Film: Victim (1961)
“I wanted him!” With these words, a gripping landmark in gay cinema was born.
Dirk Bogarde’s closeted, married lawyer Melville Farr is drawn into exposing a terrifying blackmail ring when an admirer commits suicide rather than implicate him.
Supporting the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee, director Basil Dearden, producer Michael Relph and screenwriter Janet Green denounced the institutionalised homophobia gay men of all classes faced, and cleverly packaged the politics within an accessible crime-thriller. Victim, and Bogarde’s courageous appearance in it, helped propel public discourse towards the 1967 Sexual Offences Act and beyond – changing lives in the process.
Introduced by Steven Paige, Associate Lecturer in Fine Art at Plymouth University.
Director: Basil Dearden
Running time: 96 minutes
Cert: PG
Tickets: £6 (standard)/£4.20 (concessions)/Peninsula Arts Friends free/ Free to Plymouth University students via SPIA
Event Date
Gallery
