"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.

flawed magnificence: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Much as I’m a fan of Orson Welles, I don’t consider myself an uncritical admirer. Case in point: I’ve never been able to warm to The Magnificent Ambersons, Welles’s ill-fated follow-up to ‘the greatest movie of all time,’ Citizen Kane. Indeed, I don’t share the reverence for TMA held by a sizeable cadre of Welles devotees and scholars. I caught it again recently after a hiatus of about thirty years and have the same reaction: I much prefer Kane, Lady from Shanghai, Touch of Evil, and Othello. I include in this group also Jane Eyre and Journey Into Fear, as both films have a decidedly Welles-like look and feel, though technically neither was directed by Welles despite his pivotal acting role in each (some commentators claim Welles as an uncredited quasi-producer of Jane Eyre).

I explain away, to myself anyway, that my muted response to Ambersons must be due to its infamous evolution: while Welles was away in Brazil in the spring of 1942 working on his similarly ill-fated Latin-American epic It’s All True, RKO famously took Ambersons out of Welles’s hands, mostly because of lukewarm to negative reception by preview audiences, and proceeded to trim it substantially. What resulted was a much edited (i.e. forty-five minutes shorter) version, supervised by Robert Wise, which is what we have left today. Of course anything by Orson Welles is worth a look, and even a heavily cut Magnificent Ambersons has much to recommend: it’s generally well acted (Agnes Moorehead is the standout performance), has all sorts of quintessentially Wellesian touches, especially the visuals, and moreover gives a good recreation of a folksy, mythologized fin de siècle (middle) America.

For me the best part of Magnificent Ambersons is the grand staircase that was so effectively recycled in Cat People and The Seventh Victim by RKO’s then resident other genius, Val Lewton. By the way, can it be that the fresh faced Tim Holt as our singularly unappealing hero is the same actor who played the grizzled prospector of only a few years later in Treasure of the Sierra Madre?

A major flaw of the Warner DVD that I watched is the lack of any bonus features. A film with so many historical and Wellesian resonances screams out for extras, thus the lack is a true missed opportunity and all the more regrettable. (Update: I understand the recent Criterion version has a generous helping of special features, including two audio commentaries. Hooray!).

Ambersons then is largely a Kane retread, but not as good, and certainly doesn’t have anything approaching Kane’s life-affirming panache. And for all its undoubted, if erratic, technical brilliance, TMA seems at heart a drawing room melodrama, and a pretty turgid one at that. Then again it took me a while to appreciate Touch of Evil, and now it’s one of my all time favorites, so perhaps it’s best to leave the jury out on Ambersons. Thus, for now, a mild thumbs up, mostly for production design and the striking visuals.

Further reading: Simon Callow, Orson Welles, v.2: Hello Americans, Penguin Books, 2006, pp. 24-38, 86-91, 107-112.

Revisionism and its discontents

    Zinn, Howard, A People’s History of the United States. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005.
   Jeff Riggenbach, Why American History is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism, Auburn, Mises Institute, 2009.

Revisionism. The policy or practice of revision or modification; departure from the original interpretation of a theory, etc.; esp. the revision of Marxism on evolutionary socialist or pluralist principles. 2. The theory or practice of revising one's attitude to a previously accepted situation or point of view; spec. (orig. U.S.) a movement or process involving the revision of an established or accepted version of historical events.
Revisionist.orig?. U.S. A person who questions or revises a previously accepted version of historical phenomena or events.

   “Inevitably history becomes what the historian chooses to point out.” - Simon Winder, The Man Who Saved Britain

   “It is always difficult for the non-historian to remember that there is nothing absolute about historical truth” - Gordon Craig, “The Devil in the Details,” NY Review of Books, Sept. 19, 1996.

    A crusty old professor of mine once told me that all history is opinion. The more I experience of history, and of life itself, the more I’m convinced he was spot on in his assessment. Indeed, like the doctor and lawyer, the (professional) historian is paid for expressing opinions, but he has other privileges, chief among them an especial perk not available even to the two aforementioned honorable professions, that is, to alter the way we see history itself. In other words, and put simpler, historians have the power to, well, rewrite the past [1].
    But not so fast. To wit, over time clichés and 'truisms' gradually creep into the conversation and are accepted uncritically as part of the historical record, and there emerges a historical consensus. Nowhere is this more egregious than in what we might call pop history. In any case, and getting back to revisionism, there are, happily, a few dissenting voices, which we usually refer to as revisionist, or less controversially, contrarian. In a perfect world all history could be characterized as revisionist [2], and rightly so: the historian’s job is to examine conventional interpretations of history and consider new evidence or interpret facts and events in a new light, applying new methodologies and fresh perspectives. In this sense it’s not such a step to also view creative writing as revisionist. We writers of fiction revisit the old formulas and provide new takes in, we hope, fresh and interesting ways.

    Characteristically dry and uncontroversial, the Oxford English Dictionary’s entry above is hard to fault. But revisionism is more complicated than a mere definition, and, like some phrases – ‘feminist,’ ‘liberal,’ or ‘activist’ come to mind – the word itself has taken on a bad odor [3], to the point where it’s more or less synonymous with deliberate falsification and distortion. Recriminations and counter-recriminations abound with charges of conspiracy theory thinking at one extreme and political correctness at the other. Thus anything labelled revisionist carries with it an emotional charge, and as a result it has been both praised and (mostly) damned by both the Left and the Right. Depending on the source, or audience, a revisionist historian may delight or infuriate: one person’s revisionist is another’s responsible, skeptical historian [4]. Like many things in the study of history - and politics - what's a revisionist and what is not is in the eye of the beholder. 

    As a case in point, there’s the calculus of historians like Howard Zinn, whose A People’s History of the United States in particular critiques the ruling classes and their (according to Zinn) self-conferred right to tell history their way, i.e. usually state-friendly [5]. Zinn’s approach to history gives voice to those who don’t have voices, i.e. those who don’t usually write history: poor and working-class people, women, African-Americans, gays and lesbians, the uneducated, among others. Not so surprising, then, Zinn’s opus maximus explodes much of orthodox history. True, it is biased and selective – there’s little history that isn’t – and Zinn doesn’t hide his likes and dislikes. There’s nary a sacred cow that escapes his rapier gaze: Lincoln, FDR, JFK, World Wars I & II, the New Deal. All take their lumps.

    A People’s History has garnered the most mainstream acceptance of any revisionist work – it's even used at a text at some high schools and colleges & universities. [6] It’s also been much reviewed and commented on: at last count well over a thousand (mostly favorable) reviews on Amazon alone.

    Jeff Riggenbach is a kind of Zinn disciple, and his provocatively titled if much less well-known Why American History is Not What They Say offers a fresh and illuminating analysis, both as consideration of U.S. history as well as a meaty introduction to revisionist history in general. Included is a wealth of detail, but some topics and individuals get special attention: the Civil War, WWI, WWII, the Cold War, Zinn, and libertarian guru Murray Rothbard.

    Why American History is Not What They Say presents its case in well organized and engaging, if wordy, style: the detail-rich content includes many sources listed in the text supplemented by a blizzard of footnotes. In fact Riggenbach’s book is so source-rich it wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to describe it as a gigantic bibliographic essay with some history and editorial comment sprinkled in.

    For all its virtues – and flaws – Riggenbach’s tome is hardly the last word on revisionism, the nature of which precludes any conclusive or definitive statements. But Why American History is Not What They Say does an admirable job of synthesizing and summarizing the current state of revisionist art in a relatively even-handed, if ultimately sympathetic, fashion.

    [1] However, the old adage you can have your own views but not your own facts hasn’t always been adhered to, and the practice of embroidering, censoring or softening historical facts to make a more palatable narrative for interested individuals, groups, or nations, certainly didn’t begin with our current climate in which the phenomenon seems to be taking on epic proportions. But that, as the man said, is another story, and another post. In a post elsewhere on this blog, I more or less take on this question directly and opine that all history is spin in that the historian wants to project a certain interpretation of events and persuade the reader to accept said interpretation.
    [2] In his excellent book The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History is Revisionist History (Yale Univ. Press, 2021), author James Banner makes that very point. He demonstrates why historical knowledge is unlikely ever to be absolute, unchallenged and unchanging, and why history as a branch of knowledge is both a science and an art. Using several broad historical examples, he goes on to explain why all historians are revisionists as they seek to more fully understand the past, and how they always bring their distinct dispositions, perspectives, expertise, and yes, biases to the historical subjects they cover.
   [3] Interesting that revisionism as a term doesn’t appear in the august Library of Congress Subject Headings. Rather, the term ‘Historiography’ is used, both as main heading and subheading.
   [4 In recent years World War II has been especially fertile territory for revisionist and quasi-revisionist interpretations that, at least to some extent, take issue with the idea of WW2 as the ultimate Good War. British historian A.J.P. Taylor was one of the first to give an academic patina to World War II revisionist history with his The Origins of the Second World War, published in 1961. Other examples of WW2 revisionism might include: Patrick Buchanan, Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, Crown, 2008; Nicholson Baker, Human Smoke: the Beginning of the Second World War and the End of Civilization, Simon & Schuster, 2008; Jörg Friedrich, The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945, Columbia Univ. Press, 2006; David Irving, Hitler's War and the War Path, Focal Point Publications, 1991; George H. Nash, ed., Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath, Hoover Institution Pr., 2011; Jacques R. Pauwels, The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War, Lorimer, 2002; Ashley Smith, “World War II: The Good War?” International Socialist Review, Issue 10, Winter 2000; Viktor Suvorov, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Naval Institute Press, 2013; M.S. King, The Bad War: The Truth Never Taught About World War II; Sean McMeekin, Stalin's War: A New History of World War II, Basic Books, 2021; Michael C.C. Adams, The Best War Ever: America and World War II, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2015. See also: “A ‘Good War’ No More: The New World War II Revisionism,” in: Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, Hi Hitler!: How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture, Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2015, pp. 29-77.
   [5] “In one of his most iconoclastic essays, “The Anatomy of the State,” Murray Rothbard observed that it is crucial to ruling groups to manipulate the thinking of the ruled. They must get the populace to accept that the rulers are truly good people working tirelessly to advance the common good. Toward that end, the rulers employ a bag of tricks, among them the writing of history to cast the State in a positive light.” - George C. Leef, review of Riggenbach’s Why American History is Not What They Say.
   [6] A People’s History “... has gone through five editions and multiple printings, been assigned in thousands of college courses, sold more than a million copies, and made the author something of a celebrity.” [Michael Kazin, “Howard Zinn’s History Lessons,” Dissent, Spring 2004].

Further reading:

Anders, Charlie Jane, “When Does Historical Revisionism Become Alternate History?” 
Bacevich, Andrew J., “The Revisionist Imperative: Rethinking Twentieth Century Wars,”
   Journal of Military History 76 (April 2012), pp. 333–42.
Conger, Cristen, How Revisionist History Works 
Duberman, Martin, Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left, New Press, 2012
Fantina, Robert, Empire, Racism & Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy, Red Pill
    Press, 2013
Hughes-Warrington, Marnie, Revisionist History, Routledge, 2013.
Judt, Tony, “What Have We Learned, if Anything?” NY Review of Books, 1 May 2008
Kirsch, Adam, "Is World War II still 'the Good War'?" NY Times, May 27, 2011 

Newsinger, John. The Blood Never Dried : A People's History of the British Empire. Second
   edition. London, Bookmarks, 2013.
Novick, Peter. That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American
    Historical Profession, Cambridge, 1988

the strange fascination of The Seventh Victim

Even as fog continues to lie in the valleys,
so does ancient sin cling to the low places,
the depressions in the world consciousness.
   - Dr. Louis Judd, The Anatomy of Atavism
    [also attr. Sigmund Freud]
 
To offset its then precarious financial position, in 1942 RKO Pictures brought in Val Lewton to head a small production unit specializing in horror films. The limitations placed on the productions were: low budget, tight schedule, pre-selected titles, and running time not longer than 75 minutes. Within these parameters Lewton was given a large amount of creative freedom, especially if the movies delivered, i.e. made money. And they did. The result was a series of poetically beautiful and haunting films, nine in all, most of them running little more than an hour. Released from 1942 to 1946, the films are: Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, The Leopard Man, The Seventh Victim, The Ghost Ship, Curse of the Cat People, The Body Snatcher, Isle of the Dead, and Bedlam, and they delight film historians and devotees to this day.  

    And yes, I confess to being very much a fan of the Val Lewton oeuvre, and share the growing consensus that the first four films (Cat People, Zombie, Leopard Man and Victim) are the best. The remaining five are respectable, even exemplary works, especially when considered against the standard B movie fare being cranked out at the time. But with their emphasis on story and character over mood and atmosphere, the five later entries lacked the visual poetry and philosophical underpinnings of the previous four. Anyhow, and with a nod to Cat People and Zombie as arguably the best of all the Lewton films, I come back to The Seventh Victim and its seemingly inexhaustible font of riches. So much so that, upon repeated viewings, I have the sneaking suspicion that, in its modest way Seventh Victim may indeed be Lewton’s ultimate masterpiece in the sense that it's the most perfect realization of his dark aesthetic vision.

    One of the many delights of Victim is that it’s a film that can be interpreted in a myriad of ways. Feminist, behaviorist, romanticist, Freudian, metaphysical, and of course purely cinematic takes have gushed forth over time. In many respects it’s a profoundly disturbing film – dreamlike, enigmatic, witty, highbrow, absurdist and frightening – it revels in the subterranean realms of both our conscious and unconscious experience. One could go on and on; commentators have gone on and on.

    Many issues arise within the film’s deceptively brief 71 minutes, and most of said issues remain unresolved. Moreover, despite its satanic backdrop, The Seventh Victim is the first Val Lewton film that’s not about the supernatural. Both the previous Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie contained more or less overt supernatural elements, and even Leopard Man, a hybrid mystery/horror film, flirts with the magical by way of its prescient fortune teller, who incidentally is not a gypsy but a very blonde Anglo (Isabel Jewell). Curiously, she uses the standard four-suit fifty-two card deck for her readings instead of the traditional Tarot cards. In any case, Seventh Victim relies on a dark overlay of nihilistic despair and no exit fatalism, conveyed in very human terms through its picaresque characters and, even more so, the noirish visuals that stunningly suggest the nighttime menace of a large urban metropolis.

    While it’s somewhat cliché to give top honors to the film’s chiaroscuro look and in particular the stellar work done by ace cameraman Nicholas Musuraca, subsequent viewings of The Seventh Victim, all the Lewton thrillers for that matter, reveal other, unsung heroes, in particular Roy Webb’s low keyed scores, the always literate, usually literary, scripts, and the invariably spot-on casts.

    Like The Leopard Man which immediately preceded it, The Seventh Victim has its share of abrupt transitions and awkward cuts. Its labyrinthine universe also includes complex characters, bizarre plot twists, and several plot dead ends. Consequently it’s difficult to say who the protagonist, hero, heroine, or villain, really is.

    In the first third of the film the clear lead is Mary (Kim Hunter). In the middle third she gives way to the three male leads, Jason, Gregory and Dr. Judd [1], who ultimately pass the baton to Jacqueline (Jean Brooks), and only rightly so. She’s the emotional and spiritual glue that holds the film together, and her disappearance is what sets everything in motion by way of Mary’s quest, all the while the devil worshippers lurking in deep background. Indeed the Satanic cult that goes by the name of the Palladists might be seen as the true star of the film’s final third [2]. And it’s their inclusion that makes Seventh Victim the existential masterpiece that it is. To wit, would this film possibly have the same resonance had Jacqueline fallen in with drug smugglers or Nazi spies instead of Satan worshippers?

    As was often the case in Lewton’s films, it’s the supporting actors and bit players in Seventh Victim who steal the show, the possible exception being Jean Brooks in the performance of a career as our doomed heroine Jacqueline [3]. Best among the men is Ben Bard as the creepily earnest first Satanist Mr. Brun. Kudos are also due to Lou Lubin as a nervous private detective. Among the women the other standout is Lewton favorite Elizabeth Russell, who appears onscreen for just a few minutes as the terminally ill Mimi, but even so outdoes her famous turn as the cat woman in Cat People. Interesting that mystery woman Jean Brooks plays a character the diametric opposite of what she essayed in Leopard Man, the film that immediately preceded Seventh Victim. There she portrayed itinerant nightclub singer turned amateur sleuth Kiki Walker, who is eminently sane, practical, healthy (both physically and emotionally), almost a proto-feminist character. She also has a conventional romantic friendship with her manager Jerry Manning (Dennis O’Keefe). A greater contrast to the somnambulant, death obsessed Jacqueline would be difficult to imagine, and yes, it’s no surprise that Jacqueline is the far more interesting character.

    The film’s Sapphic undercurrent has been much discussed elsewhere so we’ll not dwell on it here, except to offer a few observations [4]. To be sure, there are subtextual elements to be found in at least one prior Lewton work, Cat People [5]. But in Victim the coded references are now brought out into the open, albeit in a plausibly deniable way (this was the early Forties, after all). Thus, and with the debatable exception of Dr. Judd, Jacqueline’s most significant relationships, both emotional and (implied) physical, are with women, not men. And this includes her sister Mary. Indeed, if we interpret the the clues subtextually, there are decided suggestions of lesbian incest between Jacqueline and Mary. In this context the coven of Greenwich Village devil worshippers might be seen as proxies for a group that needed to be cloistered and remain in the closet. Interestingly, this same idea was revived a decade and a half later in the film Bell, Book, and Candle, in which a nest of witches who reside in Greenwich Village is forced to keep their existence under wraps out of fear of discovery and resultant persecution.

   As for the members who comprise the Palladists, they are an uneasy mix of the ordinary and the colorful. They gravitate to darkness and Satanic majesty and as such need to remain underground, while ‘normal’ folks like Mary, Jason and Gregory can carry on their lives openly, bathed as they are in the light of truth and virtue. Characters like Jacqueline and Dr. Judd hover in between the two worlds, floating trance-like in a murky netherworld and unable to commit to one side or the other.

   Be that as it may, most of the Palladists are well-spoken, even cultivated, and all have a touch of the ambiguous. There’s the brusque, vaguely masculine Mrs. Redi. Then we have the shapely blonde who breathlessly exclaims to Mary that she and Jacqueline “were intimate.” This same claim might be made by Frances (Isabel Jewell), so obviously besmitten as she is with Jacqueline. Although the lady at the party is quite a bit taller and fleshier than the petite Frances, it’s easy to confuse the two women. Fascinating that the unnamed blonde lady (who also has an eye for Dr. Judd) doesn’t reappear in the film, and, like the others present at this soireé, she may or may not be a member of the devil worship cult. True to Lewtonian form, the relationships and connections in The Seventh Victim are sketchy at best: more is implied than actually spelled out.

   There’s also the exotic hostess Mrs. Cortez [6], provocatively dressed in outfits that suggest designer nightgowns; and finally the elegantly sinister head devil worshipper Mr. Brun. Rounding out the mix are two thugs named Leo and Dirk and a mysterious satanic hit man. By the way, Mr. Brun becomes progressively less appealing as the story unfolds. Unable to browbeat Jacqueline into drinking poison-laced wine as punishment for her supposed betrayal, he literally strong arms her into leaving the apartment, to fend for herself amid the city’s dark streets.

   With no disrespect to journeyman director Mark Robson, who did a fine job on the film, Seventh Victim might well be considered Jacques Tourneur’s fourth Lewton film in everything but credit only. He directed the first three Lewtons, and Tourneur-like vignettes and set pieces are everywhere in Victim [8], even if they lack the French master’s final touch of elegance. But ultimately it’s the long shadow of Val Lewton that hovers over The Seventh Victim. The auteur producer was a status often aspired to throughout the history of the movies but rarely attained. Few achieved it so profoundly or completely as Val Lewton.

  
   [1] Dr. Judd is played by Tom Conway, thus an immediate connection to Cat People since Dr. Judd appears in that film as well (also played by Conway). But the connections don’t end there: of all the Lewton horror films Seventh Victim is most akin to Cat People both in style and content. Indeed it's not too much of a stretch to see Cat People and Victim as equal parts of the same movie. Both deal with dark, quintessentially Lewtonian themes and subjects (death, fate, loneliness, suspense, shadows, neurosis, psychoanalysis, desperate women, ineffectual men, and dark streets). Moreover, both take pace in Greenwich Village. Most significant, both main characters are sexually ambiguous outcasts who struggle, ultimately unsuccessfully, to fit into a world of conventional normalcy, and do so in a ‘normal’ way. Then there's those two, near identical, dark fur coats that both Irena and Jacqueline wear.
    [2] The Palladists’ ritualized meetings seem to consist mainly of afternoon teas and cocktail parties, all held at Mrs. Cortez’s spacious apartment. The one exception is the Jacqueline death watch in which the atmosphere takes on a literally deadly seriousness.
    [3] Jean Brooks came by her insight into the character of Jacqueline honestly. Born in 1915 in Houston, Texas, 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 three Lewton films. But 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 (post)World War II potboiler Women in the Night. The folks who made this film must have been impressed by the Jacqueline character - and Jean Brooks's inimitable take on the role - as she retains much the same black-drenched look and mysterious persona. The same sexual inclinations, too: yes, it's strongly implied that she has a lesbian relationship with Frau Thaler (Bernadene Hayes), who bears a striking resemblance to Jacqueline's love interest Frances in Victim. Interesting that Women in the Night came out in 1948, only five years after Victim, and already the Jacqueline look - and personality - as embodied in the form of Jean Brooks, was beginning to attain cult status.
      In any case, by the end of the decade her relatively brief career as a film actress was over. In the 1950s she disappeared from public life, eventually moving to San Francisco, where she worked in the classified department at the Examiner newspaper. She 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.   
   [4] The overtones appear as early as the first scene, in which we meet Miss Loughwood, headmistress of the Catholic school Mary attends, and her assistant Miss Gilchrist. We don’t see these two characters again, but their cozy relationship anticipates much of what follows vis-à-vis the film’s female characters. Miss Gilchrist takes Mary aside and tells her to have courage, that one must have courage to live in the world. Some commentators read this as a coded subtextual message.  
   [5] William Mann, Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969, Viking, pp. 208-09.
   [6] There’s the two Satanists Mrs. Cortez and Mrs. Redi, but no Mr. Redi or Mr. Cortez. Both Mrs. Redi and Mrs. Cortez are middle aged, thus the husbands are probably too old to be away fighting the war. Do the husbands not approve? Do they even know? Are the two ladies widowed? Divorced?
    Several commentators mistakenly identify Mrs. Redi as being played by Evelyn Brent, a sensible error since Miss Brent’s name appears high in the credits and Mrs. Redi is an important character in Seventh Victim. Actually Mrs. Redi is played, brilliantly so, by Mary Newton, who goes uncredited while Evelyn Brent takes the fairly peripheral character of Mrs. Cortez.
   The credits for the Lewton films have always been a little dodgy: sometimes actors who play major characters aren’t credited at all and conversely some performers who receive high billing play roles of relative unimportance. An example is Jack Holt, who gets a high billing (fourth?) in Cat People yet contributes what’s little more than a glorified cameo. Similarly, in I Walked with a Zombie, James Ellison gets top billing yet Tom Conway, Frances Dee and, arguably, Edith Barrett play more significant characters. Moreover, Ellison more or less disappears for the middle third of the film. Also in Zombie, Jenny Le Gon is given conspicuous (if low) billing in the credits even though she appears for at most a couple of minutes as a voodoo ceremonial dancer. The other dancers receive no credits, and neither do other, more substantial, characters, such as the coachman (Clinton Roseman) or the voodoo priest (Jieno Moxzer). It seems name recognition and star power rather than actual importance in the story carried the day with the folks in top management, and even a purist like Lewton couldn’t change that reality.
   [7] Judd is a study in contradictions. Apparently killed in Cat People by Irena in her panther form, he’s inexplicably reincarnated in Victim. At first he retains a vaguely sinister air, a carryover from the prior film perhaps. But as the film progresses, his good qualities are gradually revealed. Curiously, his lecherousness, which was his downfall in Cat People, isn’t a factor in Victim. His relationship with the Satanists is tenuous at best. We encounter him at one of their parties, where he seems in congenial mood, not so surprising as he’s more or less treated as their guest of honor. But later in the film he gives them quite a dressing down, improbably reciting passages from the Lord’s Prayer as he delivers a brief moralistic rant on the folly of their Satanic ways.
   [8] Not so coincidentally, Robson served as editor on the first three, Tourneur-helmed, Lewton films, thus an immediate and direct window into the Tourneur style. Robson also edited the atmospheric thriller Journey Into Fear (1943), directed by Orson Welles protégé Norman Foster. The film has a subtle but undeniable Lewtonesque vibe.

nothing ever happens: Grand Hotel (1932)

  Grand Hotel [videorecording (DVD)]. Metro-Goldwyn Mayer; Loew's  Inc.; directed by Edmund Goulding. Special edition. Turner Entertainment Co.; Warner Home Video, 2005. Based on the novel by Vicki Baum. DVD release of the 1932 motion picture. Special features: documentary "Checking Out: Grand Hotel"; Hollywood premiere; "Just a Word of Warning" theatre announcement; vintage musical short: "Nothing Ever Happens"; theatrical trailers: Grand Hotel (1932) and Weekend at the Waldorf (1945).  
  Photography, William Daniels; film editor, Blanche Sewell; recording director, Douglas Shearer; art director, Cedric Gibbons; costumes, Adrian. Performers: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt. Summary: the glitz and glitter of Berlin's Grand Hotel comes alive with this story of love and betrayal.

Were I to single out one movie that epitomizes the glamour of Golden Age Hollywood, with all attendant positives and negatives, I would choose Grand Hotel, and as support, note the gala world premiere, a snippet of which is included in present package, as the zenith of Hollywood stage management with resultant near hysterical response from the throngs of ecstatic fans. Indeed, the near riot that ensues at the premiere seems to anticipate the apocalyptic ending to Nathanael West’s far less romantic, much darker novel Day of the Locust.

  In any case, let us begin with a mild criticism. Like the well-heeled guests at the titular establishment, Grand Hotel comes perilously close to overstaying its welcome. The movie might well have been trimmed by ten minutes or so and little of substance lost. But such a quibble amongst a proverbial embarrassment of riches: like the grand hotel itself the film has a high gloss, well-tended (even by MGM standards) look. Make no mistake, Grand Hotel is beautifully filmed and lit, with the incredible moderne set worthy of a special mention in itself. Much praise is also due to the smoothly balanced script that deftly integrates the various stories, all held together by Edmund Goulding’s brisk, non-showy directorial hand. Goulding may be the true unsung hero of GH, but his direction tends to be overshadowed, albeit deservingly, by the legendary cast and their unforgettable performances.

   Of course the big draw in GH is the, then novel, all-star cast. All the leads are fine, though I’m not so fond of Wallace Beery or Lionel Barrymore, the characters or the performances. For me Lionel was at his worst when he chewed the scenery too much, which he tends to do here. And much as I’m a fan of Joan Crawford, I can’t agree with the mostly rave reviews of her take on the little stenographer. Sure, she holds her own against the heavyweight talent around her and looks great in those Adrian designed suits, but that’s about it. Otherwise there’s nothing special about the character or the performance.

    But ultimately this is Greta Garbo’s movie, perhaps her finest hour. For all your Kate Hepburns, Bogarts, Marilyns, and Chaplins, my choice as the greatest movie star of all time would have to be Garbo, probably because of her very mystery and her status as the most reclusive major film star ever. And with no disrespect to Camille, Ninotchka and her other great essays, I’d say this is her most purely Garboesque role, for the simple reason that she’s playing herself: insecure, unpredictable, shy, but basically a good soul with a big, and vulnerable, heart. And yes, this is the movie where she says her signature line, debatably the most famous quote by a star in film history: ‘I want to be alone.’

    Barrymore also shines in a very John Barrymore type of role, a shady noble who’s fallen on hard times. A thief he is, a criminal to be sure, but always the gentleman. He does his best to make a living scraping by as a member of the nouveau poor, but in a well-turned sort of way, with strong helpings of elan and panache. No surprise he gets plenty of the great profile views.

    In their scenes together both Barrymore and Garbo play it natural and understated, with limited overly-emphatic gestures and vocal mannerisms so typical of the times. They are a true joy to watch and savor, their pairing all the more special in that this was the only film they did together. Still, even while toning down his more hammy theatrical instincts, the wily Barrymore couldn’t resist stealing a few scenes: only John Barrymore could upstage Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford while underplaying his role.

   Included on the present DVD is a respectable collection of bonus features, including the aforementioned gala world premiere at (where else?) Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. I confess I would have preferred a commentary track since GH has so many resonances historic and otherwise. (Update: there’s commentary on the more recent [2013] Blu-Ray version: hooray!).   

   

I want to be alone!

As for the other bonus features, best of all, and almost as good as the original, is the slightly surreal parody, “Nothing Ever Happens,” a newly discovered 1933 Vitaphone short (18 min.), produced by Warner Brothers, and directed by Roy Mack with a group of highly skilled if little known actors. They camp it up mightily with their delectable lampooning of Garbo, the two Barrymores, Beery and Crawford. Indeed, the five principals in the parody, who bear striking resemblances to the originals, are so good they may be more spot-on than their more celebrated colleagues (but don't tell anyone I said so!).
 
    Moreover, and true to its pre-Code pedigree, Grand Hotel gets away with a lot of suggestion and innuendo. However, "Nothing Ever Happens" pushes the envelope even further, though it takes repeated viewings to catch all the spicy entendres, double and otherwise. NEH also boasts some, eminently echt-Warner Bros., dance numbers that would do Busby Berkeley proud.

   

Summary: Grand Hotel is a wonderful treat, an all-time classic served up in grand style. It's true catnip for fans of Old School movie-making at its best.

        

   

brief candles: Maria Callas (1923-1977)

   Maria by Callas [videorecording (DVD)]. Sony Pictures Classics release; Elephant Doc, Petit Dragon and Unbeldi Productions present; a film by Tom Volf. Originally released as a motion picture in 2017.  Wide screen (16x9, 1.78:1). Special features: Q&A with director Tom Volf; trailers. Editing, Janice Jones; archive colorization, Samuel Francois-Steiniger; reader, Joyce DiDonato.
    Summary: A portrait of one of history's most extraordinarily talented women. Told through private letters, unpublished memoirs, performances and TV interviews, the film is the first to tell the life story of the legendary Greek-American opera singer completely in her own words with never-before-seen footage.

   Hamlet told us the play’s the thing, but when we turn our attentions to classical music, the composer is king. Not a perfect analogy perhaps, but the point is thus: that musical performers, no matter how gifted, might rightly be dubbed the art form’s second-tier talents. However … there are exceptions, and a handful of strictly performing musicians are deserving of the epithet genius, and on this very short and select list certainly belongs Maria Callas.

   One of the characteristics of genius is that it breaks new ground, allowing us to see – and hear – the world in different, more exciting ways. And indeed while Callas is, deservingly so, given a large amount of credit for the revival of interest in the bel canto repertoire, her influence on opera extended in ways far outside the purely musical.

   She was a great actress in an era when acting ability wasn’t the big draw, reminding us that the singer must look, and act, the part [1]. Moreover, she always insisted on high standards of production. For Callas, an opera would only work if it was conceived and presented as a total theatrical experience. But the sword cut both ways, with ironic results. In the past half century or so, better and more innovative productions have led to the primacy of the stage director, along with the subsequent demotion of singers and conductors.

   There was also Callas the pop culture phenomenon. The always immaculately coiffed and dressed diva came to embody the cult of glamour and celebrity as it blossomed in the post World War II years, though in fairness she’s probably a reflection of this trend, rather than causal factor.

 

   In any case the documentary Maria by Callas alternates between Callas the woman and Callas the artist, and sometimes we’re not sure where one ends and the other begins. There are lots of readings from her diary and personal correspondence, as well as interviews, plus of course arias (happily, presented in their entirety). Also rare video footage, much in, albeit sometimes colorized, color. Not so surprising, we learn that Callas was a complex woman: relentlessly pursued by pesky reporters and photographers, she suffered their unwanted attentions with grace and patience, most of the time anyway. On the other hand, for such an intensely private person, she was an eminently available interview subject.

   The chronology of Maria by Callas is a little vague. It jumps around a lot, and, most regrettable, there’s very little of her early years when she essayed even Wagner, and by all accounts, very well. The heaviness of those these years didn’t confine itself to repertoire; it’s said Callas shed up to eighty pounds to attain her svelte, echt-Fifties look (some sources say it was closer to sixty pounds).

   Musically a couple of numbers stand out: a soulful, lyric “Casta Diva” from a gala Paris performance, and even more so, the “Habanera” from Carmen (not sure of the venue here), in which she’s arguably more secure technically than almost anything else on the DVD. Her performance gives us a tantalizing glimpse of how strong a singer and how electric a performer Maria Callas really was. Her mezzo-like vocal timbre and fiery temperament seemed ready made for the role. Besides, she seems to be having just a plain good time singing the part, and it’s our loss she never performed Carmen onstage.

   Callas wasn’t an intellectual, but there’s a cerebral sheen to her answers to interviewers’ questions as she walks a fine line between the candid and the guarded, brilliantly so. And then there’s the accent, mid-Atlantic and always with a touch of the exotic. There’s one incident when Callas actually loses her cool. Predictably it’s when she goes into a tirade against Metropolitan Opera general manager Rudolf Bing over what she feels are the Met’s poor productions. Here we get a glimpse of La Callas at her tempestuous best, or is it worst? In either case, it only tends to humanize her and make her all the more attractive.

   Criticisms of Maria by Callas for its rather sketchy, patchy structure and relentlessly pro-Callas tone, especially the stacked deck, first-person only narration, are well taken. Thus I’ll defer to others to opine whether this is the best Callas documentary out there. But considered on its own merits, it’s a unique historical artifact for the rare footage, musical excerpts and best of all, Maria Callas on La Callas in her own words.

   Opera fans are an opinionated lot. Passions run high, and nothing gets an enthusiast’s back up like discussions of the ‘best’ singers, and no opera diva of the Twentieth Century ever inspired passions in the same way that Maria Callas did. Criticized, even vilified during her peak years in the mid and late Fifties, nonetheless even in her own lifetime the pendulum swung back and within a few years the Callas comeback was complete, as witnessed by the ecstatic reception of her return to the Met to sing Tosca, as well as the enthusiastic crowds during her final tour with tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano.

   Her posthumous reputation only increases and her legend continues to grow: today La Callas the musician and cultural phenomenon occupies a unique niche as quasi-divinity for devotees and even casual fans (not for nothing that she’s often referred to as La Divina). The documentary Maria by Callas is a unique and fitting tribute to its eminently worthy subject, and moreover serves to remind us that indeed Maria has gotten in the last word.

  [1] Callas was such a natural as an actress that we're the poorer that she only appeared in one feature film, Medea (1970).
 

Callas as Medea