Victim Movie Review

Victim was an important film in 1961 when homosexuality was still illegal in Great Britain. Actor Dirk Bogarde was then famous as everybody's favorite Dr. Simon Sparrow in a series of four medical comedy films he made between 1954 and 1963. At the time, his decision to play a gay barrister might have called a halt to his thriving career. It didn't, but it certainly marked a professional turning point for him. In order to increase Victim’s impact, director Basil Dearden made the decision to show most of the gay characters not as drag queens but as dedicated professionals, vulnerable to violence and blackmail. Victim rates high marks for its pioneering efforts to confront previously unexplored issues with honesty and compassion. The title, which locks the film in an early ‘60s time capsule, says it all, though: for all his hard work, intelligence, and stature, Bogarde's character faces a sad and lonely life, isolated from frightened gays and cautious heterosexuals alike.

1961 100m/C GB Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Dennis Price, Peter McEnery, Nigel Stock, Donald Churchill, Anthony Nicholls, Hilton Edwards, Norman Bird, Derren Nesbitt, Alan McNaughton, Noel Howlett, Charles Lloyd Pack, John Barrie, John Bennett; D: Basil Dearden; W: John McCormick, Janet Green; C: Otto Heller; M: Philip Green. VHS