Editing Victim (1961 film) (section)

==Production==
{{More citations needed section|date=April 2012}}

===Background===
Homosexual acts between males were illegal in [[England and Wales]] until the [[Sexual Offences Act 1967]], which implemented the recommendations of the [[Wolfenden report]] published a decade earlier. The fact that willing participants in consensual homosexual acts could be prosecuted made them vulnerable to entrapment, and the criminalisation of [[homosexuality]] was known as the "[[blackmailer's charter]]".<ref name=crowther/> Homosexuals were prosecuted and tabloid newspapers covered the court proceedings. By 1960, however, the police demonstrated little enthusiasm for prosecuting those engaged in homosexual activity. There was an inclination to "turn a blind eye" to homosexuality, because there was a feeling that the legal code violated basic liberties. However, public [[Opprobrium (shame)|opprobrium]], even in the absence of criminal prosecution, continued to require homosexuals to keep their identity secret and made them vulnerable to blackmail. The film treats homosexuality in a non-sensationalised manner.

The scriptwriter [[Janet Green (screenwriter)|Janet Green]] had previously collaborated with [[Basil Dearden]] on a British "social problem" film, ''[[Sapphire (film)|Sapphire]]'' (1959), which dealt with racism against [[Afro-Caribbean]] immigrants to the United Kingdom in the late 1950s. After reading the [[Wolfenden report]], and knowing of several high-profile prosecutions of gay men, Green became a keen supporter of homosexual law reform. She wrote the screenplay with her husband John McCormick.<ref name="TGrey">{{cite news|last=Grey|first=Tobias|url=https://www.ft.com/content/cac6e680-656d-11e7-9a66-93fb352ba1fe |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/https://www.ft.com/content/cac6e680-656d-11e7-9a66-93fb352ba1fe |archive-date=10 December 2022 |url-access=subscription|title=Out of the closet, on to the screen: the legacy of 'Victim'|work=Financial Times|date=14 July 2017|access-date=25 July 2017}}</ref> Despite its then controversial subject, the film was, in other respects, quite conventional in being quite chaste. Farr has not had sex with Barrett, nor with the man he loved at university. The audience is allowed just one glimpse of the photo of Farr and Barrett (seen from the obverse of the print), and the screenplay underscores the fact that only Barrett's tears suggest anything untoward, along with the breaking of social taboos in that they are different classes and far apart in age. In addition, the film promises that Farr and Laura will remain united and faithful to one another.<ref name=clum>{{cite book|last1=Clum| first1=J.|title=The Drama of Marriage: Gay Playwrights/Straight Unions from Oscar Wilde to the Present|date=2012|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|pages=191–193 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8cvFAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA193|access-date=22 April 2016| isbn=9781137013101}}</ref> As [[Pauline Kael]] wrote:<ref name=clum/> 
{{Blockquote|The hero of the film is a man who has never given way to his homosexual impulses; he has fought them–that's part of his heroism. Maybe that's why he seems such a stuffy stock figure of a hero... The dreadful irony involved is that Dirk Bogarde looks so pained, so anguished from the self-sacrifice of repressing his homosexuality that the film seems to give rather a black eye to heterosexual life.}}

The language the screenplay used to describe its controversial subject attracted comment. It used "the familiar colloquial terms", wrote one reviewer without specifying them, even as he referred to "homosexuality", "the abnormality", and "the condition".<ref name=crowther/> The term "queer" – then a pejorative term not yet adopted by advocates for LGBT rights – is used several times in the film, and "FARR IS QUEER" is painted on Farr's garage door. The more polite term "invert" appears as well.

===Casting===
When the team of producer [[Michael Relph]] and director Basil Dearden first approached Bogarde, several actors had already turned down the role, including [[Jack Hawkins]], [[James Mason]], and [[Stewart Granger]].<ref name=stafford/> In 1960, Bogarde was 39 and had been chosen by British audiences as their favourite British film star for years,<ref name=watts/> having spent the past 14 years being cast as a [[matinée idol]] by [[The Rank Organisation]].<ref name=harmetz/> He had proven himself playing war heroes in films such as ''[[The Sea Shall Not Have Them]]'' (1954) and ''[[Ill Met by Moonlight (film)|Ill Met by Moonlight]]'' (1957), he was the star of the hugely successful [[Doctor (film series)|''Doctor'' film series]], and he had been a reliable romantic lead in films such as ''[[A Tale of Two Cities (1958 film)|A Tale of Two Cities]]'' (1958). He was also flirting with a larger, Hollywood career, having recently played [[Franz Liszt]] in ''[[Song Without End]]'' (1960).

Bogarde was suspected to be homosexual and lived in the same house as his business manager, [[Anthony Forwood]], so he was compelled to be seen occasionally in public with attractive young women. He seems not to have hesitated to accept the role of Farr, a married lawyer with a homosexual past that he has not quite put behind him. Reportedly, 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.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Mayer| first1=Geoff | last2=McDonnell| first2=Brian|title=Encyclopedia of Film Noir|date=2007| publisher= Greenwood Press|page=433 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RsBHnZoyO4kC&pg=PA433 |access-date=22 April 2016| isbn=9780313333064 }}</ref>

Of his first independent film project and 34th film, Bogarde said in 1965: "For the first time I was playing my own age. At Rank, the fixed rule was that I had to look pretty. ''Victim'' ended all that nonsense."<ref name=harmetz>{{cite news|work=The New York Times| first=Aljean |last=Harmetz |title= Dirk Bogarde, 78, Matinee Idol Turned Serious Actor, Dies | url= https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/09/nyregion/dirk-bogarde-78-matinee-idol-turned-serious-actor-dies.html | quote= Excluding an early bit part, ''Victim'' was his 34th film. | access-date=25 April 2016 | date= 9 May 1999}}</ref> He wrote years later in his autobiography that his father had suggested he make an adaptation of ''[[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."<ref name=stafford/>

Similarly, though several actresses had turned down the role, [[Sylvia Syms]] readily accepted the part of Laura.<ref name="filmink">{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/the-surprisingly-saucy-cinema-of-sylvia-syms/|title=The Surprisingly Saucy Cinema of Sylvia Syms|date=22 February 2023|access-date=23 February 2023}}</ref> English film critic [[Mark Kermode]] has noted her reasons for this included previous theatre work with [[John Gielgud]], which exposed her to the laws surrounding homosexuality at the time, and that a family friend of hers had died by suicide after being accused of being gay. Consequently, Sims felt the film's story had to be told.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Kermode|first=Mark|date=21 July 2017|title=Victim reviewed by Mark Kermode|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDjpd_dSChs |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/fDjpd_dSChs| archive-date=2021-12-11 |url-status=live|access-date=16 November 2020|via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref> As well as Bogarde, other cast members who were gay in real life include [[Dennis Price]], [[Noel Howlett]] and [[Hilton Edwards]].

In January 1961 [[Earl St John]], head of production at Rank, announced Rank would make fourteen films for the year at a cost of £2.5 million, "films with contemporary subjects suitable for a world market. All these films will be made with good taste and there will be no sensationalism." One of the riskier projects was ''Boy Barrett'' which was the original title for ''Victim''.<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=Evening Standard|location=London|date=23 January 1961|page=14|title=Ranks go 'modern' and risk the Xs}}</ref>

===Filming===
Syms later recalled that filming had to be completed in just 10 days.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Coldstream|first1=John|title=Dirk Bogarde: The authorised biography|date=2004|publisher=Orion Publishing|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xY88CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT229|access-date=22 April 2016|isbn=9781780221748}}</ref> Shooting locations included [[The Salisbury, Covent Garden]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Walking Tour of Gay London Sites|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/31/travel/travel-advisory-walking-tour-of-gay-london-sites.html|access-date=24 April 2016|work=The New York Times|date=31 January 1999}}</ref> The film's original title of ''Boy Barrett'' was changed to ''Victim'' late in production.<ref name=stafford>{{cite web|url= https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/94775/victim#overview |title = Victim |access-date = 27 September 2023 |publisher = Turner Classic Movies |last = Stafford |first = Jeff}}</ref> Relph and Dearden acknowledged that the film was designed to be "an open protest against Britain's law that being a homosexual is a criminal act".<ref name=crowther/>