Michael Powell's Peeping Tom was the last major masterpiece by arguably Britain's greatest film-maker (Hitchcock was his only serious rival, and he spent most of his career in America). Released in 1960, it was greeted with such unanimous critical vitriol that its distributors panicked and dumped it after a week, and it was left to subsequent writers, programmers and film-makers (most notably Martin Scorsese, who would become a close friend of Powell, who would in turn marry Scorsese's editor Thelma Schoonmaker) to rehabilitate it as one of the most complex, provocative and cinematically and intellectually adventurous British films ever made.

Although it's become fashionable to denounce the film's original critics for being ignorant philistines, it's hard not to sympathise with them to a certain extent. Peeping Tom tackles subjects that until then either hadn't been dealt with at all or had been buried under several tons of traditional British euphemistic reserve.

Even by today's standards, it's startlingly direct in its exploration of voyeurism and sadism, and arguably more disturbing than far more graphically explicit films because of the way it implicates its audience in the protagonist's obsessions. We want to see what Mark wants to see, but without suffering the moral consequences of his actions. No wonder it provoked such extreme reactions - the film empathised with its psychotic hero while pointing an accusing finger at its audience!

Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) is the peeping tom of the title, though this goes far deeper than mere voyeurism. This isn't giving away any plot spoilers, as Powell reveals what he's up to right at the start - but Mark's longstanding ambition is to capture the look of pure fear in a woman's face at the moment of death, as he impales them through the neck with a bayonet attachment on his camera tripod as he films them.

What makes Peeping Tom such uncomfortable viewing is that, much as Hitchcock was to do with Norman Bates in Psycho the same year, we are expected to sympathise with Mark, especially when we discover the reasons behind his obsession - a morally bankrupt scientist father using his son as the guinea pig in a series of filmed experiments enquiring into the nature of fear. Just to make these scenes that bit more unnerving, Powell himself plays the father, while his real-life son Columba plays the son - thus adding an extra layer to what is already a complicated enough series of layers of mixed emotions (is Columba really scared, or is it just acting?).

Although Peeping Tom is a deadly serious film, there's a dark wit running through it that's entirely characteristic of its director. I loved the cameo by veteran British character actor Miles Malleson as an elderly pervert in a newsagent ("I understand you have some… views"), and Powell has a great time lampooning the chaos that reigns on a film set, though I doubt he ever had to deal with a dead actress popping up in a trunk in mid-sequence.

It's the kind of film that would be easier to write a book about than a brief review - there's a whole encyclopaedia of allusions and references to the process of seeing, whether in reality or second-hand via the lens (it's noteworthy that actor Esmond Knight was really blind, while Maxine Audley plays a blind character - significantly, the one person who can see through Mark right from the start); the male's role as spectator, the female's as performer/object (it contained the first topless nude scene in a British film, though unlike most of those that came later it was entirely justified by the context); a withering critique of class-ridden British society in the late 1950s; above all a masterly exploration of the whole nature of cinema and its relationship with its audience (part of the disgust shown by its contemporary critics was as a result of Powell's talent being so obvious - they couldn't understand why a man like him would waste time on what they thought was sensationalist rubbish).

Although plenty of film-makers have tackled similar themes over the years, the only other film I can think of that comes close to Peeping Tom's ambition and achievement is the low-budget Belgian film Man Bites Dog - which was also grievously misunderstood by many. Still, that's what happens when you lure people in to watch something billed as entertainment and spend the running time asking them awkward and uncomfortable questions…

This being a Criterion disc, you'd expect high standards, and I'm happy to confirm that the company (a long-term champion of Powell's work) is firing on all cylinders. Peeping Tom's chequered career has resulted in some pretty ropey prints going into circulation, but Criterion have thankfully taken the trouble to track down a good one - there are a few spots and scratches, but no more than I'd expect for a 40-year-old film.

I was particularly impressed by the colours, which are far punchier than the rather faded prints I've seen in the past, and Criterion's anamorphic transfer is as impeccable as ever - razor-sharp and with no digital artefacting that I could see. There's a very slight grainy texture (particularly obvious with dissolves and other optical effects), and it's somewhat contrasty, but I suspect that's a characteristic of the original film. But you can rest assured that it's certainly the best version that I've seen in any medium to date.

One small quibble is that although it's described as 1.66:1 on the back of the box, I don't see how that ratio is possible with an anamorphic transfer, and it does seem as though a tiny amount has been shaved off the top of the frame, though given the overall quality of the print and transfer this is a very minor issue.

The sound is the original mono, but as original mono tracks go it's clean enough - nothing spectacular but certainly nothing to make me think that it's anything other than a perfect reproduction of the original 1960 recording; the only thing that betrays its age is that it's somewhat limited in terms of dynamic range. There are 27 chapter stops, which is more than enough.

What the extras lack in quantity - just a commentary, documentary, stills gallery and trailer - they more than make up for in quality: the commentary and documentary in particular provide a huge amount of background material. The trailer is hilariously over the top, and suggests a completely different kind of film (this can't have helped its reception!), while the stills gallery contains 56 black-and-white production and publicity stills, interspersed with original descriptions from the publicity campaign. Sadly, though, they're hampered by the usual primitive back-and-forth navigation system, and they're not split up into easily accessible sections (as they were, for instance, on Criterion's The Red Shoes), though the visual presentation is otherwise very good.

The commentary is by feminist critic, theorist and former film-maker Laura Mulvey, and although it's a little dry at times she clearly knows the film backwards and has a lot of genuinely interesting things to say about it in terms of both the production and its interpretation over the years - I learned a lot, and I'm by no means a stranger to Peeping Tom. As with all Criterion commentaries, it has its own thematic index.\

The most valuable extra, though, is the superb Channel Four documentary A Very British Psycho, which over the course of 50 minutes tells the story of both the background history of the film and the fascinating career of its screenwriter, Leo Marks, a brilliant mathematician and World War II cryptographer. Contributors include Marks himself, Michael Powell (in archive interviews), Carl Boehm, and a brace of film critics, including 1960 naysayers Alexander Walker and Derek Hill, and much younger writers Geoff Andrew and Charlotte O'Sullivan, who unsurprisingly are much more sympathetic. Much to my surprise, it's presented in anamorphic 16:9, and the transfer is impeccable - almost certainly far better than the original broadcast version would have been, given that no-one was making anamorphic broadcasts when it was first shown.

All in all, this is another excellent Criterion release - if it's a notch below their magnificent The Red Shoes, that's hardly a major criticism, since that DVD is one of the most stunning packages ever released, and there's not much you could add in the way of extras to a film like Peeping Tom that hasn't already been catered for. Yet again, Criterion have done Michael Powell's memory proud - and this bodes very well for future Powell releases (which include Black Narcissus, I Know Where I'm Going and The Tales of Hoffmann).

Michael Brooke