Contraband

English waters filled with detained Scandinavian vessels make for a droll starting point, much Hitchcock material follows in a screwball recomposition of The Spy in Black. The naval drama of the opening scenes is mere setup for quirky jokes, soon the divorcée (Valerie Hobson) is introduced aboard the freighter sans life jacket, the Danish skipper (Conrad Veidt) suggests bondage knots. Contraband control and filched passes at the dock, ashore a little chase to London, where flashlights and gas masks are hawked like hot dogs amid the blackout. "The smaller the ship, the bigger the adventure" and vice-versa, just a quick debate on marriage before getting captured by the German spy ring. A certain Frau Lang is present in the underground lair to point up Michael Powell's salute to Expressionismus, a Mabuse nightmare unleashes jack-o'-lantern faces over a close-up of Veidt until his eyes twitch open à la Caligari. "Andersen... Hans Andersen." "And we are the Brothers Grimm." The gradual erosion of a Dane's neutrality, not by patriotic piety but by the humanistic eccentricity of Powell's freewheeling camera—what other propaganda thriller has Hay Petrie hopping around as both sidekick and his own splenetic twin brother? Top-secret code on cigarette paper, singalong at the Three Vikings restaurant, a cure for indigestion at last. Grilled elevator and Art Deco nightclub (chanteuse headlines with banjo and basso pipes while tourists warble "The Muffin Man") figure in the vertical structure, at the top is an attic stocked with plaster Chamberlain busts, perfect for bopping the villain over the head. ("They always said he was tough!") The couple's kiss at the close dissolves to the rising of an oversized anchor, North by Northwest repays the compliment. With Esmond Knight, Raymond Lovell, Joss Ambler, Phoebe Kershaw, Peter Bull, and Leo Genn. In black and white.