indiscretion to her: "I stopped seeing him because I wanted him. Do you understand? Because I wanted him!"

The controversial film was denied a PCA (Production Code Administration) seal of approval from the MPAA as a result of its subject matter and explicit use of the word 'homosexual." The unclassified film was not released in mainstream theaters in the US for that reason. Six years after the film's release, the UK's Sexual Offenses Act of 1967 that was passed by Parliament finally decriminalized homosexuality between consenting adults over the age of 21 (with a number of exceptions).

Viridiana (1961, Sp./Mex.)
D. Luis Bunuel

Bunuel's ironic drama has been generally considered a masterpiece and it won the Golden Palm at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival in the year of its release. The film was originally banned in the director's home country and condemned by the Catholic church for its perceived indictment of Catholic self-righteousness, blasphemy, and obscenity. It was also controversial for its scenes hinting at incest, rape and necrophilia.

In the plot, devout Spanish convent novice Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) visited her rich, land-owning widower uncle Don Jaime's (Fernando Rey) who was still mourning the death of his wife due to a heart attack on their wedding night - without consummation. To reluctantly satisfy his obsession with her similar looks, Virdiana was clothed in his wife's wedding gown -- and drugged. He then carried her into the bedroom, loosened her dress, fondled her and was tempted to rape her. The next day, he falsely confessed to her that he had taken her virginity to keep her from returning to the convent for her final vows -- but the ultimate result was his own guilty and remorseful self-humiliation and a suicidal hanging. Viridiana was left as co-heir to her uncle's estate, shared with his cynical son.

Partly out of guilt, she charitably gathered to her a destitute group of thieves, beggars, and whores, leading to her downfall. Another of the film's most controversial and surreal scenes was a re-enactment of Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper' by a group of beggars - a drunken parody to the sounds of the "Hallelujah Chorus" in Handel's Messiah - one of the celebrants even raped the virtuous and idealistic Viridiana.