Contraband (or, Blackout)

The second collaboration between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger as his writer before becoming his co-director, Contraband is another English effort at replicating Hitchcockian suspense after the master of suspense left for America. It’s got an everyman walking into a nest of spies and finding his way out, all while a little romance gets to play out at the same time. It’s also extremely timely, its American title (Blackout) making it more obvious than its British title, and it ends up ...