Contraband (1940 film)

Contraband (Blackout)
Poster from trade screening 20 March 1940
Directed by	Michael Powell
Written by	Scenario: Michael Powell Brock Williams
Screenplay by	Emeric Pressburger
Story by	Emeric Pressburger
Produced by	John Corfield
Starring	Conrad Veidt Valerie Hobson
Cinematography	Freddie Young
Edited by	John Seabourne
Music by	Richard Addinsell John Greenwood
Production company	British National Films
Distributed by	Anglo-American
Release dates	11 May 1940 (1940-05-11) (UK) 29 November 1940 (1940-11-29) (U.S.)
Running time	92 minutes (UK) 80 minutes (U.S.)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	£35,000[1]
Box office	1,385,365 admissions (France)[2]

Contraband is a 1940 wartime spy film by the British director-writer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, which reunited stars Conrad Veidt and Valerie Hobson after their earlier appearance in The Spy in Black the previous year. On this occasion, Veidt plays a hero, something he did not do very often, and there is also an early (uncredited) performance by Leo Genn.

The title of the film in the United States was Blackout. Powell writes in his autobiography, A Life in Movies, as saying that the U.S. renaming was a better title and he wished he had thought of it.