Distinct Impressions #2: Brenda Bruce

“It’ll be two quid…”

Never before has the shift of a head and a flick of the eyes conveyed such cold, business-like indifference than Brenda Bruce’s lady of the night in the opening scene of ‘Peeping Tom’. This prelude to sexual trade is established down an artificial albeit wonderfully atmospheric London street, dramatically painted with an evil brown twilight sky.

Bruce’s Dora, replete in fur and a red skirt, makes an indelible impression as the film’s first victim, her exchanges performed directly to camera as seen through the killer’s viewfinder. As we sinisterly follow her from behind, Dora’s glance backwards suggests an intuition that there may be some cause for concern; the echo of her heels down a cobbled, dimly-lit side street calls to mind the last moments of a Jack the Ripper victim. After a tart order to “shut the door” we, the killer, are lead upstairs past the disapproving glance of a fellow female tenant. We enter into an almost Dickensian bedsit, a tragic, cosy-grim insight into the life of this “fallen” woman. Bruce gets on it with decidedly blank efficiency, beginning to disrobe and seemingly unaware of the killer’s lensed, fixated stare. Only when the murder weapon is revealed does her face unforgettably change, perfectly articulating her character’s confusion and, finally, bloodcurdling terror.

Cut!