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Contraband (1940 film)

Contraband
(Blackout)
Contraband poster.jpg
poster from trade screening 20 March 1940
Directed by Michael Powell
Produced by John Corfield
Written by Scenario:
Michael Powell
Brock Williams
Screenplay by Emeric Pressburger
Story by Emeric Pressburger
Starring Conrad Veidt
Valerie Hobson
Music by Richard Addinsell
John Greenwood
Cinematography Freddie Young
Edited by John Seabourne
Production
company
Distributed by Anglo-American
Release date
11 May 1940 (UK)
29 November (US)
Running time
92 minutes (UK)
80 minutes (US)
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Budget £47,000 (est.)
Box office 1,385,365 admissions (France)

Contraband (1940) is a wartime spy film by the British director-writer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, which reunited stars Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson after their earlier appearance in The Spy in Black the previous year. On this occasion, Veidt plays a hero, something he did not do very often, and there is also an early (uncredited) performance by Leo Genn.

The title of the film in the United States was Blackout. Powell writes in his autobiography, A Life in Movies, as saying that the U.S. renaming was a better title and he wished he had thought of it.

It is November 1939: the Phoney War-stage of the World War II. Denmark is still neutral, but (Danish) Captain Andersen (Conrad Veidt) and his freighter Helvig are stopped in the English Channel by Lt. Commanders Ashton (Joss Ambler) and Ellis (Harold Warrender) for a cargo inspection in a British Contraband Control Port.

He receives two shore passes for himself and his First Officer Axel Skold (Hay Petrie) to dine with Ashton and Ellis, but the passes (and Helvig's motorboat) are stolen by passengers Mrs. Sorensen (Valerie Hobson) and talent scout Mr. Pidgeon (Esmond Knight). From a cut-out newspaper train schedule, Andersen is able to figure out they are taking a train to London and catches up with them; but, when the train arrives in the blacked-out metropolis, he is only able to hold on to Sorensen.


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