Object of the week: Dirk Bogarde’s annotated script for classic blackmail drama Victim

“At last Bogarde becomes a heavyweight” proclaimed one of the reviews of Victim upon its release in 1961. In hindsight, it’s easy to see this film as a turning point in Dirk Bogarde’s acting career. Made as he was turning 40, it transitioned him from his (often very good) romantic, comic and spiv roles of the late 1940s and 50s and looked ahead to films such as The Servant (1963), Death in Venice (1971) and The Night Porter (1974).

Bogarde’s own script, one of his many personal copies held in BFI Special Collections, testifies to how seriously the actor took this particular project. Always at hand while on set, his scripts are full of notes, telephone numbers and doodles (the less satisfying the project, the more elaborate and numerous the doodles). Not so with Victim, which – aside from actor Earl Cameron’s phone number – is largely free of such additions. Instead, we have a script laden with Bogarde’s own annotations and dialogue revisions, prefaced by this remarkable graph, important enough for Bogarde to request its retention when the script was bound, ready for his bookshelf.

It tracks the emotional trajectory of his character, barrister Melville Farr, who takes on a ring of blackmailers who are targeting gay men at a time when homosexuality was still a criminal offence. Although Bogarde was not first choice for the role (Jack Hawkins, James Mason and Stewart Granger were all considered ahead of him), he was the perfect actor to embody the closeted, married Mel. Notoriously private, Bogarde never came out, although he spent 40 years living with another man, and those in the know saw the role as an extremely courageous and personal one for Bogarde to take on.

Bogarde’s graph picks out key moments in the screenplay, along with corresponding scene numbers for quick reference. Of particular note is the asterisked ‘scene 112’. Here, Mel’s wife confronts her husband about his relationship with a young man called Barrett (the ‘Boy Barrett’ of the film’s working title). It is, as Bogarde’s biographer John Coldstream has asserted, “the most important [scene] of his acting life”.

As can be seen, Bogarde made extensive changes to the dialogue, ramping up the emotional impact. The lines: “You won’t be content until I tell you. I put the boy outside the car because I wanted him. Now what good has that done you?” become:

“Alright – alright, you want to know, I’ll tell you – you won’t be content until I tell you will you – until you’ve ripped it out of me – I stopped seeing him because I wanted him. Can you understand – because I wanted him. (Pause) Now what good has that done you?”

The repetition and the layering of words, combined with Bogarde’s impassioned delivery and that devastating pause, render this moment blazingly raw and powerful. Bogarde’s performance throughout is indeed note perfect. He is the complicated, complex, emotional heart of the story, giving a timeless portrayal in a film which is very much a document of its time. If there had even been any doubt about his seriousness as a performer, Victim firmly demonstrates that Bogarde was both a great movie star and a world-class actor.

Produced with the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.