11 Sep Contraband
Contraband, WWII Movie starring Conrad Veidt
(1940) In November of 1939, the Danish freighter Helvig is stopped at a British Naval Contraband Control Base to be searched for contraband.
The action takes place and the movie was made before the Nazis took over Denmark and started bombing London. According to TCM, it is considered to be the first British film to deal directly with World War II.
The Danish sea captain is played by Conrad Veidt, a favorite of mine. He began his acting career in his native Germany but left for Great Britain in 1933 after he married a Jewish woman. Veidt usually played a Nazi villain, as in Casablanca and All Through the Night, both with Humphrey Bogart. In Contraband, he is the good guy, although I must admit that even though he kept toasting “skål skål ” he didn’t sound very Danish to me.
Leonard Maltin’s review reads “superior spy yarn … very much in the Hitchcock vein.” To be honest, I was sometimes lost and couldn’t understand dialogue. I did enjoy many of the scenes, especially when Veidt and popular British actress Valerie Hobson were together. Once they get to blacked-out London it was fun to see them running around in the dark. Even though the Blitz had not yet begun, London was blacked out … just in case. In fact when the movie was released in the U.S. it was titled “Blackout.”
I was never sure who was a Nazi and who wasn’t. But in the end it didn’t matter. The Helvig left on its journey the very next day, and all was well.
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