Val Lewton scored his biggest artistic success with ;The Seventh Victim (1943). Freshman director Mark Robson replaces Jacques Tourneur for a Lewton film even better than its predecessors. All of Lewton's preoccupations come together in the greatest B Movie ever made. Teenaged Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter) leaves boarding school to find her sister Jacqueline (Jean Brooks), who's disappeared. Clues are remarkably sparse: her befuddled husband Gregory (Hugh Beaumont), psychiatrist Dr. Judd (Tom Conway), a business partner (Mary Newton) with murky motivations. Mary discovers that Jacqueline's involved with the Palladists, a cult of genteel Satanists. They help Jacqueline cover up a murder, but contemplate killing her to avoid exposing them.
The Seventh Victim is really more Hitchcock-Lang style thriller than horror movie. Lewton and writers De Witt Bodeen and Charles O'Neal eschew supernatural overtones: the Palladists aren't conjuring demons but praising Satan over tea and crumpets. With knife-wielding goons on call they're certainly a threat, but their perverse code forbids gratuitous violence. Misdirection abounds: a helpful detective (Lou Lubin) becomes a murder victim, Elizabeth Russell plays another odd figures mouthing bizarre epigrams.
Lewton's movies show superstition as an outgrowth of human weakness. The Palladists seem more snobby than satanic; Mrs. Redi's primary sin is unhealthy ambition, absorbing Jacqueline's business for her own gain. There's also Frances (Isabelle Jewell), a moody hairdresser fixated on Jacqueline, and Irene (Evelyn Brent), missing an arm. Then again, the heroes aren't better-adjusted; Dr. Judd bemoans a lost patient (presumably not Irena!), poet Jason (Erford Gage) struggles to write, Gregory is a blundering dupe.
Worst of all is Jacqueline, dominated by personal demons. A striking figure in dark ensemble and Louise Brooks haircut, she's a "sensationalist" who keeps a gallows in her apartment and joins the Palladists for cheap thrills. Her recklessness shocks even the Palladists, while proving inscrutable to Mary and Dr. Judd alike. Mary transcends her hang-ups: she escapes boarding school, finds a job and lover, becoming a productive, happy person despite everything. Jacqueline, by contrast, can stare down Satanists but can't overcome her own neuroses.Kim Hunter (A Matter of Life and Death) makes an appealing heroine, fresh-faced yet tough and independent-minded. Jean Brooks gets the showiest role, her somnambulistic melancholy dominating the film even when absent. Tom Conway's Dr. Judd returns from Cat People, inexplicably surviving a fatal mauling; Hugh Beaumont and Erford Gage play bland male leads. Lewton finds room for showy bit players: Lou Lubin's hard-nosed detective, Evelyn Brent's one-armed dancer, Isabell Jewell as an hysterical hairdresser.
Robson's direction transcends even Tourneur's, mixing impeccable pacing with Nicholas Musacara's immaculate photography. The best scene is Jacqueline's prolonged escape from the Palladists, slowly creeping through the streets as thugs materialize from shadows. Beautifully shot and absorbingly suspenseful, it's the capper on an incredible collection of set pieces: Mary and the detective approaching a locked Room, a tense standoff on a subway, the Satanists urging Jacqueline to suicide in glowering chiaroscuro.
1940s viewers didn't embrace The Seventh Victim, but it's much easier to appreciate in hindsight. Its influence on several cinematic generations is inescapable; Harry Lime's entrance in The Third Man, Psycho's shower scene, Rosemary's Baby all have progenitors here. Even without this baggage, The Seventh Victim is a masterpiece.
Also, feel free to read my new PopOptiq column on The Leopard Man and The Seventh Victim.
