The Seventh Victim

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with the quote from John Donne: "I run to death, and death meets me as fast / and all my pleasures are like yesterday."
Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter), a young woman at Highcliffe Academy, a Catholic boarding school, learns that her older sister and only relative, Jacqueline Gibson (Jean Brooks), has gone missing and has not paid Mary's tuition in months. The school officials tell Mary she can remain enrolled only if she works for the school. Mary decides to leave school to find her sister, who owns La Sagesse, a cosmetics company in New York City.
Upon arriving in New York, Mary finds that Jacqueline sold her cosmetics business eight months earlier. Jacqueline's close friend and former employee, Frances Fallon (Isabel Jewell), claims to have seen Jacqueline the week before, and suggests that Mary visit Dante's, an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. Mary locates the restaurant, and discovers that Jacqueline has rented a room above the store, without having moved in. Mary convinces the owners to let her see the room, which she finds empty aside from a wooden chair and above it a noose hanging from the ceiling. This makes Mary more anxious and determined to find her sister.
Mary's investigation leads her to Jacqueline's secret husband, Gregory Ward (Hugh Beaumont); a failed poet, Jason Hoag (Erford Gage); and a mysterious psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway). Jacqueline had been Judd's patient, seeking treatment for depression stemming from her membership in a Satanic cult called the Palladists. She was lured into joining the cult by her former co-workers. Mary enlists a private detective, Irving August (Lou Lubin), but he is stabbed to death while investigating at the La Sagesse headquarters. Judd eventually helps Mary locate Jacqueline, who has gone into hiding. Gregory Ward falls in love with Mary. Jacqueline is later kidnapped by the cult members and condemned to death for revealing the cult. She would be the seventh person so condemned since the founding of the cult (hence the film's title).
The cult members, squeamish about committing acts of violence, decide that Jacqueline, who is suicidal, should kill herself. When she refuses, they let her leave, but send an assassin to follow her. The assassin chases her through the darkened streets with a switchblade, but she eludes him and returns to her apartment above Dante's. She briefly encounters her neighbor, Mimi (Elizabeth Russell), a young woman with a terminal illness. Mimi confesses to Jacqueline that she's afraid to die, and plans to have one last night out on the town. Jacqueline enters her own apartment and hangs herself. The thud of the chair falling over is heard, but the sick woman does not recognize the sound as she leaves for the evening.

Tags: romantic, avant garde, murder, cult

Review:
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..
Even so, seeing this movie under the worst possible circumstances, I was nonetheless hypnotized by its eerie, morbid, downright shocking handling of a fairly typical thriller premise:  A young girl (the luminous Kim Hunter, in her first film) is informed by the staff of the Catholic girls' school she attends that her sister, who lives in New York City and owns a thriving women's fragrance emporium, has not paid her tuition bills for several months and has apparently vanished.
A trustful, kind-hearted innocent girl suddenly thrust into a series of increasingly frightening situations populated by a huge cast of supporting characters (and nobody is quite what meets the eye), Ms. Hunter and the viewer are sent down a series of dark alleys that eventually culminate in the most terrifying, nerve-needling, shocking ending of any film I have ever seen.
I now live in New York and have scoured the West Village for the locations of the scenes in "The Seventh Victim" (which, of course, was shot on the RKO Greenwich Village backlot--but is a perfect replica of the deceptively beautiful West Village as it appears even today: cobblestoned streets, majestic townhouses converted into brownstone apartments, cozy, family-run Italian restaurants, and the most colorful, fascinating, complex and entrancing people you'll neet anywhere in the entire world.
Hitchcock obviously saw this film and used its terrifying shower scene for the centerpiece of "Psycho." To this day, this modest, unpretentious, off-beat chiller remains relatively unknown (except for film-buffs), yet when I showed it to my guests at a dinner party a few years ago, they gradually fell under its creepily hypnotic spell, and, towards the end, when Ms. Hunter's sister is stalked by an unknown killer on the darkened Village streets, a quick camera shot of the stalker reaching into his pocket and pulling out a switchblade made three of my guests scream, How "The Seventh Victim" ever got past the censors in 1943 I'll never know I've read that the film had a strong lesbian undertone that drove the members of the Hays Office into cardiac arrest.
Coming as it does from producer Val Lewton, one shouldn't be surprised that The Seventh Victim is a hauntingly poetic creeper of a movie, no shocks or out and out horror here, just a genuine sense of dread and a pervading sense of doom.
It would seem that although originally intended as a longer mainstream picture, a difference of opinion between Lewton and the studio (thought to be about the hiring of first time director Mark Robson) meant it was cut to a B movie standard.The Palladists.What remains, though, isn't at all bad, in fact it's unique.
THE SEVENTH VICTIM is one of the best films produced by Val Lewton, famous for his wartime series of low budgeted, but brillantly spooky thrillers.
Some stories, of course, are more interesting than others ("The Body Snatchers" was, I thought, by far the best) but this one - supposedly "Lewton's masterpiece," according to one national critic - I found was generally typical of the rest."Typical" for the following reasons:1 - Great cinematography, film-noir-like with dramatic light and shadows, super black-and-white images that are a treat to see.
I've now seen five of Val Lewton's films: "Cat People", "The Curse of the Cat People", "I Walked with a Zombie", "The Body Snatcher", and finally "The Seventh Victim".One thing that has stood out in all the films is how well the female roles are developed (including the supporting roles in "The Body Snatcher", which has more emphasis on the male characters).
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.
It has a dark, creepy glory that defies budget and expectation.The Lewton films famously played on psychology rather than explicit shock, and this has several scenes that deserve classic status, most memorably: a detective having to walk down a spectacularly dark hallway, and a woman sitting in a room full of people urging her to commit suicide.
One of the Best Horror Films You Never Heard Of. A young woman (Kim Hunter) in search of her missing sister (Jean Brooks) uncovers a Satanic cult in New York's Greenwich Village, and finds that they may have something to do with her sibling's random disappearance.Purported homosexual undercurrents run through the film and it has a generally dreadful story without the happiness that should accompany a film of its era.
If you want to watch an absorbing thriller, strictly 1940s style with the power of suggestion filling in for graphic horror, THE SEVENTH VICTIM will keep you entertained with its story of a naive girl searching for her sister in New York's Greenwich Village, only to find that she is being held captive by a Satanic cult.That's the basic premise and it holds together quite well under Mark Robson's taut direction.
Horror fanatics discuss Val Lewton like he's a sort of shadow obsessed God. The producer of low-budget, WWII era horror films renowned for their innovative use of lighting to create a supernaturally spooky tone, projects like Cat People and The Leopard Man aren't lumped together with the schlocky frankness of Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman or The Mummy.
She is involved in something hideous, something unspeakable; and after committing a crime, she may have to pay for it with her life.For a film with satanists as its antagonists, The Seventh Victim is a surprisingly mature movie, where the foes are not fire-breathing devils but rather people you could pass by on the street without even noticing something strange.
Relying on the power of allusion, insinuation, and the visual presentation of rich, black mattes, The Seventh Victim's singular story and guileless treatment of verboten subject matter sets it apart from modern movies when compared to current methods of creating horror.When Mary Gibson (Hunter) ventures to Manhattan in search of her missing sister Jacquelin (Brooks), she enters a foreboding world of corruption, poison, mental illness, knife-wielding assassins, murder and suicide.
All of this is pretty racy for 1943, making The Seventh Victim a unique, precursor to the noir genre.Notes: The character of Dr. Judd appears again in Val Lewton's Cat People.
One of the lesser-known entries from producer Val Lewton, THE SEVENTH VICTIM has many fascinating elements, is well-acted by an interesting cast (including young Kim Hunter, in her screen debut), and creates an eerie and disquieting feeling.
As with the first three entries (after which a change of director was ordered by RKO - but, then, he had to fight for first-timer Mark Robson!), the film basically revolves around a number of highly-charged and brilliantly-handled suspense sequences: the walk down the dark corridor of the cosmetics shop (the firm is pretentiously named "La Sagesse", meaning Wisdom) where an opportunistic but sympathetic pint-sized detective meets his doom; a Hitchcockian scene aboard a train; the shower sequence in which a member of the devil cult bursts in on lead Kim Hunter, warning her not to get involved any further (though entirely different in development, this could well be the cinematic fore-runner of the legendary scene in PSYCHO [1960]!); yet another walk across a dark alley with a threat to one of the characters which could come at any moment and from any corner.The film is undercast, but effectively so: Kim Hunter is impressive in her debut performance; her two suitors, however, are rather too fey - though the poet character is, at least, intriguing (if giving rise to a decidedly over-literate script, already peppered with Lewton's typically pretentious quotations!); Tom Conway actually reprises his role from CAT PEOPLE (1942), making it one of cinema's first examples of a prequel - since his character died in the earlier movie!; Jean Brooks - writer/director Richard Brooks' wife - was a somewhat vapid heroine in THE LEOPARD MAN (1943), but this quality (accentuated by her dark wig, which is every bit as iconic as the one sported by Louise Brooks in PANDORA'S BOX [1928] and must have inspired Uma Thurman's look in Tarantino's would-be seminal PULP FICTION [1994]) actually fitted like a glove her enigmatic and nihilistic character here!
Haberman also mentions the efforts of British film-makers to watch THE SEVENTH VICTIM in wartime (American films of this era only reached foreign shores after the end of WWII!) - among them the Boulting Brothers, Carol Reed and Michael Powell (the last, according to DVD Savant but which I can well believe, since Kim Hunter was cast in the added subplot for the alternate U.S. version of The Archers' A CANTERBURY TALE [1944]!) - and a hilarious anecdote of scenarist De Witt Bodeen (the script was co-written with Charles O'Neal, father of actor Ryan!) attending a real devil-worship meeting in which harmless-looking old ladies cast terrible spells on Hitler while nonchalantly sipping tea!!
The story concerns young Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter, in her film debut) who leaves her boarding school to search for her older and strangely missing sister Jacqueline (Jean Brooks)--only to find herself unexpected ensnared by a satanic cult operating in New York's Greenwich Village.Although the story line is a bit choppy, director Mark Robson guides it with a sure hand.
Hunter, Brooks, and an exceptional supporting cast including Lewton favorites Tom Conway and Elizabeth Russell give the low-key but effective performances one associates with a Lewton film; the story offers a number of unexpected twists; and the cinematography is the light-and-shadow trademark of a Lewton production at its best.But most disconcerting--and the film's greatest asset--is the cult itself, which consists of people you might have met on any 1943 sidewalk.
****SPOILERS**** Being told that her older sister Jacqueline Gibson, Jean Brooks, has gone missing in the big city of New York young Mary, Kim Hunter, leaves her school/dorm in Highcliff and travels to New York's Greenwich Village to find her.
It was also Irving August's murder that may well have the police suspect her of being a member and thus draw attention towards to secret Devil Cult.Even though the movie has almost no violence at all in it, only Irving August is killed and that happens off screen, director Mark Robson together with film-noir horror master Val Lawton's use of shadows and sounds makes the movie far more horrifying then any special effects, back then in 1943, could have.
With shadows and darkness making the sets truly eerie and the deaths were pretty subtle- as they happen off screen.The performances are nothing special by Jean Brooks, Kim Hunter, Tom Conway and Hugh Beaumont, but just right.The story is a pretty intriguing one, involving Satanists though they're not that sinister like I hope they would be and it does seem to lose it's way just after the half-way mark- but then it picks up for the last intriguing 10 minutes, with a very haunting climax.Certain images just seem to stay in your mind, with each scene having something very notable, making the imagery a key factor of the film.
Mark Robson directed this bleak yet fascinating horror film that stars Kim Hunter as Mary Gibson, who leaves her private school to search for her older sister Jacqueline(played by Jean Brooks) in New York City, where she meets her husband(played by Hugh Beaumont) who is also concerned about her.
But when her sister is sought for murder Mary must find her with the help of Jacqueline's hubby before things go bad.This noir (with a bit of a horror twist) comes to you straight from legendary producer Val Lewton.
While it's construction is simple, there is a somewhat-complex love pyramid going on, and it has a stylish cult atmosphere.We start off with Mary, as she leaves her girl school existence, in search of her sister- Jacqueline- who has apparently disappeared.She heads into the big city, where she follows a number of leads, with hopes of tracking her sister down.
Lewton and director Mark Robson (this was the first of the five features that Robson directed for Lewton) do a fine job of keeping our innocent heroine, and the viewer, in the dark for a fair amount of the running time, and create a memorably enigmatic character in Jacqueline Gibson.Kim Hunter debuts as Mary Gibson, a schoolgirl who learns that her sister Jacqueline has gone missing.
So she travels to Greenwich Village in search of her, meeting various characters along the way, including lawyer Gregory Ward (Hugh Beaumont), who initially doesn't play it quite straight with her, published poet Jason Hoag (Erford Gage), psychiatrist Louis Judd (Tom Conway), and beauty shop proprietress Mrs. Redi (Mary Newton)."The Seventh Victim" gets very philosophical, and poignant, in the end, with two opposing sides engaging in a rather civil disagreement.
Jean Brooks as lost soul Jacqueline is excellent once the focus of the story finally shifts to her.Although this entry in Lewtons' filmography underperformed at the box office compared to hits like "Cat People", and wasn't well received at the time, it's very well done and certainly deserving of another look from film fans.Eight out of 10..
Kim Hunter is very good in her starting role, as well is Tom Conway which also appears in Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie.I recommend this film, especially for those interested in Val Lewton's work.
An unusual story involves a young woman's search for her missing sister, who formed an affiliation with a group of pacifist Satanists (?!) and gave away her beauty parlor just before disappearing.Hunter is very effective here in her film debut.
"The Seventh Victim" includes some interesting literary allusions and references, and it provides a parade of actors who are fun to identify for modern viewers, but otherwise it is not worth viewing.The story is about a young woman, Mary (Kim Hunter), who goes to New York City to find her sister, Jacqueline (Jean Brooks).
A girl (Kim Hunter in her film debut) searches for her missing sister in New York City and stumbles across cult of devil-worshippers.
Seventh Victim, The (1943) *** (out of 4) Val Lewton thriller about a woman (Kim Hunter) who goes searching for her missing sister and tracks her down to a group of devil worshipers.
"The Seventh Victim" follows Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter, who would later win an Oscar for her performance in "A Streetcar Name Desire" with Marlon Brando), a naive and kind orphaned young woman who receives notice that her older sister, Jacqueline (Jean Brooks) has vanished.
As time begins to race, Mary must find her sister and save her from whatever impending doom awaits her.Truly ahead of its time, "The Seventh Victim" is a little-known-of horror film that emerged from RKO Radio Pictures in the 1940s, and was horror filmmaker Val Lewton's first production.
"Psycho" :the scene when Kim Hunter is having a shower predates that of Leigh by more than fifteen years: the ominous shadow behind the curtain,her threatening words."Rosemary's baby" : it's quite possible Ira Levin was influenced by this film when he wrote his book.Both Polanski's movie and "the seventh victim" deal with everyday life terror ,there's apparently nothing supernatural,it is a normal world where unusual details occasionally surface.Most amazing thing,all the characters are interesting,not at all the cardboard ones you can meet in 95% of today's fantasy and horror flicks.A poet ,an one-armed woman who plays the piano,a circle of respectable devil worshipers , a woman who seems to have gone nuts,because of them,or because she already had this great fascination for death (this scene when Hunter opens her sister's bedroom door and sees the noose above a chair gives the jitters.) I cannot find a single weak sequence in this movie .It may last only seventy minutes ,its density is extraordinary: the detective's death and the unusually inventive use of the subway;the sister's reappearance ,almost zombie-like;the shower;the worshipers,trying to make their victim commit suicide;the two men setting their faith in Christ and his commandments against the "what is good?
And surely one of the scariest.Not as immediately horrifying as either CAT PEOPLE or I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, this movie contains a couple of the most unsettling scenes in the history of horror films.Let's start with the room that Jacqueline Gibson (Jean Brooks) keeps in a boarding house - you know, the one with the chair and the noose.
As a number of reviewers have already observed, there was a lot cut out of this film leaving plenty of loose ends, but "The Seventh Victim" is still hard to beat for sheer atmosphere and sense of impending doom.When Mary Gibson, played by Kim Hunter, is forced to leave the exclusive girl's school she is attending after her sister Jacqueline disappears and stops sending money, she heads to New York to find her.
The film only gets darker and stranger from this point on.During her search, Mary meets Dr. Judd, the mysterious psychiatrist from "The Cat People", played by Tom Conway, and Hugh Beaumont as Gregory Ward, Jacqueline's husband she knew nothing about.
"The Seventh Victim" stars Kim Hunter as Mary Gibson, a young woman who embarks upon a quest to find her missing sister.
The Seventh Victim is the story of Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter), a young woman who leaves her school in search of her older sister, Jacqueline (Jean Brooks).
A very young Kim Hunter (in her very first film role) plays the part of Mary, a school girl who learns that her older sister and provider, Jacqueline, has disappeared.