# Contraband (1940 film)
**Contraband** is a 1940 British comedy spy-thriller directed by [Michael Powell](https://www.edgepedia.org/michael-powell), the second collaboration between Powell and the Hungarian-born screenwriter Emeric Pressburger, following their hit *The Spy in Black* (1939).[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) Produced in the last months of 1939, it is considered the first British fiction film to deal directly with World War II.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) The film stars [Conrad Veidt](https://www.edgepedia.org/conrad-veidt) as a Danish merchant captain drawn into a Nazi spy ring in blacked-out London, with [Valerie Hobson](https://www.edgepedia.org/valerie-hobson) as his co-star, reprising the pairing that had succeeded in *The Spy in Black*.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) • [2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Production | British National Films, produced by John Corfield, associate producer Roland Gillett[2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/) |
| Writing | Original story and screenplay by Emeric Pressburger; scenario by Michael Powell and Brock Williams[2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/) |
| Principal crew | Cinematography F.A. Young, editing John Seabourne, settings Alfred Jünge, music Richard Addinsell directed by Muir Mathieson[2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/) |
| Cast | Conrad Veidt (Captain Andersen), Valerie Hobson (Mrs Sørensen), Hay Petrie (dual role as Axel and Erik Skold), Esmond Knight (Mr Pidgeon), Raymond Lovell (Van Dyne)[2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/) |
| Release | Opened May 11, 1940 at the Odeon Leicester Square, playing four weeks to packed houses; re-released November 29, 1940[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) • [3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1064013-contraband) |
| American title | *Blackout*[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) |
| Running time | 91 minutes (BFI); Senses of Cinema lists 92 minutes[2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/) • [4](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2005/cteq/contraband/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The film begins at sea. Captain Andersen (Veidt), skipper of a Danish merchant ship bound for the neutral port of [Rotterdam](https://www.edgepedia.org/rotterdam), tries to outrun a British Contraband Control (wartime [Royal Navy](https://www.edgepedia.org/royal-navy) inspections of neutral ships for smuggled goods) ship; he has nothing to hide, having already zigzagged to avoid a German U-boat attack. The British fire a shot across his bow, and he cooperates when boarded by their inspectors.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) Facing an overnight hold at port, Andersen receives two shore passes for himself and his first mate, but the passes are stolen by two passengers, Mrs Sorensen (Hobson) and Mr Pidgeon (Esmond Knight). The pair vanish into darkened London, and Andersen follows, encountering spies, kidnappers, fifth columnists, and Londoners carrying on their nightlife under wartime conditions.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) Sorensen is eventually revealed to be working for British intelligence and pursued by German agents.[3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1064013-contraband)
The chase takes the leads through a crawl of West End nightclubs as Andersen tries to identify the sounds around the spy ring's Soho hideout, aided by the staff of a Danish restaurant, and ends in a shootout in a storeroom of plaster busts.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) • [3](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1064013-contraband) Playful touches include Hobson's cigarettes carrying a coded message and the 'Patriotic Plaster Products' busts of [Neville Chamberlain](https://www.edgepedia.org/neville-chamberlain), one of which Veidt uses to knock out the German spy with the line, 'They always said he was tough.'[2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/)
## Propaganda purpose and genre
Although made as a propaganda piece with the support of the Ministry of Information, explaining the importance and working methods of the British contraband controls, the film never sacrifices storytelling to instructional detail, and falls more obviously into the comedy spy-thriller genre of Hitchcock's *The 39 Steps* (1935) and *The Lady Vanishes* (1938).[2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/) Powell wrote that the film showed how the Contraband Control was used against neutral nations and why the Royal Navy had established it at Ramsgate, on Kent's eastern coast, adding that he and Pressburger "saw a chance to prove once more that films can be a weapon of war."[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) [The Blitz](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-blitz) did not begin until September 1940, but blackout conditions had been in force in London since the start of the war, and Powell and Pressburger knew a chase staged in a blacked-out city would be a novelty.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband)
Powell later described the film as "all pure corn, but corn served up by professionals, and it worked," while also calling it a statement of national pride.[4](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2005/cteq/contraband/) • [1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) He added that the blacked-out London of the film was considered so interesting that American distributors retitled it *Blackout*, a title he wished the film had carried in Britain as well, "with its double meaning."[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) The film also nods to German expressionist cinema: a key spy character is named Lang, and when Andersen is subdued he hallucinates grotesque distortions of his captors, recalling Veidt's own *The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari* (1920).[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband)
## Production
The film was shot at Denham Studios and on locations around London, on a six-week schedule.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) Powell had a stencil made reading CONTRABAND and stamped it extensively on the unit's equipment crates; the gag delighted the real Contraband Controllers at Ramsgate, who added their own stencils such as EXPLOSIVES, EXAMINED, and CONDEMNED.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) The only troubled day was the first in the studio, when Powell rehearsed for hours a hectic Contraband Control sequence intended as one long take; shooting began at twenty past five and the sequence was captured in the third take, yielding seven scenes and three minutes and twenty-two seconds of finished film. The picture ultimately came in on schedule and under budget.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband)
Powell credited Pressburger with the original story, with the two writing the shooting script together, "laughing and fighting, biting and scratching," in consultation with the stars.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) He reserved particular praise for art director Alfred Junge, who built a full working elevator for the spy headquarters set rather than faking it with shadows, and who was "always on time and always ready" across a large number of sets.[1](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband) Although the distinctive joint credit 'Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger' did not yet exist, appearing first with *The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp* (1943), *Contraband* features several members of the Archers production team the two would form in 1942, including editor John Seabourne, production designer Alfred Jünge, and the actors Esmond Knight, Raymond Lovell, and Hay Petrie.[2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/)
## Cast and performances
Pressburger created roles for Veidt that allowed him to escape the stereotyping that often plagued German actors in British films; Veidt was grateful to move away from the image of the dour and menacing German, and plays the Danish captain as appealingly as he had played the honorable U-boat commander in *The Spy in Black*.[2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/) The Monthly Film Bulletin's April 1940 review called Veidt's performance as the resourceful captain brilliant, praised Hobson as charming and extremely well acted as Mrs Sorensen, and noted that Hay Petrie, playing two parts, provided excellent comic relief.[2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/) Contemporary reviewers also found that the comparison between British and German methods of dealing with neutrals was not too heavily stressed, which made it more convincing.[2](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/)
## Place in the Powell–Pressburger canon
*Contraband* stands at the start of a run of war-related films: from *Contraband* in 1940 to *A Matter of Life and Death* in 1946, Powell and Pressburger made eight films in direct and indirect support of the British war effort, maintaining a friendly liaison with the Ministry of Information's Films Division while only two of the eight received government financing.[5](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/470-49th-parallel-the-war-effort) The film merges espionage thriller, German expressionism, American screwball comedy, and UFA-influenced light romanticism, and marked the team's first association with the German art director Alfred Junge.[6](https://powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/40_Contraband/TonyWilliams.html) After location shooting on the East Coast showing the operations of Naval Contraband Control, the Ministry of Information's film section decided to sponsor feature films as propaganda, which led to *49th Parallel* (1941); Veidt sailed to America carrying prints of *Contraband* for re-editing and re-titling as *Blackout*.[6](https://powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/40_Contraband/TonyWilliams.html)
## References
1. [Contraband (1940), John M. Miller, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/409943/contraband-1940-contraband)
2. [Contraband, BFI Southbank Programme Notes (Cinema Unbound: The Creative Worlds of Powell + Pressburger), including credits and the Monthly Film Bulletin review of April 1940](https://bfidatadigipres.github.io/cinema%20unbound%3Cbr%3Ethe%20creative%20worlds%20of%20powell%20%2B%20pressburger/2023/10/23/contraband/)
3. [Contraband (1940), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1064013-contraband)
4. [Contraband, Alexander C. Ives, Senses of Cinema, Issue 36, July 2005](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2005/cteq/contraband/)
5. [49th Parallel: The War Effort, Charles Barr, The Criterion Collection, February 19, 2007](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/470-49th-parallel-the-war-effort)
6. [Contraband – Powell, Pressburger, Veidt, Hobson, Junge and others, Tony Williams](https://powell-pressburger.org/Reviews/40_Contraband/TonyWilliams.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 1920s–1940s films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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