Dirk Bogarde’s magnificent performance as a man hiding his sexuality is the strongest note in a difficult, and groundbreaking, film that challenged censors
Twenty seven minutes into Victim, after some circuitous beating around the bush, the word is dropped into the dialogue – an unprecedented bombshell on screen at the time, and if it no longer shocks today, you can still sense the film bracing for impact. It’s not a slur, or a profanity, but it was enough to make audiences wince and censors bristle: in 1961, the simple word “homosexual” was more dangerous than an idle swear. Its blunt appearance in Victim ensured the British film initially fell foul of US censors. The British Board of Film Censors let it squeak by with an X rating, though objected to a different scrap of innocuous dialogue, when one man says of another, “I wanted him.” Sixty years ago, the love that dared not speak its name began – as discreetly and politely as possible while maintaining some level of candour – to mutter it.
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