Val Lewton's The Seventh Victim

Released in 1943, The Seventh Victim is not Val Lewton's best.  His previous films were directed by Jacques Tourneur, and now Mark Robson is at the helm, and something is missing.  Lewton’s work with Tourneur had a surreal quality which did not quite survive after RKO assigned Tourneur elsewhere.  Tourneur regretted the move, stating that his work with Lewton was a “perfect collaboration”.  Aside from The Body Snatcher, Lewton’s early work is superior to his later films.  Still, The Seventh Victim bears his distinct touch, enhanced by the uncredited final script draft he wrote for all his films.    

Schoolgirl Mary (Kim Hunter, in her first film role) learns that her only living relative, her beautiful and wealthy sister Jacqueline (Jean Brooks), is missing.  Mary travels to New York City to find out what happened.  Her inquiries lead her to Gregory Ward (Hugh Beaumont, better known as Beaver’s father), a helpful if rather slick gentleman who claims to be a paramour of the missing woman.

Several of Lewton’s regulars are present, including Tom Conway, who gives a nice performance as Dr. Louis Judd, a debonair but sinister psychiatrist with a pencil-thin mustache.  Conway had the same seedy role in The Cat People (1942) and was a player in I Walked with a Zombie (1943), Lewton’s best.  Judd leads Mary to her sister’s location, but after a brief wordless encounter, Jacqueline disappears again.  This and a hanging noose in a rented room lead to suspicions that Jacqueline is mentally disturbed.  Has she fallen victim to the loneliness and claustrophobia that can strike in the midst of a big city?  Or is there an even more sinister explanation?    

The Seventh Victim is slow getting started.  Something is missing – not just Mary’s sister, but something from the script.  Is it the usual Lewton charm of engaging bit characters and subplots?  There are some amiable Italian restaurant owners, a failed poet, and others, but they lack interest.  Or is it a general lack of menace and too much of the commonplace?  Most of the movie is bland and feels like filler.   

That said, there are redeeming qualities, as there always are in Lewton’s films.  While the indoor scenes are dull, outside it is rich in Lewton atmosphere, a shadowy, deserted city where it is always night and the few passersby are faceless men in hats and overcoats, unlikely to be of help.  Early on, a sinister late-night subway train is used to excellent effect.  A few scenes foreshadow later, better films: a slightly creepy shower scene long before Psycho, and a pre-Rosemary’s Baby use of a sinister cult of commonplace people. 

In the last fifteen minutes, The Seventh Victim becomes what it should have been throughout.  Jacqueline flees silently from shadowy pursuers through the dark streets, the quiet punctuated jarringly by a foraging dog, screeching brakes, and rowdy chorus members bursting from a theater.  Instead of blandness, the film ends with menace and sadness.  It’s a pleasant surprise, but it leaves the viewer wishing this atmosphere would permeate the entire film.

The Body Snatcher (1945)

Val Lewton was a master of horror.  Not the gory, gross kind of horror, but a very controlled, haunting, beautiful kind.  The Body Snatcher is an excellent example of his mastery.  Here, Robert Wise directed and Lewton produced, but he also rewrote Philip MacDonald’s script, taking a pseudonymous credit as Carlos Keith. 

The Body Snatcher is loosely based on the Robert Louis Stevenson short story, referencing the Burke and Hare resurrectionist murders.  Boris Karloff is the body snatcher Gray, chief supplier for the arrogant Dr. MacFarlane, played by Henry Daniell.  Daniell, in perhaps his largest role, is adequate but nothing more.  His character, coldly willing to sacrifice morals for the sake of scientific progress, tormented by Gray and by his own self-doubt, is a good one, but his performance is less than masterful.

Karloff, in the first of his three roles with Lewton, gives a memorable performance.  He portrays a man eaten by moral rot yet full of evil vitality; full of strong passions but pitiless.  He shows he can be monstrous without monster makeup, although in this case he is frighteningly human as well, brimming with bitterness and jealousy.  Karloff is very sinister here, but his portrayal is not without humanity and sympathy.  The mutual hatred between Gray and MacFarlane is sometimes muted in Daniell’s performance, but always strongly portrayed by Karloff.  Karloff said Lewton was “the man who rescued me from the living dead and restored my soul”, and here Lewton (and Wise) make him shine.

Also present is Bela Lugosi, but as MacFarlane’s servant Joseph he is underutilized. He is only there for his name on the credits, and in fact the theatrical trailer was designed to suggest that his part would be much larger.  Suffering from stomach ulcers and perhaps already a morphine addict, Lugosi looks quite ill, as if even this small part is an effort for him.  This was the last Karloff/Lugosi teaming.

As usual, Lewton manages to do a lot with a little: the shadowy world of 1830’s Edinburgh is competently evoked through a few simple sets; Gray’s horse and cab clop down narrow, cobbled lanes.  An angelic-voiced street singer lightens the darkness with her voice in many scenes.  This is psychological horror; despite the theme, there aren’t many shots of bodies or their parts.  It suggests rather than shows:  shadows on a wall of a vicious struggle while Gray’s cat watches on, a victim murdered off-screen in a dark tunnel, grave robbing on a dark and stormy night.  The ending sequence is perfect, a horror classic that burns into memory.

Here as in all of his films, Lewton put a great deal of effort into all aspects of the production, elevating it above the horror film standard.  In the wrong hands, The Body Snatcher could have been excruciatingly boring, just another B movie, but with Lewton’s attention to detail and artistry, and Karloff’s great performance, it really shines- a minor classic.