Movie Diary 1/24/2009

Contraband (Michael Powell, 1940). Conrad Veidt as a Danish sea captain led into intrigue by Valerie Hobson (who played the actual title character in Bride of Frankenstein) during the London blackout. This movie’s wit and momentum should be the envy of just about any other spy story of the era — Powell, who had made The Spy in Black a year earlier, was on his game.