mimosa by starlight: the Lewtonian vibe of The Uninvited (1944)

 

*** MINOR SPOILERS in the comments below ***


“They call them the haunted shores. These stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here. And sea fog. And eerie stories.”


The 1940s were the golden age of the cinematic ghost story. Two close relatives, the supernatural fantasy and the supernatural noir, also peaked in that decade. Audiences flocked to these new kinds of horror films. Battered by true and very violent horrors of world war, perhaps they were ready for something otherworldly, but presented in a quieter, more reflective manner. Whatever the ultimate explanation or aesthetic classification, arguably the best of the ghost movie lot is 1944’s The Uninvited, which has been described as the first movie to treat ghosts in a serious manner. The usual ghostly suspects are adapted and presented in surprisingly original ways to craft a story both conventional and offbeat, unsettling and ultimately not so scary after all. But the very fact that Uninvited mostly embraces the ghost story conventions, along with its quintessentially Forties black & white look [1], accounts for a great deal of its charm and continued appeal.  

At about the same time a group of horror films produced at RKO and helmed by maverick producer Val Lewton gently nudged the envelope even further, in turn creating and perfecting the aforementioned subgenre of supernatural noir [2]. It’s tempting to view the Lewton films, with their low-keyed thrills, minimalist sets and chiaroscuro lighting, as setting off a trend that peaked later in the decade as other studios brought forth similar products. But the Lewton canon exist in such a self-contained, sui generis world, that their unique alchemy could never be duplicated, and thus any idea of influence is tenuous at best.  Still … in some cases the resemblances are uncanny [3], and such is the case with The Uninvited. It’s in this context that we’ll note similarities in style and content to the Lewton films.

If Uninvited does not exactly invent the supernatural mystery overlaid with family secrets and aberrant pathology, it crystallizes all the elements in a way that previously had not been done, and does so with a deft touch that subtly mixes atmosphere, story and low-keyed acting, along the way sneaking in some surprising shadings of plot and character. Thus Uninvited is as much psychological drama as ghost tale, with much of the terror inflicted, sometimes self-inflicted, by living mortals with their own issues. Uninvited is also an old fashioned romance, even if it’s difficult to pin down the romantic protagonists, especially so, since, structurally and thematically, the romantic element is always subordinated to the eerie goings on.

And inasmuch as all the above-mentioned themes and stylistics are present in the Lewton films, it would seem a curious contradiction then that none of the Lewtons is of the haunted house variety, although two of them, Isle of the Dead and I Walked with a Zombie, contain characters that for all the world resemble spectral images. One might stretch the definition of a ghostly presence and also cite Simone Simon’s angel from the beyond in Curse of the Cat People. A mention is also due to Curse of the Cat People’s old Gothic house that’s gloomy and creepy, and certainly has a past, but is not literally haunted.

the ghost always rings twice ...

However, when considering similarities between the Val Lewton films and Uninvited, the inevitable starting point has to be mood and atmosphere [4]. Ultimately what binds the Lewton oeuvre and Uninvited is this less direct approach to shivers, most vividly expressed through the visual language. Most of the supernatural feel and general sense of unease is created by the gloomy lighting, minimal special effects and shadowy camera work that bathes the goings on in perpetual semi-darkness. This sense of never quite getting a clear vision parallels the inner motivations of the characters, which are often ambiguous and unclear. Special kudos then to Uninvited’s cameraman Charles Lang and Lewton’s favorite cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca.

But let’s move on to actors, and more important, characters and their various inter-relationships. First, to point out two relatively minor but not totally insignificant connections: that’s the presence of Lewton favorites Alan Napier and Elizabeth Russell. Napier takes the role of the kindly but mostly ineffectual doctor, and Russell – well, accounts vary. One is that she’s the sitter for the two large portraits of Mary Meredith, while other versions credit her as being the model for the ectoplasmic ghost image we see at the end of the film. Some sources credit the ghost as being played by Lynda Grey [5].

As for characters a good place to start is with nominal leads Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald (Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey), a brother and sister pair easing into middle age. They have an unconventional sibling relationship that borders on the kinky: they live together in London, take vacations together, and eventually buy and reside in the haunted house. There’s no mention of parents or other living family members (note: their, presumably deceased, mother is mentioned, but only in passing), and when we first encounter them neither has any significant romantic attachments, that we know of anyway (except perhaps to each other). Since the story is set in the late 1930s one can only wonder what became of Roderick and Pamela during the war.

In any event the two siblings function more like husband and wife, down to the good-natured bickering. Pamela wins most of the arguments as she seems to be the dominant partner. Thus it’s natural for us to think she’s the older, bossy sibling, which she indeed may be in the story, but actually Ray Milland was about five years senior to Ruth Hussey.

Roderick and Pamela set the tone for several unusual family relationships in Uninvited, a dynamic not uncommon in the Lewton films, where incestuous, ossified human relations contribute to the moody atmospherics. Roderick’s and Pamela’s arrangement also foreshadows even more shocking, ‘unnatural’ revelations in Uninvited – but more on this later. The offbeat sibling dynamic is softened by the gradual pairing off of Roderick with Stella, and later, Pamela with the doctor, though even here we sense that something isn’t quite right: Milland was nearly twenty years Gail Russell’s senior – she was nineteen when she made the film and if anything looks younger – and his courting her seems just a bit creepy. Likewise there’s scant chemistry between Pamela and the doctor: neither has shown any romantic feelings toward the other. It’s just tossed out as the promise of a happy ending and hardly has the ring of truth.

In any case, other Lewton-like aspects of Uninvited include: the main character is a creative artist, in this case a music critic and composer; it takes a while for the thrills to appear, as there’s a fairly lengthy first act that sets things up; a diseased eroticism hovers, hothouse-like, over all the goings on; the sound of weeping emerges from the darkness from no discernible source; a somewhat naïve yet headstrong young woman ventures into dangerous territory – both literal and figurative – recalling the famed Val Lewton walks; Stella’s wafty persona suggests a memorable Lewton heroine, the enigmatic Jacqueline in Seventh Victim; gentle breezes and the nearby ocean assume prominence, if only as backdrop; personal inter-relationships are implied and incomplete, and thus plot threads are left unresolved; the scent of mimosa recalls Irena’s perfume in Cat People; the principal villain is a woman, two women actually if we count both Miss Holloway and Mary Meredith [6]; the women characters tend to be independent, older, dominating, or sinister (Stella being the exception), while the men are generally bland, passive or effeminate.
Moreover, all the characters exist in a self-contained, insular universe that never mentions events happening in the rest of the world. The elephant in the living room is the unseen presence of World War II, so responsible for the dark, melancholy atmosphere, especially in the Lewton films, but never referred to directly (since Uninvited is set in 1937, WW2 has yet to occur, though storm clouds swirling on the horizon, likewise not referenced in the film, are happening in real life).


‘large audiences of questionable type …’

There’s another aspect of Uninvited that makes it not only a ghost movie classic but a cult classic as well, and that’s the portrayal of the sinister quack psychiatrist Miss Holloway. She presides imperiously over a sanitarium for nervous (read: lesbian) middle-aged women, and her presence adds a welcome touch of danger and threat (primarily to Stella). Moreover, the character is a source of continued fascination and even debate. There’s a strong, not so subtle suggestion that Mary and Miss Holloway were quite a bit more than just friends, or in their case, something beyond caregiver and patient (Miss Holloway was Mary Meredith’s nurse). Naturally Miss Holloway’s institution is named – what else? – the Mary Meredith Retreat.

Thus Uninvited has attained the status of camp favorite, and it’s tempting to look upon the Sapphic undercurrent as being (re)discovered decades later by astute critics and film historians. But this is not necessarily the case: contemporary audiences were apparently in on the coded references too:

Father Brendan Larnen of the Catholic Legion of Decency wrote a complaining letter to Will Hays, head of the infamous Production Code Administration which censored Hollywood movies. Father Larnen noted that “… in certain theatres large audiences of questionable types attended this film at unusual hours, drawn by certain erotic and esoteric elements in the film.”

Yes, it was there all along, hiding in plain sight, and the audiences (at least those of 'certain questionable type') knew it. The relationship between Miss Holloway and Mary then has a not unappealing romantic tinge, a proverbial longing for the abyss and a state of transcendence, expressed via a love and fidelity that goes unto and beyond death itself [8].

Cornelia Otis Skinner’s brilliant camp take on Miss Holloway is one of the more overt portrayals of a lesbian in a mainstream film in the Forties, right up there with Judith Anderson’s unforgettable Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca. The irony is that, in our seen-and-heard-it-all Twenty-first Century world, Miss Holloway is likely to be viewed as an anachronism, a quaint, almost comic, relic from a more innocent age, and objections to her depiction would be along the lines that she’s a cruel caricature.

In any case, tradition dictated that the evil lesbian had to die or go mad at the end. In our case Miss Holloway is still very much alive when we last see her. She disappears from the movie with no further explanation as to her ultimate fate, but we can infer from her ramblings and the far off look in her eyes that she’s well on her way to going mad. 
[Trivia: Cornelia Otis Skinner is portrayed by Gail Russell, yes, Uninvited's Gail Russell, in the film adaption of Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944), a chronicle of the picaresque adventures of Cornelia and travel companion Emily Kimbrough in France in the 1920s. Considering Miss Skinner's intense performance in Uninvited of a more or less out-in-the-open Sapphic character, a nice, if unintended, ironic touch then is the word 'gay' in the book's title].

There are other unsung (and sung) heroes and heroines beyond character and atmosphere. Composers Roy Webb and Victor Young merit special mention. Young’s lushly romantic score for Uninvited contrasts with Webb’s low-keyed music for the Lewton films, and yes, we must give the obligatory shoutout to the haunting and unforgettable tune “Stella by Starlight.” The wardrobe designs by Edith Head in Uninvited and Renié in the Lewtons are unshowy and nondescript but get the job done. Much credit must also be given to the mise-en-scène, so kudos to the art directors and set designers, and just plain directors Lewis Allan (Uninvited) and Jacques Tourneur, who directed the first three, arguably best, Lewton films. But perhaps pride of place must go to a surprising contribution, and that’s the wise and witty scripts by Frank Partos and Dodie Smith (Uninvited), and Ardel Wray and Dewitt Bodeen (Lewtons). With no disrespect to atmosphere or the actors, which remain paramount, these films wouldn’t be what they are without the literate, incisive dialogue, always delivered spot on by well cast performers.

If there’s one weakness in Uninvited, it’s the far too many attempts at humor, most of which fall flat and impede the suspenseful narrative. This is one time where Uninvited parts ways with the Lewton films, which are conspicuously bereft of humor and bathed in unremitting moodiness and melancholy.

But such a minor quibble amongst the proverbial embarrassment of riches. If anything, the passage of time has only added to Uninvited’s luster. It looks back fondly to a quieter, less obvious time in Hollywood, and still beguiles with a sense of mystery and incompleteness.

However, and as much as Uninvited is a great, or near-great film, both differing from and also possessing the best qualities of its era, for me it doesn’t quite scale the existential heights of the best Lewton films. It’s difficult to put into words why this is the case. Paradoxically it might be the very fact that Uninvited is a full-on big budget production by a major studio, and as a result there’s a certain bloated, overbaked quality to its otherwise elegant veneer. By contrast the Lewton entries never pretend to be anything more, or less, than B movies, and thus they have a stripped down, to-the-bone gestalt that gets right to the matter at hand.

There may be another explanation, though it tends to contradict what I’ve written above. Despite all the spiritual shenanigans, Uninvited is at heart a romance presented in a romantic, old school way (Young’s melodious score is one tipoff). By contrast, the Lewton films are essentially dark, fatalistic meditations and most definitely not romances, the occasional Freudian undertones that spice up a love story subplot notwithstanding. Consequently, Uninvited is of its time, while the Lewtons have a timeless quality and have stayed fresh and modern.

Whatever their relative merits, both Uninvited and the Lewton films treated the subject matter – and the audience – with great respect, opting for intelligent stories and understated effects that leave much to the imagination. Uninvited in particular can be recommended as an old-fashioned ghost tale best viewed late at night, candles lit and fireplace crackling full blast.  


[1] Not so coincidentally, the Forties were also the summit of black and white movies. It was perhaps inevitable that supernatural films emphasizing mood and atmosphere went out of fashion in the Technicolor-drenched Fifties and Sixties. There were exceptions: schlockmeister William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill, from 1958, has such a camp feel to it that it hardly counts. Likewise the less-than-stellar 13 Ghosts. However, 1964’s The Haunting, a kind of homage to Val Lewton, must merit a mention. Haunting was directed by Robert Wise, who, not surprisingly, directed two of the Lewton films and was an admirer of the Lewton aesthetic.  

[2] The films are: Cat people, I Walked with a Zombie, The Leopard Man, Curse of the Cat People, The Seventh victim, The Ghost Ship, The Body Snatcher, Isle of the Dead, and Bedlam. To label these films supernatural noir is as good a moniker as any, but it’s somewhat inaccurate: at most only three of the Lewton films deal with overtly supernatural themes. The others might varyingly be described as domestic melodramas, adventure stories or historical dramas, all with a touch of horror thrown in.  

]3] Other Lewton-like films of the era include Alias Nick Beal, Jane Eyre, The Spiritualist, and especially The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.

[4] Interesting in the context of atmosphere is the film’s signature scene, which invokes a Lewton-like sense of unease. This is where Roderick and Stella visit the studio, and while he is playing the piano the candles turn dim and his playing takes on a darker tinge. Stella rushes to the cliff edge, apparently possessed by a spirit that wishes her ill. Similar tableaux of two persons, one playing the piano and one listening nearby, in which the music changes from mellifluous to sinister, occur in the horror films Dracula’s Daughter and House of Dracula. Another vintage Lewton-esque scene is when Roderick and Pamela first hear the ghost weeping while they listen atop the staircase, candles in hand.

[5] The redoubtable IMDB muddies the waters further: it confirms Russell as the model for the portrait, but lists both Grey and Russell as the Mary Meredith ghost.

[6] In the Lewton films, as well as Uninvited, the female villain is a mysterious Other (sometimes even a ‘monster’), defined by ethnicity (Irena in Cat People and Thea in Isle of the Dead), catatonia (Jessica in Zombie), superstitious beliefs (Kyra in Isle of the Dead), family rejection (Barbara Farren in Curse of the Cat People) or sexual orientation (Miss Holloway and Mary in Uninvited). The sympathetic Jacqueline in Seventh Victim is a kind of villain, living a bohemian lifestyle that’s far outside society’s norms. Even in Bedlam Nell Bowen is (mistakenly) labeled a ‘monster’ (i.e. madwoman) and confined to the infamous asylum. And of course Carmel, a foreigner, thus quintessentially Other, is initially taken to be the villain in Uninvited.
    Aside: Although she's obviously playing an English character in a very English setting, Gail Russell is the only character in Uninvited who doesn't speak with a British accent. Even with her cultivated American inflection, it would be a reach to suggest that Russell's accent is even mid-Atlantic. Still, it doesn't detract from her wondrous performance, especially praiseworthy considering Uninvited was her first substantial role in a major production.

[7] Homoerotic touches are present in several of the Lewton films, most prominently in Cat People and Seventh Victim, both of which have implied lesbian subtexts.

[8] Not for nothing that when we view Miss Holloway ensconced at her mausoleum-like retreat, the music in the background is Wagner’s ‘Liebestod’ (Love’s Death) from Tristan und Isolde. Aside: some sources cite Pamela and even Stella as also being gay. Perhaps. Perhaps not, depending on how one reads the clues. These were the censor-laden 1940s, when everything had to be viewed - and scripted - through a subtextual prism. So who can say? On the other hand, that such an obviously Sapphic character as Miss Holloway could be smuggled into the story, in the open as it were, is all the more remarkable.

fate takes an option: the mixed legacy of the Val Lewton horror unit at RKO

     The history of motion pictures is littered with tales of might-have-beens, false starts, and missed opportunities, all chronicled in sources as diverse as scholarly biographies to lurid scandal magazines. They tell of lives, today largely forgotten, of the once promising and can’t-miss future stars (writers and directors, too) that … weren’t.

     Especially compelling, and not so frequently examined, are the stories associated with a trend, genre or studio. An obvious example is the genre (or was it a style?) today we dub film noir, and the seemingly malevolent hold it had on the actors who portrayed the desperate characters in its cinematic universe. Indeed, their private lives were often more noir than the (anti)-heroes and -heroines they impersonated onscreen. To wit: in one of the more infelicitous timings in American cultural history, the noir era counted among its ranks not only actors but many directors and screenwriters with leftist political sympathies. Thus their fate: the persecution by the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee and -like groups, one of the results being the blacklisting of not a few unfortunate souls. It's probably the most conspicuous example of the curse of noir and its extension to real life drama [1].

     But we’d like to focus on another, less well-known, group of ill-fated individuals, with their own attendant maledictions. They were associated with the production unit at RKO Pictures specializing in horror films in the 1940s heralded by maverick producer Val Lewton. The nine films Lewton oversaw from 1942 to 1946 created and perfected the sub-genre of supernatural noir. Conveyed through an aesthetic language similar to that of film noir, these hymns to the night shared with noir a fatalistic, no-exit pessimism and dark world view, though of a different kind [2].

     Usually seeking material gain, the edgy characters in noir employed methods both legal and otherwise to achieve their aims, and were often menaced, or manipulated, by powerful, mysterious forces. Sometimes the forces were not so mysterious, but nonetheless eminently threatening – state officialdom, criminal elements, hostile foreign powers, duplicitous femmes fatales. The protagonists in the Lewton films had their own issues, but they stemmed from within, to be precise from the subterranean realms of the human psyche, the result being an existential searching for something they, and often the audience, couldn’t quite get hold of [3]. Theirs was a quest for meaning and direction in a world that seemed devoid of meaning, and moreover arbitrary and chaotic in its dispensation of fate.

     The characters in the Lewton films often confronted their issues by way of supernatural or other-worldly manifestations: a sexually repressed woman metamorphoses into a vicious panther; a lonely child summons an angel from the beyond; a doomed heroine seeks redemption by joining a devil cult; an adulteress becomes one of the walking dead; a no-nonsense general succumbs to ancient superstitions and eventual madness.

     In any event, and getting back to the notion of a Lewton curse, it’s only fair to list some exceptions, as any number of major and minor creative types associated with Val Lewton went on to successful, lengthy careers: directors Robert Wise, Mark Robson and Jacques Tourneur; composer Roy Webb; wardrobe designer Renié; cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca; art director Albert D'Agostino; and actors Boris Karloff, Kim Hunter, Anna Lee, Kent Smith and Henry Daniell. Moreover, not all the aborted careers were involuntary. Some were very much by choice, a prime example being Jane Randolph, so effective in Cat People and its quasi-sequel Curse of the Cat People. One of her best roles during this time was in the noir classic T-Men (1947), in which she was cast against type as a ruthless high level apparatchik in a counterfeiting scheme. The following year her career came to an inglorious end with her appearance in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, whereupon she left films, married a rich guy and lived out her life in Europe, mostly Spain, amid much material comfort.

     But among the less fortunate there’s quite a litany of unfulfilled promises, one-hit wonders, and should-have-beens. Of course the elephant in the living room is Val Lewton himself. So creative during his peak years at RKO (and before), upon his departure in 1947 he oversaw nothing of lasting value. Times, and tastes, were changing, and the new productions he supervised were critical and commercial failures. As a result of a weak heart and years of overwork, Lewton finally succumbed to heart failure in 1951 at forty-six years of age. In many ways Lewton’s was a tantalizingly brief and unfinished career, and we can only wonder what he might have accomplished had he lived longer, another twenty years, even ten years. Perhaps the old magic would have returned, perhaps not, but we’ll never know.

     There was also the eccentric screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen, whose career likewise peaked in the 1940s. He wrote the insightful scripts – arguably the best of all the Lewton films – for Cat People and The Seventh Victim, the latter co-written with Charles O’Neal [4]. But he did little of consequence after 1950, confining himself mostly to work in television and film criticism. He left Hollywood disillusioned and died in obscurity in 1988 at the age of 79.

     Bodeen's co-author on Victim, Charles O'Neal, lived a long life (he passed in 1996 at the age of 92), but his career as a screenwriter is spotty. He had a string of mostly B films in the Forties but his career stalled around 1950, after which he worked only sporadically, contributing mostly scripts for television.    

They walked with Val lewton 

Another writer casualty, this one a victim of the aforementioned anti-communist witch hunts of the late Forties and early Fifties, was screenwriter and Lewton stalwart Ardel Wray, who helmed the scripts for I Walked with a Zombie (co-written with Curt Siodmak), Leopard Man and Isle of the Dead. Her refusal to name names in 1948 effectively ended her tenure at Paramount, the studio where she was working at the time, and furthermore resulted in her blacklisting by the entire industry. Her career as a Hollywood screenwriter was now over, and she subsequently confined her work to various and odd jobs: script reader, story analyst, movie serializations, and especially script writing for television programs in the 1960s.

     But as for actors and actresses, a good place to start is Simone Simon, who had a fairly substantial career in her native France before coming to Hollywood in the late 1930s. She became a genuine star after Cat People in 1942, and she appeared in the sequel Curse of the Cat People two years later. But then her career went southward. She returned to France in the late Forties and her roles were spotty. Her best film during this time was La Ronde, after which she appeared in fewer films. She more or less left the movies altogether in 1956, although she did appear in one final film, The Woman in Blue, in 1973. Hers was a sketchy career, and her star burned bright only intermittently.
 

     Cat People’s other cat woman was portrayed by Lewton favorite Elizabeth Russell (she appeared in five of his films, always in cameos or supporting roles). Her post-Lewton career gradually faded and by 1960 she had left the movies altogether. With the renewed appreciation of the Lewton oeuvre in the 1980s and 1990s she became a kind of cult figure, but her glory days in the movies, focused as they were in the 1940s, were limited at best. Mary Halsey, who played the pert blonde desk attendant at Alice's hotel in Cat People, frequently appeared (mostly uncredited) in B movies in the Forties, but her career was to be short lived: her last film was in 1945. She passed in 1989 at the age of seventy-five.

     The other actor from Cat People that deserves a mention is Tom Conway, who also appeared in two other Lewton films, I Walked with a Zombie and The Seventh Victim. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Conway was the older brother of George Sanders and has been variously described as the nice George Sanders and, less generously, the B movie George Sanders. Perpetually on the fringe of stardom, Conway was under contract to RKO and enjoyed a mildly successful run in the Forties, especially for his appearing in ten Falcon mysteries. But in the Fifties his career slowed and substantial roles came few and far between. By the Sixties he was reduced to cameos and the occasional television appearance. His last credited role was on a Perry Mason episode in 1964, in which he essentially plays himself: a washed up theatrical actor given a raw deal by the industry, reduced to touring with a Shakespearean troupe who perform readings. Conway died at the age of sixty-two, destitute and severely alcoholic, in Culver City, California, in 1967.

     I Walked with a Zombie, the film that followed Cat People and considered by some to be Lewton’s masterpiece, nonetheless had its share of casualties. Zombie’s leading lady was Frances Dee, and it’s certainly the performance she’s remembered for, but by this time her star was dimming. The rest of her career is obscure, if recalled at all. But in some respects she escaped the curse, living out a long, and by all accounts very prosperous life (she passed in 2004 at age 94).

                                             

     Tom Conway was Dee’s leading man in Zombie, but the titular character was played by Christine Gordon, whose (uncredited) credits include only five other films, all dating from the mid 1940s. But at least she has a modest place in cinema immortality as the catatonic Jessica who, appropriately enough perhaps, suffers a tragic fate in the film. An even smaller, if pivotal, role in Zombie is taken by the Panama born dancer Jieno Moxzer, who plays the voodoo priest. Moxzer’s only other film credit is Cabin in the Sky. Zombie also featured Sir Lancelot, a singer/actor who more or less cornered the market on the calypso singer cameo in the 1940s. He appeared in a string of films in the Forties, including appearances in three Lewton films. Lancelot had a long career as a singer, performing into his sixties, but by the late 1940s his career in film was essentially over. He died in 2001 at the age of 98.

     The next film, The Leopard Man, had at least four actresses whose careers were touched by the Lewton shroud. Three of them played the victims in Leopard Man and their acting tenures likewise  came to unfortunate or equivocal ends [5]. Incidentally, of the three Hispanic victims, two were played by Caucasian actresses, a fairly common practice in them days of casting ethnic roles with Anglo performers. In any case Leopard Man also included in its cast Isabel Jewell, who improbably takes the role of a card reading fortuneteller. Jewell also appeared in Seventh Victim, where she had a more substantial part and accordingly made an even stronger impression, but by this time her once promising career was decidedly on a downhill slide [6]. Leopard Man also featured the fetching Ariel Heath in an all too brief appearance as the cigarette girl at the club. IMDB lists fourteen films to her credit, mostly in uncredited roles. Her last film was in 1945, and she died in 1973 at age fifty-one.

     The fourth Lewton film, The Seventh Victim, is probably the darkest of the entire canon, and is also where we find two of the most tragic true-life cases. Jean Brooks’s saga has uncanny parallels to the doomed heroine she portrayed so effectively in Victim. She appeared as a supporting player in B pictures in the late 30s and early 40s. RKO picked her up in 1942, and she starred in six Falcon pictures with Tom Conway in addition to appearing in three Lewton films. She showed great promise with her easy confidence and screen charisma. But her personal life was another matter: she struggled with alcoholism, and there were incidents of public drunkenness and disheveled appearance. In 1946 RKO dropped her from their roster. Her last movie was the 1948 World War II exploitation film Women in the Night. For a time she worked in dinner theater but by the 1950s had disappeared from public life altogether. She eventually moved to San Francisco, where she worked in the classified department at the Examiner newspaper. Jean Brooks died of complications from alcoholism and malnutrition on Nov 25, 1963, at Kaiser Hospital in Richmond, California, at the age of forty-seven, largely forgotten. Hers was a sad case of a potential star that might have been.

     A truly tragic story is that of Erford Gage, who in Victim took the role of the Lewtonesque poet Jason Hoag. Gage’s wafty intensity brought a genuine pathos to the character and provided a tantalizing hint of what he might have become as an actor. Very sadly, it was not to be. He died in combat in World War II in Manila, the Philippines, on March 17, 1945. Victim also boasted quite a collection of colorful secondary characters and bit parts. Several of them are associated with the devil worship cult, which meets at the apartment of one Mrs. Cortez (Evelyn Brent), who has a fondness for wearing flamboyant satin outfits. Brent curiously gets a high billing in the credits despite hers being a relatively marginal character. In any case she was quite the star in the Twenties but by this time had slipped to B movies. Seventh Victim was one of her last films.

     Another career that ended in the Forties was that of Ben Bard, who plays the elegantly sinister Mr. Brun in Victim. His solid if unspectacular career included a nice run of Lewton films with appearances in Leopard Man, The Ghost Ship, and Youth Runs Wild, in addition to Victim. But in 1946 he left movies altogether to concentrate on managing acting schools. Eve March, who takes the role of Miss Gilchrist in Victim, kept busy as a supporting player in the Forties but her career sputtered in the Fifties. Her last film was an uncredited part in 1958 in The Last Hurrah. She died in Hollywood in 1974 at the age of sixty-three.

The fifth Lewton film, The Ghost Ship, is the transitional work that heralds the shift away from mood and atmosphere to story and character. And character indeed comes to the fore in the person of the totalitarian-minded Captain Stone, portrayed with edgy menace by once major star Richard Dix. But Dix’s salad days were two decades prior and by this time his career was in decline. In the Forties he appeared in B movie programmers, most notably six of the Whistler mysteries in which he played unhinged types not that dissimilar from Capt. Stone. After years of struggling with alcoholism, he retired from films in 1947 and died of a heart attack in 1949 at the age of 56.

     Rising star Russell Wade was Dix’s costar in Ghost Ship, taking the role of Capt. Stone’s reluctant protégé, Third Officer Merriam. Wade also appeared in Body Snatcher and (uncredited) Leopard Man. He was in over 60 movies in the Forties but retired from films in 1948 for a career in business and real estate in the Palm Springs area. He died in 2006 at the age of 89. Ghost Ship also boasted Skelton Knaggs, whose craggy looks and eccentric disposition seemed to predestine him to an untimely demise, which did happen, both onscreen (in Isle of the Dead) as well as off. Knaggs also appeared in one other Lewton film, Bedlam. Born in Yorkshire, England, he came to the U.S. in 1939 and by the early Forties had established himself as a reliable performer who specialized in offbeat character roles. His career slowed in the 1950s and his last film was in 1955, the year of his death from cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 43.

     1945’s Isle of the Dead, the first of three films to showcase Boris Karloff, also featured in a prominent role the ingénue Ellen Drew, who always seemed one step away from the stardom that ultimately eluded her. She does well in Isle of the Dead but is probably best remembered as a brutal gangster’s wife in the noir programmer Johnny O’Clock. By 1950 her career in film was essentially over, after which she confined her work to television. Her last appearance on the small screen was a Perry Mason episode in 1960. Isle also included the distinguished stage actress Katherine Emery, who had a modest run of film appearances in the 1940s in which she essayed mostly character roles. Her film career ended abruptly in 1953 with the 3-D cult classic The Maze.  

     Also released in 1945 was The Body Snatcher. The fetching Rita Corday took the sympathetic role of Mrs. March. Corday had a good run in the 1940s, mostly in B pictures, but her career petered out in the Fifties and her last film was in 1954. She died in 1992 at the age of age 72. Body Snatcher also featured Donna Lee in the small but pivotal role of the street singer. IMDB lists five credits for her. Her last film was in 1946 in a small role in Bedlam. The valedictory Bedlam had at least one performance worthy of a mention in present traversal. That’s the one given by Joan Newton. Even by Lewtonian standards she had a very brief career, appearing in only two movies: Riverboat Rhythm and Bedlam, the latter in the minor but crucial role as Dorothea the Dove. She passed away in 2012 at the age of 91.

Isle of broken dreams

     It’s risky, and counterintuitive, even counterproductive, to generalize in such matters, but a pattern does  emerge. Most of the individuals discussed above reached their peak in the 1940s, especially, and sometimes exclusively, in the Lewton films. For some, the career arc was already on a downward slope. In any event, most did little of substance after 1950, usually with a gradual diminishing of output, both in quality and quantity. Several struggled with alcoholism, and most died in obscurity and/or near-poverty.
Indeed, was there a kind of curse, a shroud of doom that wrapped itself around the lives of many of the actors and actresses who appeared in the Val Lewton films of the early and mid-Forties? It’s tempting to see a connection. But perhaps we have it wrong. What if the reverse is true? Could it be that the kind of films Val Lewton produced attracted a certain personality type, especially so in the case of the supporting performers and bit players. Quirky, erratic, self-destructive, unable or unwilling to conform to the Hollywood standards of career molding and good behavior, these actors brought their own imperfections to the overall alchemy of films like Seventh Victim and Isle of the Dead, to cite two of the darkest exemplars in the Lewton canon. And these individuals carried their own burdens with them, quite independent of their brief association with Val Lewton [7].

     Truth be told, there are several possible explanations for the Lewton actors’ memorable contributions to the films, and, more to the point, their eventual fates [8]. Some are offered above and some are not, and overall patterns and trends are debatable at best. Simply put, it wasn’t just fatalistic pessimism, a sorcerer’s spell, or the callousness of a depraved, indifferent industry, though some of these might have played a part. More practical issues – financial exigencies, career change, lack of ambition, bad timing, inept management, and any number of other factors, singly or in combination – no doubt figured into the mix. It could all come down to a bizarre witch's brew of contradictory motivations and circumstances, both internal and external. Either way it’s difficult, indeed well nigh impossible, to arrive at definitive conclusions, especially so given the tenuous and conflicting evidence.

     Still, it’s a peculiar and tempting conceit: an individual artiste becomes involved in, even enmeshed in, an aestheticized, artificial world of darkness – exotic, dangerous, seductive – yet upon departure, the melancholy and mystery linger on, sometimes for years, even decades. The scenario is certainly consistent with the message of these nine little pictures, these nocturnes for the dead: dark, mystical forces reach out, and with a shadowy, inexorable malevolence, perpetuate the nightmare expressed so eloquently in the movies themselves, and their bleak existential universe somehow bleeds over into the private worlds of at least some of those connected with the production unit that created the Val Lewton films.

    [1] The curse of noir didn’t confine itself to anti-communist witch hunts and show trials. Though they were never officially investigated, many individuals known for their work in noir had real lives with an undercurrent of scandal, unfulfilled promise or untimely death. Tom Neal, Cleo Moore, Jean Hagen, Lynn Baggett, Peggy Castle, Albert Dekker, Gloria Grahame, Laird Cregar, Zachary Scott, Barbara Payton, Steve Cochran, Veronica Lake, Linda Darnell, Lizabeth Scott, Susan Shaw, Gail Russell, Barbara Nichols, Jean Gillie, Rita Johnson and Helen Walker are only some of the more prominent examples. For more on noir and the Blacklist see: "Noirlisted: Film Noir and the Hollywood Blacklist".
   [2] By way of amplification, we may cite Wells, who, writing in the context of science fiction and horror, explains that the former is concerned primarily with the external, the macrocosmic, and horror is more directed at the internal, or microcosmic: “science fiction is potentially utopian [although often critically grounded] … the horror genre is almost entirely dystopic, and often nihilistic in outlook.” Paul Wells, The Horror Genre: From Beelzebub to Blair Witch, London: Wallflower, 2000, pp. 7-8.
     Applied in our context, the characters in film noir proper are driven by external things like status, social hierarchies, police excess, and the corruption of capitalism, whereas Lewton’s protagonists are more concerned with inner fears, phobias and existential worries. To be sure, noir certainly concerns itself with the inner worlds as well, and conversely there are elements of social and political criticism in the Lewton films, albeit more as background (see: Martha P. Nochimson, “Val Lewton at RKO: The Social Dimensions of Horror,” Cineaste Fall 2006, pp. 9-17; Cameron Moneo, The Horror of ‘This Pretty World’: Progressive Pessimism in Val Lewton’s Films and Novels, Thesis [M.A.], York University, Toronto, 2009).
     By the way, we refer to the Lewtonian subgenre as supernatural noir, but it might just as well be called, more accurately perhaps, 'horror noir,' or 'psychological horror,' since at most only three of the films deal with overt supernatural elements.
    [3] Boardwell explains that “characters of the classical narrative have clear-cut traits and objectives, while characters of the art cinema lack defined desires and goals.” Such a lack of a center of gravity gives them the freedom to “...express and explain their psychological states.” Ergo we never discover who they really are. [David Bordwell, “Art Cinema,” The European Cinema Reader, Routledge, 2002, p. 96]. This existential searching further underscores the Lewton films’ flavor of the highbrow and arty while paradoxically retaining their appeal as popular entertainment.
    [4] Bodeen also contributed the script to Cat People’s unofficial sequel Curse of the Cat People.
    [5] The actresses who played Teresa Delgado, Consuelo Contreras and Clo-Clo/Gabriela were, respectively, Margaret Landry, Tula Parma (Tuulikki Paananen), and Margo. Landry was American, Parma Finnish and Margo Mexican. Landry appeared in a few films in the 1940s, in mostly uncredited roles. Her last picture was in 1945. Tula Parma moved to the U.S. from her native Finland in 1940. Her career in film is sketchy. Leopard Man is listed as her only American film. From 1968 to 1973 she appeared in a few episodes of the television series Hawaii Five-O. Margo had a more substantial career than either Parma or Landry, and her Mexican bonafides were impeccable: born in Mexico City in 1917, she came to the U. S. in the early Thirties and was cast in a few films, most famously Lost Horizon. But by the early Forties and Leopard Man her career was in decline. Blacklisted in the 1950s for her activist views, film roles were scarce. She did manage to appear in one prestige production, Viva Zapata (1952). Her last film was Diary of Mad Housewife (1970).
    [6] Isabel’s later years were not always happy. In 1959, she was arrested in Las Vegas for passing bad checks. The bad check was for 37 dollars to be paid to a cab driver. Isabel was again arrested in Los Angeles in 1961 for drunk driving. She was sentenced to five days in jail and she was put on probation as a driver. Isabel Jewell died in Los Angeles, California on April 5, 1972, aged 64. Sources differ on the cause of her death. Some versions say it was suicide by taking an overdose of barbiturates, others claim she died of natural causes due to her lifelong struggle with diabetes.
    [7] Of course it’s not just actors who figure into the mix, but all the creative individuals associated with the Lewton films from 1942 to 1946 – writers, directors, cinematographers, wardrobe designers, editors, set decorators – all of whom brought their own individual, often unconventional, visions to the final product that was the nine unique films that make up the oeuvre.
    [8] Lacking anything in the way of statistical or scientific support, nonetheless I’ll posit an idea, though it tends to undercut my thesis presented above: anecdotal evidence does suggest that a goodly amount of performers from Golden Age Hollywood (Lewton veterans and otherwise), especially those in the lower tiers, ended up living out their sunset years in obscurity, poverty, or in any case greatly reduced circumstances. Indeed, it would seem very few enjoyed a later life of Norma Desmond-like opulence, and many were bitter about the time they spent working in the motion picture industry. In any case their eventual fates were attributable to non-supernatural, eminently human factors.
    In this context it’s interesting to theorize what sort of results we would get if we investigated other studios of the era, especially the small ones. Would there be similarly sad, equivocal, stories? Is the Lewton phenomenon of ill-fated lives and unfulfilled promise inevitable in the entertainment business? In particular one might wonder what kind of results an analysis of that most prominent of Golden Age studios specializing in horror films, Universal, would reveal. Might the darkness of its product be mirrored in careers and lives of its employees, both in front of and behind the camera? Fascinating stuff, and perhaps grist for an enterprising PhD student. Indeed a casual perusal suggests the principle may apply to television as well. As a case in point we may note the original Perry Mason series of the late 50s and early 60s, in which it seems an inordinate amount of guest performers had shortened careers.

 

"today I found out such strange things": the Sapphic undercurrent in The Seventh Victim

I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feebled flesh doth waste
    - John Donne, “Holy Sonnet I”

[Editor’s note: it is assumed the reader has some familiarity with the Lewton films and Seventh Victim in particular. Ergo there’s a minimum of plot summary as such, and – there will be spoilers.]


The nine horror films produced at RKO in the 1940s under the tutelage of producer Val Lewton have attained legendary status among devotees of classic film, and their reputation only grows with the passage of time. Most legendary of all are Cat People and its companion work, The Seventh Victim. The first and by far best known of the Lewton films, Cat People is also arguably the best. By contrast Victim, a less polished work, nonetheless enjoys a cult status that supersedes that of any of the other Lewtons, even the formidable Cat People itself, and further is what some feel is the most perfect realization of Val Lewton’s dark artistic vision.

   Seventh Victim looks back fondly toward the earlier work, invoking common points of reference and possessing uncanny similarities. Indeed Seventh Victim is much closer in style and content to Cat People than the earlier work's unofficial sequel, Curse of the Cat People. The two films might well be seen as mirror images of each other, or perhaps more precisely, doubles, as if two acts of the same movie.

   One of the first things we notice is the casting of two of Lewton’s favorite performers, Elizabeth Russell and Tom Conway. The ante is upped further since Conway appears as the same character in both films, the sinister, smooth-talking Dr. Louis Judd. Apparently killed in Cat People, he is inexplicably reincarnated in Victim. The incongruity has prompted some commentators to suggest that Seventh Victim is a prequel, a not altogether illogical premise.

   As for characters, the principal emotional dynamic in both films is that of the familiar romantic triangle. There’s a well-matched couple, and then the odd woman out, whom we might dub a mysterious Other. The kicker is that the man is married to the Other, and not to his better suited love interest. The Other in both films is an outsider (by her ethnicity in one case, lifestyle and temperament in another), and she has obvious psychological issues. And in a rare Lewtonian nod to conventional thinking and morality, the true romantic partner is a wholesome American woman with normal appetites and values. Inevitably perhaps, the well-matched couple ends up together, even if the union is a little shaky, especially in Victim. Still, the most important character is the Other woman [1], Irena in Cat People and Jacqueline in Victim. In many ways these two women are the same character, right down to the near identical black fur coat they wear. Perhaps appropriately, it is the slightly sinister Dr. Judd who acts as the bridge that connects the two women. 

   Substantial connections behind the camera must begin with Victim’s director Mark Robson, who was the editor of Cat People as well as two additional Jacques Tourneur-directed Lewton films, I Walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man. There was also costume designer Renié and composer Roy Webb, contributors to both films. But probably the most significant connections are those of cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca and scriptwriter DeWitt Bodeen [2]. In particular Bodeen’s wise, to-the-point scripts for Cat People and Victim (the latter co-written with Charles O’Neal) give them much of their no-exit, despairing flavor.

"I like the dark ... it's friendly"

   Beyond credits and characters there are thematic, design, and existential elements present in both films. The case for considering Cat People and Victim as a unit is strengthened in that both take place in the same world, geographically New York and metaphorically the universe of a large city that’s more like a wilderness. It’s a barren world with its underlying loneliness, isolation and threat of menace, conveyed through the minimalist set designs, chiaroscuro lighting, lack of vegetation, and near deserted streets that smack of the de Chirico-esque. Further, both films are set in a bohemian New York, Greenwich Village in Victim and an unspecified, generic New York in Cat People, though with a Village-like vibe to it. Ergo various intellectuals, eccentrics, artists, homosexuals, bored socialites, salon workers, actors, restaurateurs, and even devil-worshippers flit in and out of the story and spice things up [3]. Interesting that all the commentators list New York as the setting for Cat People, but it's never actually mentioned by name in the script. Apparently the scenes at the museum, park, zoo, and Irena's Brownstone residence all suggest New York but might well apply to any large city.

   Then there’s the look of both films [4], imbued as they are with the customary Lewtonesque shadows and Dutch angles that give even seemingly innocuous scenes an ominous overlay and constant feeling of claustrophobia. One of the most conspicuous design elements is the grand staircase from Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons, recycled and used to great effect. In Cat People it appears in Irena’s apartment building and in Victim at the girls’ school. Even the source music is similar, identical actually: the hurdy gurdy music we hear at the beginning of Cat People appears once again in an early scene in Victim, not just the music but the very same tune. Then there’s the diner in Victim, appropriately named The Dante, and its near lookalike, the small café ('Sally Lunds'), minus the Dante fresco, in Cat People, where Oliver and Alice like to hang out. Dark Satanic forces are also present in both films, although tenuously so. Devil worship in the form of the Palladist group plays a prominent role in Victim, and in Cat People Irena speaks in passing of Satan worship and witchcraft in the old country.

   The nine entries that comprise the Lewton canon are also notable for exploring, albeit carefully and indirectly, social and cultural issues, a practice virtually unheard of in other horror films of the era. Though obscured by characters, story and atmosphere, the implied critiques of American society are certainly there. They assume a slyly subversive bent, and broadly can be identified as taking exception to the white, patriarchal, capitalist paradigm that dominated American society in the 1940s, and, one could add, still largely does so today [5]. In any event some of the, probably shocking for its time, topics the films addressed include: alcoholism, female frigidity, child abuse, xenophobia, colonialism, slavery, race relations, suicide, unethical medical practices, class conflicts, gender roles, capitalist excesses, insane asylums, ethnic prejudice, corrupt authoritarianism, war criminality, mental illness, superstitions, cult religions, and yes, homoeroticism and homophobia. And it’s the last two that will be the subject of this post, focusing mostly on the lesbian undertones in Seventh Victim.

   If we look closely enough, however, we can find (eminently plausibly deniable) subtextual touches in Lewton films other than Cat People and Victim. In Ghost Ship Capt. Stone takes an especial interest in his protégé, third officer Merriam, while at the same time he complains to his girlfriend of strange urges and episodes of mental unbalance. Thus Stone’s mental instability may be read as the twisted manifestation of his latent homosexuality. In I Walked with a Zombie Mrs. Rand displays a flirtatious attitude toward the nurse Betsy and grows strongly attached to her. In Isle of the Dead Mrs. Saint Auban and her beautiful servant girl Thea have an especially close connection that seems to go beyond employer and employed.
   

   Even Cat People and Victim include relationships on the edges that lie outside the main coded themes and characters: Irena and Alice flirt a bit while at the wedding dinner before cat woman Elizabeth Russell appears and abruptly upstages them. Later in the film Alice addresses Irena as ‘darling.’ In Victim the edgy relationship between Jason and Dr. Judd gives way to something like genuine friendship and affection.

   Whatever these mild hints may – or may not – imply, in Cat People our main concern is with Irena and her struggle for acceptance, self-acceptance really, as she tries hard to fit into the ‘normal’ world, in a normal (i.e. straight) way. All the while she carries the fear of being outed, not as a cat woman as we might suspect, but as a repressed lesbian. Nowhere is this more the case than in the famous scene, touched on above, at the wedding dinner at which a beautiful, mysterious woman approaches Irena, looks directly at her and says “moya sestra,” which is (apparently) Serbian for ‘my sister.’ Visibly shaken, Irena crosses herself and explains to Oliver the significance of the woman, who by now has slithered out of the restaurant, and out of the movie [6]. Ostensibly this is about the woman’s identifying Irena as a fellow cat woman, but Irena’s real fear is that the woman might recognize her as a fellow twilight lover. Irena’s Other-ness isn’t lost on those closer to her: at the wedding dinner the Commodore tells Alice that he’s heard Irena is “ … a bit odd.”

   And indeed throughout Cat People the references – by Irena about the evil within her (she’s a descendant of devil-worshipping witches infamous for their “corrupt passions”), and her inability to be a ‘real wife’ to Oliver – can be interpreted as coded references to her repressed homosexuality. Even seemingly offhand comments take on significance. For example, the lady at the pet store  might well be referring to Irena, albeit indirectly, when she quips: “the animals are so psychic … you can’t fool a cat; they seem to know who’s not right, if you know what I mean.” It’s not such a reach then to view Irena’s transmogrification into a vicious panther – brought about by sexual arousal or jealous rage – as metaphor for unleashing her unnatural, ‘monstrous’ Sapphic energy [7].

 

“I thought I knew her … today I found out such strange things”

   These and other gay innuendos in Cat People are cleverly inserted, between the lines as it were. Thus they can be accepted, or rejected, depending upon one’s point of view. In Seventh Victim, however, the coded messages are brought out into the open, and they extend to an array of characters with sometimes surprising confluences and connections. To be sure, the references are brought into the open as much as the censors would allow in the 1940s, thus a certain amount of smuggling them into the story was required. And yes, Victim can be enjoyed just as much as a (no pun intended) straight horror film without any fussing over subterranean implications.

   Be that as it may, The Seventh Victim doesn’t waste any time in getting to the hidden messages. In the first scene Mary is summoned to the office of the superintendent of the girls’ school she attends. Mary walks alone, slowly, up the stairs while a flock of girls scurries down the stairway. Mary seems oblivious to all the movement and commotion. Already we’re signaled that she is somehow different and apart from her schoolmates. In said headmistress’s office she meets with Miss Loughwood and her assistant Miss Gilchrist. We sense a cozy relationship between the two women, but Miss Gilchrist only has eyes for Mary, literally, as she looks at her with a certain longing, protective gaze while Miss Loughwood explains to Mary the cruel facts of tuition life at the school (Mary’s older sister hasn’t paid the fees for six months).

“One must have courage to live in the world”

Later Miss Gilchrist takes Mary aside and surreptitiously tells her never to return to the school, to have courage: “ … one must have courage to really live in the world.” This has all the makings of a coded admonition. Perhaps Miss Gilchrist sees something in Mary that we don’t see, that even Mary doesn’t see. Then again, maybe Miss Gilchrist is projecting her own insecurity, and her infatuation with Mary, onto her. Or is Miss Gilchrist warning Mary off to save her from the sinister clutches of Miss Loughwood? Another, admittedly remote, possibility is that Mary and Miss Gilchrist had a close relationship that went beyond pupil and teacher. Whatever the explanation, the notion that Mary can be a latent lesbian is a fascinating idea: it makes her search for her sister Jacqueline a voyage of self-discovery in which she learns her true nature. But this interpretation is also fraught with difficulties. To wit: later in the film Mary improbably, and unconvincingly, falls for a guy, though this development is not without its own complications (he happens to be married to her sister). Moreover, with one significant exception there’s no evidence that Mary has homoerotic inclinations (Jacqueline is another matter). But more on all this later.
  

In the next scene Mary meets Jacqueline’s cosmetics company manager Mrs. Redi, the only butch character in Victim. Mrs. Redi is an abrupt, dominating woman who has no love for Jacqueline. Instead, she seems to have a close friendship with fellow Satanist Mrs. Cortez. Soon afterwards, Mary encounters the much more simpatico Frances, a woman with more than a little fondness for Jacqueline. Mystified by Jacqueline’s disappearance, Frances relates that Jacqueline was “so crazy about you (Mary) … she was always talking about you,” and that she had Mary’s picture on her desk in her office. Frances raves on, admiringly saying that anyone who saw Jacqueline would never forget her. Mary repeats the same sentiment almost word for word in the very next scene at the restaurant The Dante. In a later scene while doing Mary’s hair, Frances relates that while Mrs. Redi is okay to work for, “ … there’s only one Miss Jacqueline.” As Frances purrs the words she places her hands affectionately on Mary’s shoulders.

A little bit later our next coded reference arrives in most unorthodox manner. Mystery woman Jacqueline finally appears, maddeningly so only for an instant. The buildup of her persona and her fleeting manifestation has been compared to that of Harry Lime in The Third Man, and she does not disappoint [8]. Jacqueline shows herself to a startled Mary at the apartment door, and, accompanied by suspicious sideways glances, she puts her index finger over her mouth as to shush Mary. The queer implications are unmistakable: Jacqueline is alerting Mary that some things must remain in the closet, and to be on guard for eavesdroppers. Then just as quickly Jacqueline disappears, almost as if in a puff of smoke, leaving a bemused Mary in a bewildered, frustrated state.
  

A couple scenes later some of the various cross currents get fleshed out, at least as much as they ever do in the unresolved plot threads that run through The Seventh Victim. This occurs at the party of rich people, intellectuals, and various hangers-on held at the apartment of one Mrs. Cortez [9], an exotic creature with a touch of the world-weary about her. She’s lost an arm and projects an über-feminine image with her flamboyant satin garb that bespeaks of designer nightgowns. Some commentators describe Mrs. Cortez as a former dancer, but darned if I hear it anywhere in the dialogue. The most significant scene at the party involves the blonde lady, Gladys, and her recollection of Jacqueline. She relates to Mary how she and Jacqueline were close and they had, eminently unspecified, lively times together, but Jacqueline probably never told Mary about these, because she’s too young and innocent. Which leads us to infer that whatever Jacqueline and Gladys did together, it wasn’t limited to afternoon tea and the opera, indeed, the implication being that it was 'adult' in nature, which suggests all sorts of possibilities (cruising the Village for men, or women? opium dens?). Whatever the case, we might begin to wonder, is there any woman in this film, Mrs. Redi excepted, that didn’t have a thing for Jacqueline? [10]

   Speaking of Mrs. Redi, she berates poor Frances for talking to Mary about La Sagesse’s trademark, which is identical to the Palladist symbol (“that symbol is us … she was asking about us!”). The "us" in this context doubtless refers to the devil-worship group, but the coded charge of the conversation could not be lost on those viewers who felt certain secrets must remain hidden. Our next homoerotic reference, actually depicted pretty much out in the open, is when Mrs. Redi barges in on a nude Mary in the shower. This tableaux has been much discussed online and elsewhere, how it anticipates Psycho and so on, and we have little new to offer.

   Meanwhile the Satanists hold a meeting in which the group agrees that Jacqueline must die. Frances protests, and head devil-worshipper Mr. Brun says he understands, because he knows that Frances loves her. The Palladists eventually capture Jacqueline and attempt to cajole her into drinking poison-laced wine as punishment for her supposed betrayal. Frances hysterically slaps the glass from Jacqueline’s lips and shrieks the only time she was happy was when they were together (“ … you were always so good to me”). This is usually thought of as the clincher as regards the Sapphic relationship between the two women. At minimum the depth of feeling Frances has for Jacqueline goes beyond ordinary friendship and collegiality, and it’s reasonable to assume that the two women indeed had some kind of intimate relationship, physical or no. As for the ever-enigmatic Jacqueline and her actual feelings toward Frances, we’re not so sure.

    The multi-dimensional, femme fatale-like Jacqueline is fascinating for the simple reason that she’s so inscrutable. What little we know of her is through information supplied by others. We learn that she and Mary were orphans, and that Jacqueline brought up Mary, so much so that Mary never felt she needed other relatives (Mary’s description). This suggests a mother/child dynamic, which adds a further, kinky layer to a relationship we already sense isn’t quite right. Indeed, if we interpret the clues subtextually, there are hints of a lesbian undertow between Mary and Jacqueline. As for Dr. Judd, he temporarily assumes the role of Jacqueline’s protector, but as the film progresses Mary takes over. Thus she and Jacqueline switch roles, and Mary becomes the mother figure of an ever more listless Jacqueline. The two women’s strange and shifting interconnectedness suggests the residue of a long history of mutually dependent childhood and young adulthood. Eventually Mary returns to the fold in her role as Gregory’s probable future partner, and thus the adult/child relationship is restored via the traditional man-woman formula.

   Nevertheless, until fairly recently Jacqueline functioned as a responsible adult, rearing Mary and paying for her education and, later, running a successful cosmetics company. But along the way something happened. It could have been any number of things – mental illness, business setback, blackmail. Whatever the trigger, Jacqueline’s way of dealing with the world and the people in it has drastically changed. Somehow her association with the Palladists is connected to this abrupt change of direction, but whether as a causal factor or the result of a psychic disturbance is unclear. Similarly, the details of her mysteriously abandoning the business to Mrs. Redi – either as a sale or outright gift – along with her most unlikely marriage to Gregory Ward, are left unexplained.

   Whatever the circumstances, Jacqueline by now has become a sensationalist (Judd’s term), searching for something to give meaning to her existence and to provide an occasional thrill along the way. In a conversation with Mary, Gregory gives a lilting description of the Jacqueline mystique: “ … a man would look for her anywhere, Mary. There's something ... exciting and unforgettable about Jacqueline. Something you never quite get hold of. Something that keeps a man following after her … she lived in a world of her own fancy." This passage is significant for several reasons: it’s more poetic than anything the nominal poet Jason says in the film; it suggests Gregory is fascinated by Jacqueline’s mystery and melancholy but not the real woman; the quote could just as well be a description of Irena in Cat People.

   No surprise then that the two most important relationships in the film have Jacqueline as the common thread. The first is with the oily Dr. Judd, and here there are two schools of thought. They can be summarized as: she and Judd are an item, oops! no, they are not. And truth be told, there are things in the script that support both points of view. Whatever the truth of the matter, Judd retains his brittle, cynical attitude from Cat People, but he is different in one crucial respect: his lecherousness, so central to the earlier film, is nowhere to be found in Victim. Judd’s referring to Jacqueline as a sensationalist is almost too obvious code for, among other things, sexual adventuress, which itself is just a short step away from bisexual, or lesbian. Thus Jacqueline embarks on her unsuccessful quest for meaning amongst the Dantean cauldron of lost souls that’s this New York. Her journey takes place in a large urban metropolis with no motorized vehicles and few people, all of which contribute to the film’s dreamlike ambience. The surreal backdrop mirrors Jacqueline’s perilously tenuous grip on reality, but her quest is different from others only in the more extreme direction it takes.

   As if in condemnation of her eccentric detour, the men in Victim, including her in-name-only husband Gregory, show little romantic passion for this strikingly beautiful woman. Both Gregory and Jason are smitten with Mary, and Judd’s connection with Jacqueline is ambiguous at best (he shows no great remorse when she leaves his care, to be looked after by Mary). None of the male members of the Palladists have any interest in her, aside from wanting her dead. Jacqueline’s most important friendships then, both emotional and (implied) physical, are with women, not the least being her sister Mary.

   Indeed, the relationship between Mary and Jacqueline is the most important – and complex – in the film. It’s the raison d'être for the entire story, this despite the fact that the two women appear together onscreen only for a few minutes. As intimated above, Mary’s and Jacqueline’s connection seems to go beyond the bounds of sisterly loyalty into the realms of the quasi-mystical. Mary may be both repelled and fascinated by Jacqueline's eccentric lifestyle, which goes against the usual definitions of femininity, domesticity and heteronormality. And even as various nuggets in the script suggest that Mary, and Frances, have romantic feelings for Jacqueline – the love that dare not speak its name – this is left open to interpretation [11]. In both cases the emotional element seems one-way as Jacqueline has by this time retreated into her own world and functions in a semi-somnabulist state.

   Mary eventually whisks Jacqueline away from Dr. Judd’s protective care to stay with her and rest. This development might have revealed greater insight into the Mary/Jacqueline relationship and may also have given us more entrée into Jacqueline’s psyche and her recent activities. But whatever happened between the two women at Mary’s apartment must remain forever in the shadows, literally – note the darkened screen as a bridge between their leaving Jason’s apartment and the next morning. The blackness of the image is both a connecting device and also serves as a curtain. Thus the camera is a gentleman: it won’t intrude on the sisters’ time together. The non-scene at Mary’s apartment then is wisely consigned to the imagination as we fast forward to the morning, where a reluctant Mary says goodbye for the day to Jacqueline.

   The tender farewell between Mary and Jacqueline at her apartment is all the more heartbreaking in view of what happens next. In the film’s truly what-could-they-have-been-thinking moment, Mary leaves Jacqueline alone and unprotected at the apartment. Was this a subconscious desire that Jacqueline be found by the Palladists and thus gotten out of the way? But this is a little too simplistic and goes against the grain of all that has happened. To be sure, Mary’s actions are questionable, but Jacqueline is the one whose motives and values are obscure, and obscured. In her own unsubtle way Mrs. Redi wasn’t entirely wrong when she quipped that Jacqueline “ … had no sincerity, no real belief.”

   Belief, or lack of it, has other contexts in The Seventh Victim: in one of the last scenes Dr. Judd gives the devil worshippers quite a dressing down as he improbably quotes from the Lord’s Prayer while lecturing them on the folly of their Satanic ways. But Mr. Brun supplies a strong rebuttal: “ … who can say what is wrong and what is right? … I choose to believe in Satanic majesty and power … who can deny me?” This can easily be interpreted as a coded message. Substitute ‘gay lifestyle’ for ‘Satanic majesty’ and you get the idea. Still, as he often does, Judd gets in the last word in this interaction. Amongst the small group of devil worshipers who take it and like it from Judd’s whiplash tongue, Frances is conspicuously absent. Did the group excommunicate her as punishment for her indiscretion at Jacqueline’s near drinking from the cup? Did she leave on her own, disgusted with the whole business? If she’s so attached to Jacqueline, why didn’t she leave with her?

   The rather strange romantic scene between Mary and Gregory that immediately follows amplifies a previously introduced subplot that just appears out of nowhere and never really convinces. Mary acquiesces to Gregory’s romantic overtures, at least in spirit if not in body, and she dutifully reciprocates his confession of love for her. But the body language of both suggests otherwise: a strange tension and awkwardness pervades the, however beautifully lit, scene. Mary is torn between her, possibly Sapphic, love for Jacqueline and her growing fondness for Gregory, all of which is both obfuscated and hinted at by her protest, “ … but Jacqueline’s my sister.”

   The film’s darkly nihilistic denouement has been much discussed and we’ll not duplicate here. Some commentators observe that the lesbian ‘monster’ has been dispatched and the world is safe for heterosexual normalcy. This is perhaps too reductive a view, but not without its merits. It might be noted Cat People’s similar conclusion, which is probably no coincidence [12]. Ultimately The Seventh Victim is a fascinating, multi-layered work that invites multiple interpretations, and indeed various takes have gushed forth over time. The homoerotic subtext is only one approach among many, but it yields fascinating results and serves as a reminder of how much story and character they could get in – in 71 minutes – back in them days.

   [1] Alice in Cat People refers to herself as ‘the new kind of other woman,’ an (unintentional) ironic observation, since her rival Irena is the true Other. By the way, a note on Irena’s accent: while she’s playing a character who hails from the Balkans, Simone Simon’s thick French accent is unmistakable, and sometimes unintelligible. Nonetheless, this is a nice turnabout from the usual de rigueur Hungarian/Transylvanian accent employed by those playing Central European or Slavic roles, especially those of a villainous nature.
    Getting back to Victim, a second love triangle, of a sort, consists of Gregory, Jacqueline and Dr. Judd, though this interpretation is a stretch since, as mentioned above, Judd’s and Jacqueline’s relationship is mostly undefined and can be read either way. Depending on how we define these things there's a third romantic triangle involving Mary, Gregory and Jason. Victim's emotional dynamics get even murkier when we consider that most of the men in the story are in love with Mary and most of the women are in love with Jacqueline.
    [2] Bodeen was a gay man and it’s no accident that both films carry strong homoerotic undercurrents. It was an era when being found out would probably mean an end to his career. This very real fear of being outed found its way as a major theme into both films, and in Victim it also creeps into the story as the Palladists’ fear of discovery. Thus their invocation of extreme punishment, specifically death, to anyone who reveals their existence.
   [3] In early Twentieth Century America Satan worship was probably as scandalous as homosexuality, perhaps more so. It was clever of the filmmakers – or a happy accident – that the devil worshipers in Victim are presented front and center. As a consequence, the homoerotic subtext could be sneaked in under-the-radar. One especially creative theory is that all the members of the group are gay and the devil-worship element is merely a front. Indeed, while the Palladists are on the one hand conspicuously (upper) middle class and behave in a civilized, if trifle effete, manner, on the other hand various clues in their speech and dress suggest they are … different.
    Another take is that the Satanists are stand-ins for Nazis. This makes a certain amount of sense in that Victim dates from 1943, when the war was raging in Europe and elsewhere. It might be cynically unkind to suggest that had the film been made ten years later the Palladists would have morphed into godless Commies, but there it is. Nonetheless, even by today’s standards, Victim takes a surprisingly tolerant view of the devil worshipers. The sympathetic portrayal and lack of punishment (aside from Judd’s tongue lashing) is quite remarkable for its time.
   [4] True to Lewtonian form, both Cat People and Victim have an abundance of nighttime vistas and other murky scenes that suggest urban menace. However, Victim has a more noirified aesthetic with sharper angles, high contrast lighting and sinister, Caligari-like depictions of doors, corridors, stairs and alleyways.
   [5] It's true that horror films of the era, especially of the 1930s, explored weighty existential issues  like science run amok, the nature of reality, finality of death and so on. However, they seldom ventured into controversial domestic social or political issues, themes which the  Lewton films seem to embrace with barely concealed glee, however subtly expressed. 
     Case in point: all the films in the Lewton canon have a (proto)feminist undertow with strong, independent-minded, even dominating, female characters. The women leads are usually stronger than their male counterparts, who tend to be bland, passive or nondescript. I exclude Boris Karloff here, even though he’s the main character in the three films in which he appears. However, in these roles he’s more or less the villain and not a conventional leading man. In any case Lewton films in which the female leads have a forceful, quasi-feminist streak include Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, Leopard Man, Seventh Victim, Isle of the Dead, and, perhaps most of all, Bedlam.
    Silent film actress and dance sensation Alla Nazimova was one such powerful woman and an unapologetic lesbian in her private life. Her inclinations crept into her films, which she often produced and directed, none more so than her ill fated Art Nouveau extravaganza Salome. Nazimova also happened to be Val Lewton’a aunt. Interesting in the context of the homoerotic, especially lesbian, vibe that creeps into Lewton's films and novels. Coincidence? 
   [6] Another interesting possibility is that Irena and the mystery woman somehow know each other, and were perhaps intimate friends at some time, a fact Irena doesn't want divulged to the others, ergo her extreme reaction. Moreover, if Victim really is a prequel, then are Mimi of Victim and the mysterious cat woman in Cat People the same person? It’s a fascinating conceit, not without difficulties, but it does sort of fit: the clothes the two characters wear, while not identical, do look suspiciously similar. Further, while not a perfect solution, the prequel idea is one way of explaining Dr. Judd’s appearing in Victim and being very much alive.
   [7] The conventional explanation for Irena’s stalking and menacing of Alice has been Irena’s jealousy of Alice as competitor for Oliver’s affection. But might it not be just as valid that this represents Irena’s desire for Alice, ergo the stalking and panther manifestation, symbolic of sexual arousal? In this version Oliver is the Other and Alice and Irena the romantic couple.
   [8] Only with Jacqueline’s appearance does Victim’s emotional juice finally kick in. Up to this point things have proceeded at a fairly pedestrian pace. But once Jacqueline is on the scene we’re definitely invested in the characters, and the story never lets up. Part of the draw of course is Jacqueline’s look. She’s the very image of the Angel of Death, only suitable for a woman in love with death, and her elegantly creepy look suggests she’s the high priestess of the devil cult rather than its victim. All black garb, exotic brooch, chalky face, and most of all, the raven-haired Cleopatra flapper wig defines her as the original (proto)-Goth Girl, right up there with Carroll Borland’s vampiress in Mark of the Vampire (1935) and much later, Bettie Page in the 1950s. Jacqueline also bears a striking physical resemblance to the similarly death-obsessed Katherine Caldwell (Louise Albritton) of Son of Dracula (1943).
   [9] Mrs. Cortez’s cocktail party is a study in Seventh Victim-esque ambiguity. It posits numerous questions, ultimately unanswered, probably unanswerable. For instance, how did Jason know of the party, and that Dr. Judd would be there? Mrs. Cortez and Jason greet each other warmly, and call each other by first name. As Mrs. Cortez seems to have some social standing in the Village, naturally she would be familiar with artists and various bohemians, and perhaps this is just one of her generic parties. By the way, the piano music by Brahms, and later, Beethoven that wafts in the background is a nice artsy touch.
    None of the persons we glimpse at the party, excepting Mrs. Cortez, returns again in the two, much more serious, ‘business meetings’ of the Satanists. Thus we have the shapely, gossipy blonde (“we were intimate!”) who knew that Jacqueline “… took up with Louis Judd.” Research (i.e. IMDB) implies her name is Gladys, though if she’s addressed as such it’s more or less inaudible. IMDB lists the actress as Joan Barclay. The information she conveys is significant, if inconclusive, and she’s onscreen for only a couple of minutes and doesn’t return again in the film. However, if she knew Jacqueline ‘intimately’ then this lady is probably a member of the Palladist group. A bemused Dr. Judd merely listens to her breathless dissertation without comment, seemingly entertained by her rambling. Which makes us ask: assuming these folks are members of the Palladist cult, and they know that Jacqueline told Judd of their existence, why would they be so chummy with him, treating him almost as a guest of honor? Come to think of it, how did the Palladists find out Jacqueline told Judd about them in the first place?
   [10] All the characters in Victim, even the supporting and bit players, are nicely drawn and, more important, all have an issue or weakness, be it emotional or physical: Mimi’s consumption; Mrs. Cortez’s loss of an arm; Dr. Judd’s cynicism; Mrs. Redi’s brutal, abrupt manner; Mary’s naiveté; Jacqueline’s death obsession; Jason’s waftiness; Gladys’s impulsive gossip; Gregory’s secretary and her father’s alcoholism; Mr. Brun’s ruthlessness; Miss Gottschalk’s susceptibility to flattery; Irving August’s squeamishness; Frances’s obsessive love. About the only ‘normal’ character is Gregory Ward, who – not so surprising – isn’t very interesting.
    The cast in all the Lewton films is invariably spot on. But as for casting, there is a mystery, only right for a movie that’s mostly a mystery. That’s the identity of the actress that played Gregory Ward’s secretary, she with the dipsomaniac father. Searches of IMDB and other sources have come up negative, thus this mystery remains unsolved, at least for the moment. [Update: at least one source lists Ann Summers as the actress who portrays Ward's secretary].
   [11] It’s characteristic of Lewton to take us right up to the precipice emotionally, but never quite let us jump off the ledge. Usually this is in the context of fear and expectation, but here it’s the homoerotic implication. Ultimately the viewer has to make up his own mind since things aren’t made obvious or explicit. In The Seventh Victim various details and innuendos suggest a queer subtext, but there’s nothing that could be called a smoking gun (though Frances’s wild outburst as Jacqueline is about to drink the poison comes close). Then there’s the mysterious Jacqueline stayover at Mary’s place, followed by the lingering, dreamily affectionate farewell the next morning, during which Mary once again addresses Jacqueline as 'darling.'
     Still, we have to view all in the context of the Production Code’s restrictions on what could be shown onscreen at the time. In the more circumspect 1940s, overt references to lesbianism, much less showing graphic details, were so far beyond the pale they couldn’t even be considered. The real miracle is that The Seventh Victim got away with as much as it did, and we’re the richer for it.
   [12] In I Walked with a Zombie there’s yet another, similar romantic triangle in which the husband’s wife (the film’s zombie) is the Other, while the beautiful Canadian woman is a much better match for him. Zombie has the further complication that the husband’s younger half-brother is in love with the wife, making this more or less a romantic quadrangle. Zombie also has a conclusion very similar to that of Cat People and Seventh Victim in that the more conventional relationship prevails.
    What’s fascinating is that the three above-mentioned films have a Jane Eyre-like dynamic in which a woman finds true love with a man who has a (marginally or full-on) mentally ill wife, the story’s ‘monster,’ if you like. In all three films the wife conveniently ends up dead, by suicide in two and murder/suicide in one. It is a counterpoint of view that reminds us that, whether consciously or no, and for all his progressive bent, Lewton was not averse to the old formulas and traditional resolutions. Even films like Leopard Man and Isle of the Dead, while lacking a love triangle, conclude with the conventional romantic formula as the nominal leads reach a reconciliation and thus provide the viewer with at least a quasi-happy ending.