Closet of Heroes

"The History Of Sound" (2025) 💖

Two young men during World War I set out to record the lives, voices and music of their American countrymen.

"The History Of Sound" (2025) 💖

Two young men during World War I set out to record the lives, voices and music of their American countrymen.

    A commercial film done in the style of a thriller about a blackmail ring targeting homosexual men. No, it’s not the latest film at Cannes, it’s an English film from the sixties. Victim was made at a time when the physical love between two same-sex partners was punishable by law. By the late fifties many politicians and activists were questioning this law and fighting for decriminalization. Victim is a product of the nascent Queer rights movement in post-war England and the dramatic personification of the Wolfenden report which urged lawmakers to decriminalize homosexuality. Starring Dirk Bogarde, a gay actor and England’s favourite matinee idol, Victim not only transformed his career but helped sway public opinion, which resulted in the passing of the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 effectively decriminalizing homosexuality. The film would receive criticism upon it release and throughout the years, yet it remains the first English language film to openly portray the terror of being Queer.

I said to Basil that I would do it, because it was written actually for Jack Hawkins, but Jack Hawkins at the last minute turned it down because his wife said it would prejudice his chances of a knighthood. So Basil called me at home, on Christmas Eve, can you believe? And said, ‘I'm in the shit. Will you stick your neck out if I bike over a script? Because we've got to start after the Christmas break, and he told me why.

He said, ‘Nobody else will touch it. Margaret Leighton has peeled off. So-and-so's peeled off.’ For a friend. I remember him saying that. ‘For a friend, will you do it?’

I said: ‘Look, I'm decorating the Christmas tree, Baz.’

He said, ‘Yes but I'll send it over, OK?’

So he sent it over. I read it, and it was a nice little story, but there was nothing Important in it at all. I called him back and said that I would do it if that was what he wanted me to do, but that it lacked two scenes: it lacked a confrontation with the wife at the beginning; and it lacked a scene at the end when the man said: ‘Yes, I wanted the boy.’

I remember that scene. It's a very powerful scene.

Basil said I would never get away with it. I wrote the two scenes, and nobody made a fuss about it, because Rank at that point were giving up anything to do with Allied Film Makers. Michael Relph was very upset, very worried, but aware that it might be an important thing.

I remember in the scene that we did I told Sylvia Syms, ‘I'm just going to go for this, and let it go, and if I start choking or burst into tears, I don't know what will happen, just bear with me.’ And she said she would, she was that kind of girl. And I did get a thing in my throat, and cleared my throat a couple of times in the scene.

That's why it's so powerful. It has a rawness about it.

Yes, I know. I'd wanted to do it. I'd been trying to do that for years at fucking Rank. Basil came up after the take. I was shaking and Sylvia was fairly shattered. Basil was streaming with tears, which was strange because I didn't think it would move him.

But Michael Relph said, ‘I'm a little bit worried about the two clearings of your throat.’

I said, ‘But I meant those.’

He said, ‘I think we should go again.’

I said, ‘If we go again, I can't do it again.’

Alright, you want to know. I shall tell you. You won’t be content until you know, will you? Till you ripped it out of me? I stopped seeing him because I wanted him. Do you understand? Because I wanted him!

Victim (1961) Dir: Basil Dearden

Starring-Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Donald Churchill, Peter McEnery, Dennis Price, Peter Copley, Anthony Nicholls, Derren Nesbitt, Norman Bird

“Bogarde himself wrote the scene in which Farr admits to his wife that he is gay and has continued to be attracted to other men despite his earlier assurances to the contrary. He wrote years later in his autobiography that his father had suggested he do The Mayor of Casterbridge, ‘But I did Victim instead, […] playing the barrister with the loving wife, a loyal housekeeper, devoted secretary and the Secret Passion. It was the wisest decision I ever made in my cinematic life. It is extraordinary, in this over-permissive age [c. 1988], to believe that this modest film could ever have been considered courageous, daring or dangerous to make. It was, in its time, all three.’”