I Walked with a Zombie
In the 1940s, Val Lewton became a well known figure in early B-movie cinema for making low-budget films for RKO Pictures, including "Cat People" (1942), "I Walked with a Zombie" (1943), "The Leopard Man" (1943), which was directed by Jacques Tourneur, and "The Body Snatcher" (1945). "The Body Snatcher" was selected by the United States' National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The decade also saw the continuation of Universal Pictures' consistent releases of horror, suspense and science fiction films. Lon Chaney Jr. became the studio's leading monster movie actor in the 1940s.