The Seventh Victim

No surprise that Val Lewton was involved with The Seventh Victim, his fingerprints can be seen on every frame. Like Cat People and I Walked With A Zombie, the atmosphere oozes from the screen, although Tournier was not involved here. Young Kim Hunter tries to find her sister, only to find she has fallen into the clutches of a group of Satanists. Oddly, the Satanists are presented as a gentile bunch, no raving lunatics here, they all seem disturbingly sane. There are some magnificent images here. Hunter breaking into her sisters room to find nothing but a chair and a noose, a creepy shower scene that pre-dates Psycho and the extraordinary downbeat ending. A grim little chiller that remains unsettlingly plausible throughout.

I'm not sure if this is the film that officially caused RKO to rein in their errant art-horror guru--and stick him with Boris Karloff to make sure they got actual horror, just like Universal--but, more than most Lewton films that started out as a completely different story, this one's probably his most muddled. The story feels like it spends so much time trying to be an "allegory" for something, it's hard to nail down what it actually is.

Supposedly, we follow virginal girls'-school student Kim Hunter, as she has to go to New York to track down her missing sister who disappeared into the Greenwich Village life, and later discovers her sister has been marked for death by a sinister occult organization among the city elite, and you can never tell who might be In On It--Call it "Rosemary's Sister". There's an intriguing beginning with a private detective, two helpful male romantic-leads, and the usual Cat People-esque Val Lewton nervous street chases, but once we meet the sister, the story keeps trying to lecture us on something else.

We learn that the sister was starting to feel unfulfilled and suicidal, but once the Sinister Organization catches up with her, to "sacrifice" her into silence, their method is to sit her at a table and browbeat her into trying to drink a glass of poison--after all, she wanted to kill herself, didn't she?--like Eyes Wide Shut re-enacting the Death of Socrates. And although we're told who the Sinister Occult Organization is, we never actually see them doing anything sinister or occult: With a few rewrites, the baddies could just as easily have been secret Nazi saboteurs, and, in DeWitt Bodeen's earlier murder-mystery draft of the story, probably were.

The movie ends with our two heroes catching up with the baddies and self-righteously lecturing them, for reasons that seem to go a lot deeper than just being Sinister or Occult.

Unlike the usual tight Lewton button-pushing (there's a neat chill that foreshadows Hitchcock's shower scene, seventeen years early), there's so much Message, Metaphor and Allegory muddling the thriller, it feels like a screenwriter wanted to get something off his chest. It's the kind of story that a screenwriter would write after going through his own personal issues, and forget to not make them so personal for the studio. I give it 6/10 for being so ponderous, as many films from 1943 were.

This little known and scantily screened Val Lewton masterpiece is a must see. The eerie atmosphere established at the boarding school where Kim Hunter learns of her sister's disappearance continues throughout. Scenes including her nightmarish experience in a darkened cosmetic company hallway illustrate how far afield recent film has gotten from true suspense as sustained in the imagination of the viewer. The chilling normalcy of the lives of the Satanists she comes to be pursuing in an effort to understand what has happened to her sister, and their quiet menace as they later gather forces to will the suicide of one of their ranks is gripping. The scenes depicting her sister's frantic run through the streets to escape a pursuer will remind others of the opening of Lewton's other little shown film The Leopard Man. Viewing this film further reinforces my belief that an intelligent film patron does not need to be clubbed over the head by excessive gore and violence to be truly scared by a film if the story is intriguing and the execution is as good as in The Seventh Victim.

Schoolgirl Kim Hunter (Mary) is called to the office of the Headmistress Ottola Nesmith and told that she can no longer stay on as a pupil as her sister Jean Brooks (Jacqueline) has stopped paying her fees. More than that, Brooks seems to have gone missing. So, Hunter goes off to find her. But Brooks isn't so easy to locate.

This film leaves you with scenes stuck in your mind, so it's good from that perspective. It is also well shot with an eerie atmosphere. Scenes that stand out include the sequence with Hunter and a detective exploring an office at night and the subsequent spooky train ride, a shower scene that will make you think of "Psycho" (1960) and pretty much every scene with Brooks. Fancy a drink? – no thanks but the pressure is on. And how about that ending? Wow, pretty bleak stuff. Especially coming after what had me cringing as we watched God and the Bible being used as a tool to counter Satan and his ways in an extremely simplistic way.

Amo, Amas, Amat, Amamus, Amatis, Amant – remember your Latin from school? The 'ablative absolute' and the 'ut' clause (use the subjunctive). Quamquam. This film also throws in some Latin and I'm glad to hear it. It takes the viewer back to a time sadly long gone as we hear schoolgirls reciting the verb 'Amo' – to love. The day will come when a generation will watch this film and not understand what language it is.

The cast are OK with Jean Brooks standing out. Her look suggests she is leader of the occult movement rather than a victim of it. And all of her scenes are quality – some genuinely scary, and all unworldly because of her appearance. That ending with the neighbour comes as a shock and leaves an eerie memory that will have you thinking about how we view life. It's an interesting film…and sad.

When Mary Gibson comes to New York to find her missing sister, Jacqueline, she is shocked to discover that she has a brother-in-law she knew nothing about as Jacqueline has gotten married. However she still can't locate her sister. However when she meets Dr Louis Judd, he gives her hope and provides some guidance to her efforts. When her private investigator is killed, Mary later sees his body being carried by two men on a train and suggests to her that something strange may be up; with the help of unemployed poet Jason Hoag she then starts to find connections between Jacqueline's disappearance and some form of strange cult.

I had no idea what this film was about but, having been seeing a lot of the Falcon movies recently, I decided to watch it due to Conway's involvement and was pleased to find that was much more than just that to make this film worth seeing. The plot is pretty dark and features a lot of hinted material that I would not have expected to have found in a film made during the 1940's – and is all the better for it. The "mystery" of the film is revealed early on and this is not the hook on which we are hung; instead the story unfolds with an intense atmosphere of foreboding that really offers nothing happy for the audience to leave with. The story is still good but, without this atmosphere and creepy touches, it isn't enough to work this well by itself. The material has plenty of creepy moments such as the shower confrontation, the creepy chase through alleyways, the subway confrontation and the ending itself; these are all very effective and are complimented by great direction from Robson and lighting/cinematography to match.

The cast could almost seem secondary to this side of the film but they do all still manage to be effective and add to the atmosphere. Hunter is convincing as Mary, innocent, naïve and in great danger, it never feels like a performance. Conway is good because I was never sure what side he was on or if his character was completely honest or not. Meanwhile Brooks works despite being a bit of an early Goth cliché; Gage is effective and the whole cast pretty much matches the atmosphere of the film and add value with their performances.

Overall this was a very nice surprise to me. It may be quite short but it is surprisingly effective in terms of having a creepy atmosphere; the story works well and the performances only help the film to produce a 1940's chiller that is surprisingly downbeat and effective throughout.