Victim BFI Film Classics
John Coldstream
Published in time to mark the 50th anniversary of
Marketing
the film’s release, this insightful study addresses
• National print publicity
Victim's importance in the original campaign to
• Online marketing campaign
decriminalize homosexuality in the 1960s
• Academic promotion to film schools
Victim (1961) was a landmark film, not only for Dirk Bogarde in taking on the role of the title’s victim— the homosexual barrister who takes on the blackmailers who prey on gay men—but also in the personal lives of many who went to see the film. Its message about the need for society to remove, by decriminalization, a means of persecuting a specific minority was one with which Bogarde identified fully, but could, for obvious reasons, champion only through a work of fiction. James Mason and Jack Hawkins had turned down the role; Bogarde, with more to lose than either of them, seized it with relish. Published to mark the 50th anniversary of the film’s
Film ISBN: 978-1-84457-427-8 $15.00 pb. (C$17.00) 5 x 73⁄4 / 96 pp. Includes 60 b/w photos
British Film Institute
release, John Coldstream’s insightful study addresses the film’s importance in the campaign to decriminalize homosexuality; the contribution of its stars Dirk Bogarde and Sylvia Syms to its emotional impact; and the risk Bogarde took in taking on the central role.
John Coldstream was the literary editor of The Daily Telegraph from 1991 to 1999. He is the author of Dirk Bogarde: The Authorised Biography and the editor of Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters. He also collaborated with Bogarde on a collection of the latter’s journalism for The Time Being.
February
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