The Seventh Victim (1943)

The most personal of Val Lewton’s nine horror movies for RKO, The Seventh Victim is also considered the bleakest. Young Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter in her film debut), comes to Greenwich Village to search for Jacqueline (Jean Brooks), her missing sister. By the end of the film, it will turn out that Mary’s quest was pointless, and the film essentially throws her under the bus: We have no more reason to care for her… or for anyone else.

Jacqueline, it turns out, has gotten involved with a group of devil-worshipers. This sounds like a generic horror plot, but the one murder which occurs within the film is not even committed by the Palladists, who are, by and large, a sorry group of people — Lewton, in what must have been a deeply cynical bow to the Hays Office, even has them chastised by a character reminding them of the Lord’s Player.

Jacqueline, after a harrowing chase scene, does manage to escape into safety. But this is how the screenplay describes what happens next:

[Jacqueline] has reached Mary’s room, has crossed the narrow hallway and her hand is almost on the knob when Mimi’s door opens and Mimi, white night-gowned, comes out into the eerie gas light. Jacqueline looks at her face which is distorted and horrible in the moving shadows and flickering light. [There is no scream in the finished movie, nor does Mimi’s face look horrible or distorted.] She stifles a scream. The other girl is also frightened.1 The two stand staring at each other for a moment.

JACQUELINE (weakly): Who are you?

MIMI: I’m Mimi — I’m dying.

JACQUELINE: No!

MIMI: Yes. It’s been quiet, oh ever so quiet. I hardly move, yet it keeps coming all the time — closer and closer. I rest and rest and yet I am dying.

JACQUELINE: And you don’t want to die. I’ve always wanted to die — always.

MIMI: I’m afraid.

Jacqueline shakes her head.

MIMI (CONT’D): I’m tired of being afraid — of waiting.

JACQUELINE: Why wait?

MIMI (with sudden determination): I’m not going to wait. I’m going out — laugh, dance — do all the things I used to do.

JACQUELINE: And then?

MIMI: I don’t know.

JACQUELINE (very softly and almost with envy): You will die.

At this point, the viewer either dismisses the film as a pretentious misfire or joins the ranks of Lewton aficionados. (This writer belongs to the second class.)

Director Mark Robson, interviewed in Higham/Greenberg’s The Celluloid Muse, said: “That picture achieved some kind of notoriety in England after the war, as I discovered when John and Roy Boulting came out here about that time, wanting to meet the fellow who had directed it. They used to bicycle a print of The Seventh Victim around London, among them Carol Reed and Cavalcanti and people like that, thinking it an advanced, weird form of film-making. I was very flattered to hear it.”

While Robson’s interview statements may not always be 100% to the point, I tend to believe him here. The film — Robson’s directing debut (undoubtedly helped by the detailed screenplay whose final version, as usual, was written by Lewton) — is indeed advanced and weird, told “with tiny, impressionistic strokes” (Joel Siegel) quite unusual for 1943, going as far as to start a dissolve while Kim Hunter is in the process of fainting: Why waste time on transitional filler material? The subway scene, which achieves considerable suspense without any music, is equally impressive. The Seventh Victim is the last of the “experimental” Lewton productions (following I Walked With a Zombie and The Leopard Man); his subsequent films would adhere closer to narrative conventions.

The RKO P.R. department, of course, wanted us to believe us that The Seventh Victim was business as usual:

On a small table in your lobby, display a statue, a bust and a head of a woman. Wherever the skin shows on the statue, mould small spots out of chewing gum or candle grease to resemble goose pimples. Place a card nearby reading ‘Even this marble developed goose pimples after seeing The Seventh Victim. (from the press book, quoted by Joel Siegel)

The Seventh Victim is often regarded as a pioneering example of lesbianism in a mainstream Hollywood movie. From the headmistress and her female assistant who Mary confronts at the start, to the Palladists, The Seventh Victim is ripe with implied queer characters. Mrs. Redi, a Palladist who has taken over Jacqueline’s plant, goes as far as to confront Mary while she’s in the shower in a scene which many people have read as a precursor to Psycho.

(In fact, the similarities are rather rudimentary: Both scenes feature a female character in a particularly vulnerable situation; both need to avoid shots which would have been regarded as indecent. However, there is little similarity between Mrs. Redi throwing a horned shadow on the shower curtain and uttering ominous warnings before leaving, and “Mother” wordlessly hacking away at Marion Crane. The Seventh Victim aims at an ominous feeling, while also imparting new information on the viewer; Psycho aims at shock. And while Hitchcock and Lewton were acquaintances, the idea of the Psycho shower scene came, after all, from Robert Bloch’s source novel.)

Perhaps the most intriguing relationship within the movie is between Jacqueline and Frances Fallon, her ex-employee, who, at one point, breaks down, sobbing: “The only time I was ever happy was when I was working with you.” (This line is often misquoted without the word “working”. In the script, the line is “I was never happier than when I worked for you — never.”)

For contrast, the hetero-normative romance is centered around Jacqueline’s dullard husband, Gregory Ward, to whom Mary seems unaccountably attracted, while pathetic poet Jason Hoag is hopelessly pining for Mary — hardly attractive alternatives. Dr. Judd may have had an affair with his ex-patient, Jacqueline, but in the film, he’s just another lonely outsider, his preferred coping strategy being cynicism.

(In the script, Judd was more involved. Originally, the character was to be called Dr. Siegfried; one wonders whether turning him into Dr. Judd — the same character who had been killed the year before in Cat People — was, like the disclaimer in I Walked With A Zombie, a sly Lewton in-joke, or whether he was told (or decided) to use actor Tom Conway again. Several of Judd’s scenes were pruned from the script, some of which would have rendered him as a more emphatic character.)

Lewton seems to employ homosexuality as a shorthand label for “unhappy outsider”, the queer-coded characters having focused their desire onto the “wrong” object, just as they have focused their life goals onto a dead end — something which also happens to Captain Stone of The Ghost Ship (1943). However, while The Ghost Ship wants us to believe that the protagonist has a way out (Captain Stone serving as an example as what Merriam could become), The Seventh Victim’s very point is that every road is a dead end anyway, a mere detour on the way to death.

The production, though cheap as usual (budget: $ 130.000,-), displays the expertise of the RKO team, with d.p. Nicholas Musuraca’s deep shadows and Roy Webb’s marvelous score adding immeasurably to the dark “Lewton touch”. Several of Webb’s Lewton scores have been re-recorded by William Stromberg on a highly recommended 2009 CD.

The Seventh Victim’s cast deserves special mention. Kim Hunter, in her debut, portrays both innocence and intelligence in what is a rather thankless role, Tom Conway manages to convince as a character whose motives are obscure for a long time, and Jean Brooks (one bewigged morbid horror film heroine of 1943, the other one being Louise Albritton in Son of Dracula; Greg Mank cites an RKO budget sheet revealing that Brooks’ wig cost $120,- plus taxes) is unforgettable.

In minor roles, Elizabeth Jewell, Elizabeth Russell and Lou Lubin excel, as do Marguerita Sylva (not an Italian, but a Belgian opera singer of note) as Mrs. Romari, Wally Brown (soon to become part of the RKO comedy team of Brown and Carney, as seen in Zombies on Broadway (1945)) as a palladist, and even bit-part actors like Adia Kuz­net­zoff (the cheerful actor who runs into Jean Brooks, best known as the gypsy singer in Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943)) and Feodor Chaliapin Jr. (Leo, the knife-wielding palladist, later to appear as Dr. Varelli in Dario Argento’s Inferno (1980)).

For a film now widely regarded as a sublime classic, The Seventh Victim received a number of stunningly hostile reviews, most infamously from Bosley Crowther in the New York Times under the headline “Who’s looney again?”

This writer claims with modest candor to have an average amount of brain, and we make it a point to pay attention whenever reviewing a film. But, brother, we have no more notion what The Seventh Victim, at the Rialto, is about than if we had watched the same picture run backward and upside down. All we can tell you is that it has something to do with a presumably innocent girl seeking her strangely lost sister in the Greenwich Village dumps and eventually finding her mixed up in some sort of screwy devil-cult. But just what the sister was doing, or how that curious doctor figured in, or why that egg-head poet was so prescient or who came out with what — well, don’t ask us. Apparently the people at the studio (RKO), where this picture was made, just had a collective nightmare, and this is the horrible result. Or maybe the projectionist is responsible. Maybe he did run it backward and upside down.

However, he was far from alone in his opinion:

New York Herald Tribune: Melodramatic mumbo-jumbo is generally an asset in minor movie offerings. It backfires in The Seventh Victim (…) There is considerable suspense in this pipe dream (…) Pay-off is what counts. It is singularly unexciting.

New York Post: It travels grimly on to its tragic climax, and you can bet the audience, a little confused by the plot, nevertheless shivers and shakes with each succeeding gloomy sequence.

New York News: Suspense created in the beginning and the sinister atmosphere which envelops some of the characters are the principal assets (…) Story is incredible.

New York Mirror: Eight victim was the movie critic (…) Far inferior to the kind of bloody terror that Rialto audiences have become accustomed to (…) Vague plot leaves the customers reeling.

New York Daily News: The audience is let down by the sight of Jean Brooks in an obvious and hideous wig. Miss Brooks gives no hint of the scintillating personality Jacqueline is supposed to possess, nor does she adequately intimate the terror and fear under which she is supposed to labor. Tom Conway is good as the doctor, but the other members of the cast are no more than puppets moved about the screen at the director’s will.

New Work World-Telegram: Makes expert use of sinister shadow effects, nerve-wracking chases through dark silences and mysterious hints about horrible rites (…) Whether you believe it or not you frequently find yourself jump nervously at its sudden noises.

Boxoffice: Something went wrong with this one. It may have been a story with continuity and understandable motivations when it went before the camera, but the way it emerges on the screen it leaves the impression that a number of essential links are missing…

Harrison’s Report: It is apparent that the producer meant this to be a mystery melodrama that is off the beaten track, but it emerges as no more than a mediocre program entertainment, and a confusing one at that. (…) Aside from the fact that the story is unpleasant and lacks clarity, it does have moments of suspense and a good deal of eerie atmosphere. For this reason it may get by with the avid mystery-picture fans.

Monthly Film Bulletin: The plot is slow and confused and the horrors are so obviously contrived to impress that they fail in their attempt.

San Francisco Examiner: … handled with enough solemnity and suspense to prevent the ridiculous aspects of the plot from being too apparent. This may be due, in part, to the fact that Kim Hunter, a new David Selznick discovery, lays the role of the innocent sister of beautiful and depraved Jean Brooks and a trial balloon must be given a fair chance. More credit is undoubtedly due to the intelligent direction of Mark Robson, who has obviously studied the methods of the mighty Hitchcock long and well.

Today’s Cinema: Misfire thriller which may get by uncritical patrons (…) artificial atmosphere of brooding horror created by such devices as [the] mysterious noose dangling in victim’s bedroom [and] overdone use of sombre lightings.

Film Bulletin: The story is on the silly side and its progress is impeded by a flock of confusing personalities. The entire production is depressing and involved. However, the direction and photography show great imagination and it will probably please the dyed-in-the-wool horror film fans. If properly exploited, it might attract good grosses in the action and transient spots. Elsewhere it will serve only as a secondary dualler.

Variety: A particularly poor script is the basis for the ills besetting this mystery melodrama. Even the occasional good performance can’t offset this minor dualer. Tom Conway has the lead, and while he’s generally a satisfactory performer, he, too, can’t extricate himself from the maze of circumstances that abound in this totally unbelievable hocus-pocus about a strange Greenwich Village coterie.

Film Daily: Although this melodrama leaves much to be desired, it should manage to get by with the type of audience for which it has been designed. Chiefly in the film’s favor is its mood, which creates a feeling of doom. In this the photography of Nicholas Musuraca plays an important role. The story has been told with a fair amount of suspense and one or two exciting moments. Its chief fault is that it lacks clarity. The plot has been developed in a confusing manner. The end in particular will leave audiences in a bit of a quandary.

Motion Picture Reviews of The Woman’s University Club: The photography is interestingly novel as well as artistic, and in the beginning the atmosphere of dread and mystery is cleverly created, but as the complications of the plots multiply, interest diminishes. The film, like some surreal paintings, leaves the impression that artistic effort has been wasted on a repulsive subject.

The Exhibitor: Although this has some suspense, the entire plot and story is overplayed and often confusing. The characters do what they can with the material at hand, which isn’t much.

Showmen’s Trade Review: Audience Slant: (Adult) Good atmosphere, camera work and a few effective incidents, but on the whole a story so vague in its import and unpleasant in its implications that average picturegoers are not likely to like it. Box-office Slant: Essentially a support number for some strong and very gay headline feature of the musical or straight comedy type.

Two rare positive reviews (the only ones I found):

Hollywood Reporter: Chiller in Best RKO Tradition … favorably matches up with its predecessors. As a matter of fact, it is much sounder psychologically than the pair that followed the production of “The Cat People” (…)

Daily Variety: … considerably off the hard-beaten track of film chillers. (…) Picture is developed as a drama of reaction on the characters, rather than a melodrama of grisly events, and discards most of the cliches which have threatened to end the popularity of this brand of double-bill entertainment. (…) Players all turn in excellent enactments, convincing, giving proper value to the mystical elements and exploiting the mystery of event and motive very persuasively under the capable direction of Mark Robson. Suspense is carefully built up and is never allowed to be broken by intruding some of the usual hocus-pocus of the average screen puzzler.

The Motion Picture Herald’s section “What the picture did for me”, where theater owners were allowed to vent, had no kind word for the film, either:

“We must have been the eighth victim; patrons walked out. Business poor. Some of the kids would not sit through it. Pictures of this type have no following here.”

“Some more film thrown away. Why don’t they put this film into something worth while. I thought there was film rationing.”

“This is the worst one of this series. It didn’t quite make sense and this happens to be a town which goes for something reasonable. It has a terrible ending. Pass it up.”

“Worst of the RKO horror series. Not for a small town.”

“This is without doubt the most unsatisfactory picture we have any recollection of. I had many walkouts and no favorable comments from my patrons.”

Perhaps that’s why, on September 22, 1943, The Rochester Times-Union announced The 7th Wagon [sic!] with Tom Conway and Jean Brooks. (The Miami News, November 16, 1943, went one step further and called the film Seventh Heaven!) I, for once, would love to see that Lewton noir western from a parallel universe, starring Kim Hunter as the prim young girl entering the Wild West in search for her missing sister. Torn between the sister’s husband, not-yet-reformed gunfighter “Killer” Conway and a native poet wooing her with smoke signals, she discovers that her sister is being pursued by a cult of puritans trying to entice her to step upon a pyre. CoStarring, perhaps: Lon Chaney jr. (whom RKO — if one is to believe a Los Angeles Times news item — had actually tried to borrow from Universal for The Leopard Man) as a cheerful Indian chief serving chili. Alas, it didn’t happen.

The Seventh Victim came and went without much ado. Earning US$ 200.000,- in domestic rentals, and US$ 68.000,- overseas, the film made a profit of only US$ 50.000,- on its first run, and while RKO kept re-releasing most Lewton films (pairing The Leopard Man with King Kong in 1952, for instance), the powers that be clearly deemed his most personal work to be of little commercial value.

W.K. Everson could never warm to the film. In 1959, stating that the Lewton films “are perhaps a trifle over-rated today”, he called The Seventh Victim “a misfire essay on Satanism in Greenwich Village which had a couple of great sequences, some intriguing dialogue and an enjoyable overall aura of evil, but a certain amount of tedium and hesitancy as well”, and in 1973 he opined that “despite its well-conceived aura of claustrophobic evil”, it “didn’t quite come off”.

According to Doug McClelland (The Golden Age of the B Movies): “It makes Rosemary’s Baby look like Blondie’s Blessed Event.”

But it was Joel Siegel, in his 1972 landmark biography Val Lewton: The Reality of Terror, who put it all in a nutshell: “The Seventh Victim is so rich and compact that only after a second viewing can most audiences begin to apprehend its beauties. (…) The resignation and despair, the perpetual awareness of death at the very center of life, is what The Seventh Victim is about. Few works of art have treated this subject with such courage, intelligence and eloquence.”