Just watched this on TCM, where it appeared in their day-long tribute to Veidt - parenthetically, their August programs featuring one actor per day have unearthed some marvelous stuff (eg, early Ann Dvorak). TCM aired it as "Contraband", the original British title - and it's a very British piece indeed. The plot is complex & often nonsensical, but I don't think one ever watches Michael Powell films for tidy screenplays. Veidt and Hobson encounter one another on his ship, and then whiz across London, first pursuing/eluding one another, then working together to undo a German spy ring. Much hugger-mugger, with a multitude of British character actors working in blackout darkness and then brightly-lit, often chaotic interiors (train compartments, restaurants, ship's lounges, nightclubs, elevators ....) Veidt and Hobson are charming in tandem, with a grownup sexual tension that for this viewer was a striking contrast to the more standard youthful leads of that time (and ours). As other commenters have noted, the filmmakers include a subtle thread of delight in bondage, mild fetishism, etc (eg,Hobson's shoes & feet during her captivity). Ah, the British. Clearly made on a budget, the entire production nonetheless looks & feels terrific - gritty shipboard all-male scenes, a couple of nightclub production numbers that have to be seen to be believed, a swell Art Deco townhouse - and underneath it all, maneuvering through the London blackout as a necessary given, a condition of life that the Brits seem to take for granted as the darkest days of the war approach. I had never seen Veidt so sympathetic - here a memorable leading man, versus his more well-know villains..And I was until now unfamiliar with Hay Petrie, here in a double role as Veidt's shipboard second-in-command, and that character's brother, a volatile (& hilarious) Danish restaurateur (don't ask!) All in all - a delight.

One of my favourite P+P outings - but then there are so many of 'em!Where to begin? A delicious feast of a film. A perfectly seasoned mix of pace, humour and suspense - not to mention a surprisingly strong undercurrent of bondage/S+M eroticism for a 1940s British product. (WARNING - SPOILER) A mere 5 minutes in, and in the very first verbal exchange between the two central characters, Captain Andersen (Conrad Veidt) says "Tell me, Mrs Sorensen: have you ever been put in irons?" (/SPOILER)From there on, their fractious, edgy relationship - essentially a battle of wits to find out which shall be the dominant partner and which the submissive - carries a smouldering erotic charge that drives the story and makes it compellingly watchable. Veidt and Hobson make a brilliant double-act: move over, Steed and Mrs. Peel!I won't go on at length about the quirky, typically P+P story elements, the expressionist camera/lighting work or the distinctly Hitchcockian touches (look out for the conversation on the bus, folks), because others have said it far better than I could. Instead, I'll just say...WATCH THIS FILM - YOU WON'T REGRET IT!

Never underestimate the power of hype and the willingness of impressionable snobs to praise the mediocre. If people were easily pleased in 1940 it seems little has changed in almost 60 years. I accept that Powell and Pressburger completists will want to see and/or own this film but just because the team turned out a couple of half decent movies doesn't mean that every early effort was gold dust. The year before the same team had enjoyed a minor success - not, surely, that hard in wartime - with the Spy In Black and figured why not team Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson again and this time, improbable and unrealistic as it is, have them fall in love in between escaping from a spy ring. All sorts of people pop up here and it's amazing that the likes of Peter Bull, Leon Genn and Bernard Miles went on to appear in anything else let alone enjoy reasonable careers. For completists only.

The advertisement about this film from Kino Video led me to think I was going to see an exciting spy story with noirish overtones and a Hitchcockian twist.It is nothing of the sort.If Hitchcock had made this film, smooth, suave Cary Grant would have had the lead, and he would have been opposite a cool, sophisticated blonde. Before the film had ended, Grant would have melted her coolness for a final kiss or, as in "North By Northwest," an implication of sexual surrender.Here we are asked to accept Conrad Veidt, at age 47 and looking every year of it just three years before his death, in the Cary Grant role and Valerie Hobson, twenty-four years his junior, in the cool blonde part. There is just about no one further removed from Cary Grant than Conrad Veidt. However, it was interesting to see him playing someone other than a villain, but at the same time, I realized that such roles were his forte.Of course, Valerie Hobson isn't blond. And here she looked like Merle Oberon and acted as stiffly. There were absolutely no sparks between Hobson and Veidt, to say nothing of the dialogue which was totally unwitty and without any double entendres. I suspect that Kino's publicity about the Hitchcockian touch had in mind Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps," where Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll must put up with each other against their wills.I cared nothing for the characters. The film had no narrative thrust (what happens next?). It was a total waste of my time.