THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943)

 

(Director: Mark Robson. Screenwriter: Charles O’Neal and DeWitt Bodeen.)

Storyline

A naïve young woman goes to New York City to find her more worldly sister, who’s disappeared─and is being targeted by a satanic cult.

 

Review

Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter, THE KINDRED, 1987), a student in a Catholic boarding school, heads to New York City when her sister, Jacqueline (Jean Brooks, THE INVISIBLE MAN RETURNS, 1940), disappears. Once there, Mary discovers that Jacqueline sold her cosmetics business (La Sagesse) and that, around the same time, she somehow crossed a satanic cult, the shrouded-in-mystery Palladists.

The mystery of her sister’s disappearance grows darker when an ally─a private investigator, Irving August (an uncredited Lou Lubin)─is stabbed by an unseen assailant, dying in front of Mary while his murderer escapes.

More creepy, suspenseful weirdness occurs. Mary is aided in her quest by Gregory Ward (Hugh Beaumont, THE MOLE PEOPLE, 1956), Jacqueline’s husband, and Jason Hoag (Erford Gage), a poet who’s friends with Jacqueline. Their help leads them to Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway), Jacqueline’s psychiatrist─a reprise of Conway’s character in Jacques Tourneur’s loosely linked sequel, CAT PEOPLE (1942). Eventually, things come to a non-violent climax when Mary and her allies directly confront the cultists, with mixed results.

This tightly shot, atmospheric and mostly non-violent thriller is a rewatchable subversive high point in the horror genre. Its stylized look is drenched in plays of shadow and light (courtesy of legendary cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, CAT PEOPLE, 1942); it goes a long way toward creating a mixed horror-noir vibe while Roy Webb’s score furthers its suspenseful, melancholic mood─Webb, among his other works, scored the 1959 film RETURN OF THE FLY.

Charles O’Neal (CRY OF THE WEREWOLF, 1944) and DeWitt Bodeen (CAT PEOPLE, 1942) penned a slyly written screenplay that brings to the screen themes and settings that the Production Code Administration (PCA), a Catholic-faith forerunner to the MPAA, frowned upon. One of these elements is that of suicide, strong hinted at in a key scene in SEVENTH─a scene I’ve read puzzles modern viewers who seem to be allergic to subtlety, in this case Code-forced subtlety. (Suicides were not allowed to be shown in films in 1943; villainy had to be punished by the law or accidental death.)

Another then-subversive element is that of sexuality. Jacqueline and Dr. Judd’s interactions imply they had an affair, another PCA no-no. Not only that, Frances Fallon (Isabel Jewell, BORN TO KILL, 1947) reacts to Jacqueline’s disappearance and possible death in such a weepy, furious way that it’s obvious there was something more than friendship going on between them. The fact that SEVENTH is set in gay- and lesbian-friendly Greenwich Village, and that at least one funny-quip gay character was shown cements the nature of Jacqueline’s alluded-to relationships.

Some viewers may appreciate a cleverly shot shower scene with Mary that not only slips under the radar of the PCA’s ire but predates Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller PSYCHO by seventeen years. These same viewers may also appreciate seeing an uncredited Elizabeth Russell (THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, 1944) as Mimi, Jacqueline’s melancholic neighbor.

SEVENTH is a seventy-one-minute gem of a B flick, one that I consider to be perfect, given the period it was made and its multilayered themes, characters and settings, all guided to the screen by producer Val Lewton and director Mark Robson, who brought their talent, passion and editing expertise to it. This is not only worth your time, it’s worth owning.

Citation

“Lewton vs. Breen” by Clive Dawson (The Dark Side magazine, issue 210, pp. 40-9)