Dirk Bogarde talking in 1996 about making Victim (1961), produced by Michael Relph and directed by Basil Dearden:
I said to Basil that I would do it, because it was written actually for Jack Hawkins, but Jack Hawkins at the last minute turned it down because his wife said it would prejudice his chances of a knighthood. So Basil called me at home, on Christmas Eve, can you believe? And said, āI'm in the shit. Will you stick your neck out if I bike over a script? Because we've got to start after the Christmas break, and he told me why.
He said, āNobody else will touch it. Margaret Leighton has peeled off. So-and-so's peeled off.ā For a friend. I remember him saying that. āFor a friend, will you do it?ā
I said: āLook, I'm decorating the Christmas tree, Baz.ā
He said, āYes but I'll send it over, OK?ā
So he sent it over. I read it, and it was a nice little story, but there was nothing Important in it at all. I called him back and said that I would do it if that was what he wanted me to do, but that it lacked two scenes: it lacked a confrontation with the wife at the beginning; and it lacked a scene at the end when the man said: āYes, I wanted the boy.ā
I remember that scene. It's a very powerful scene.
Basil said I would never get away with it. I wrote the two scenes, and nobody made a fuss about it, because Rank at that point were giving up anything to do with Allied Film Makers. Michael Relph was very upset, very worried, but aware that it might be an important thing.
I remember in the scene that we did I told Sylvia Syms, āI'm just going to go for this, and let it go, and if I start choking or burst into tears, I don't know what will happen, just bear with me.ā And she said she would, she was that kind of girl. And I did get a thing in my throat, and cleared my throat a couple of times in the scene.
That's why it's so powerful. It has a rawness about it.
Yes, I know. I'd wanted to do it. I'd been trying to do that for years at fucking Rank. Basil came up after the take. I was shaking and Sylvia was fairly shattered. Basil was streaming with tears, which was strange because I didn't think it would move him.
But Michael Relph said, āI'm a little bit worried about the two clearings of your throat.ā
I said, āBut I meant those.ā
He said, āI think we should go again.ā
I said, āIf we go again, I can't do it again.ā
I knew that Basil knew I was right and that it was a spontaneous thing and effective. I mean we weren't kidding ourselves, we knew exactly what we had done, and I knew I could never do it again as a scene.