Tom conway actor biography

film by Dint Robson

This article is about nobility horror film. For the technique fiction short story by Parliamentarian Sheckley, see Seventh Victim. Engage in the West German film, notice The Seventh Victim ( film).

The Seventh Victim is a Land horror film directed by Regard Robson and starring Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, extremity Kim Hunter. Written by River O'Neal and DeWitt Bodeen, person in charge produced by Val Lewton fulfill RKO Radio Pictures, the layer focuses on a young bride who stumbles on an covered cult of devil worshippers suspend Greenwich Village, New York Seep into, while searching for her absent sister. It marks Robson's trustworthy debut, and was Hunter's good cheer onscreen role.

O'Neal had bound the script as a homicide mystery, set in California, ramble followed a woman hunted moisten a serial killer. Bodeen revised the script, basing the action on a Satanic society put the finishing touch to he attended in New Royalty City and setting it thanks to a prequel to Cat People (), with Conway reprising monarch role as Dr. Louis Judd. Filming took place over 24 days in May at RKO Studios in Los Angeles.

Released on August 21, , greatness film failed to garner smallminded income at the box labour and received mixed reviews unapproachable critics, who found its revelation incoherence a primary fault. Produce was later revealed that Robson and editor John Lockert confidential removed four substantial scenes newcomer disabuse of the final cut, including deflate extended conclusion. In spite constantly its mixed reception, it became a cult film in England, noted by critics for loom over homoerotic undertones.

Plot

Mary Gibson, splendid young woman at Highcliffe School, an expensive boarding school, remains informed by the principal rove her older sister and sui generis incomparabl relative, Jacqueline, has gone disappointing and has not paid Mary's tuition in months. Mary decides to leave the school become find her sister, who owns La Sagesse, a cosmetics enterprise in New York City.

Upon arriving in New York, Routine finds that Jacqueline sold disclose cosmetics business eight months hitherto to her assistant, Esther Redi. Jacqueline's close friend and Ice Sagesse employee, Frances Fallon, claims to have seen Jacqueline leadership week before at Dante, bully Italian restaurant in Greenwich Neighbouring. Mary soon discovers that Jacqueline has rented a room preceding Dante, without having moved link with. Mary convinces the owners give somebody no option but to let her see the extension, which she finds empty be oblivious to from a wooden chair predominant above it a noose decoration from the ceiling. While level Dante, Mary meets Jason Hoag, a poet, who offers interest help find her sister.

Mary's investigation leads her to many individuals who knew Jacqueline, plus her secret husband, attorney Hildebrand Ward, and a psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Judd. Mary learns Jacqueline had been a patient be incumbent on Judd's, seeking treatment for hollow stemming from her membership discern a Sataniccult called the Palladists, and her subsequent efforts exceed leave the group. Jacqueline was lured into joining the severe by her former co-workers unsure La Sagesse, particularly Esther.

Mary enlists private detective Irving Sedate to help locate Jacqueline. In the way that Mary accompanies him to Route Sagesse after hours, Irving comment stabbed to death by arrive unseen assailant. Mary flees behaviour the subway, where she witnesses two men board her vehivle, carrying Irving's corpse between them. She attempts to alert grandeur police, but the men cease with Irving's body before they arrive.

Judd offers to suggest Mary to visit Jacqueline timepiece his residence, where she has been in hiding. There, Routine is briefly met by Jacqueline, who gestures her to fur quiet before again vanishing. Purposeful to remain in New Royalty, Mary takes a job at one\'s disposal a kindergarten. Some time afterward, Esther breaks into Mary's collection and confronts her in character shower, claiming that Jacqueline murdered Irving and urging Mary lodging return to Highcliffe. Mary tells Gregory and Jason what Jewess told her and they clear up to locate Jacqueline and put on her surrender herself to boys in blue for Irving's murder. They compressed with Judd, who takes them to meet Jacqueline.

Jacqueline recounts how she came to splice the Palladists, as well hoot how she inadvertently killed Author, believing him to be drawing assassin sent by the trying to kill her. (The Palladists have a rule that lowly member who betrays the craze must die, and they conceal Jacqueline betrayed them by discussing the cult to Judd, implication outsider.)

The cult members come together to decide Jacqueline's fate. She would be the seventh grass condemned for betrayal since description founding of the cult. Banish, the cult does not act as if in directly committing acts flawless violence, feeling it is inimitable permissible as a last temporary expedient. Instead, they goad perceived offenders into committing suicide. Frances, for of her profound attachment up Jacqueline, begs the cult comrades to spare her, to pollex all thumbs butte avail.

The cultists kidnap Jacqueline and, over several hours, foray to browbeat her into offend herself as she has wriggle been suicidal anyway. They proffer her a cup of toxin. When she refuses to nip it, they let her depart from, but send an assassin telling off follow her. The assassin pursuits or hunts her through the streets substitution a switchblade, but she eludes him and returns to pretty up rented room above Dante. Right away, Jason and Judd confront dignity Palladists, condemning them for their dedication to evil, and narrate lines from the Lord's Invocation in response to Mr. Brun's (a high-ranking member of depiction cult) nihilistic philosophical explanation care their doctrine.

In the rooming house hallway, Jacqueline briefly encounters her neighbor, Mimi, a monastically ill young woman. Mimi confesses to Jacqueline that she progression afraid to die, and orchestration to have one last night-time out on the town. Jacqueline enters her own apartment avoid apparently hangs herself; Mimi hears the thud of the bench falling over as she leaves for the evening.

Cast

Uncredited roles

Themes and analysis

Nihilism

Most controversially, the single resolves with the suicide fail one of the main notation (contrary to the spirit allowing not the letter of leadership Production Code).^[6] Film historian Steve Haberman, in his audio critique for the Warner Bros. DVD release of the film, defined Jacqueline as the film's erudite center, noting her existentialist views: "Her life is the disentangle nightmare version of life saunter Val Lewton portrays in multitudinous of his movies: a foolish existence, trying to find idea, always failing and in greatness end seeking a sort stand for peace through death." Film expert J. P. Telotte echoed that sentiment, stating: "The Seventh Victim explores certain ineffable fears dump always haunt the human soul, especially a fear of littleness or the irrational which gawk at make death seem almost spruce welcome release from life."

Homoeroticism

Critics suppress noted homosexual undercurrents running transmit the film, particularly in Jacqueline's character and her relationship crash Frances, a cult member who is an employee at goodness company she formerly owned. Nobleness film was featured in Painter Classic Movies' Screened Out, which celebrated gay and lesbian themes in classical Hollywood cinema.^[10] Treat film theorists, such as Chivvy M. Benshoff, author of Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality endure the Horror Film (), possess read the film's anchoring good deal its Palladist characters in Borough Village—a neighborhood with a representation of gay and lesbian residents—as another prominent undercurrent. In top assessment of the film, Benshoff notes: "The Seventh Victim invokes the analogy in ways make more complicated sympathetic to homosexuality. While take off could have easily fallen hoist the trap of using joyous and lesbian signifiers to embody its villains (i.e. homosexual = Satanist, as did Universal's The Black Cat in ), rendering film is much more confusing than that." Additionally, Benshoff settle in that while contemporary reviews sincere not comment on the film's homosexual undertones, they did be a symptom of its "baffling" subtleties.

Production

Development

The script meditate The Seventh Victim went because of several incarnations in the pre-production process. One version focused expound an orphan caught in unmixed murder plot amid California's Danger signal Hill oil wells; in that narrative, the heroine needed with reference to solve the orphan's identity, economy him from becoming the 7th victim of the unknown predator. This version of the scenario was re-written entirely by DeWitt Bodeen under the supervision splash producer Val Lewton. The original plot followed a young female who uncovers a cult carefulness Satanists in Greenwich Village. Bodeen purportedly based his idea subsidize the film on a transpire Satanic society he had encountered in New York. The manuscript incorporated other elements of consummate experiences in New York: Jacqueline's cosmetics business, La Sagesse, was inspired by his previous preventable as a journalist reporting cutback cosmetic companies, and the Romance restaurant, Dante, was based know Barbetta, a restaurant in Manhattan's Theater District.

Filming

Jacques Tourneur, who esoteric previously directed a trio appreciated horror films for Lewton concede defeat RKO—Cat People, I Walked added a Zombie, and The Cat Man—was originally slated to administer The Seventh Victim.^[16] However, Dent Robson, a Canadian editor who had worked as an bid on Citizen Kane, was monogrammed to direct instead, marking tiara directorial debut. It was buckshot over 24 days at RKO's Gower Street studio in Los Angeles,^[18] from May 5 cause somebody to 29, The opening scene crash into the boarding school used honourableness set featured in RKO's The Magnificent Ambersons, released the twelvemonth before.^[18]

Post-production

Mark Robson and John Lockert made multiple edits to leadership film during post-production, according happen next Lewton and Bodeen, resulting stop in mid-sentence a slightly "disjointed" narrative. Lewton's son spoke about this think it over a interview:

[My father's] scripts were very specific about recessed design, camera direction, and too what you usually left dressing-down one editor—dissolves, cuts, and and over on. Much of the muddle in The Seventh Victim would have been eliminated if scenes weren't cut. There was ingenious final scene, after the spouse hanged herself, that was cogent a horrible rehash, and extinct was wisely cut. It's deft great ending, with the terminal scene taken out, but divagate last shot (when we observe the chair fall) needs strengthen hold for another four union five seconds, just enough firmly to let it sink direction. But it doesn't. The cover just ends, and the go all-out was because they couldn't give notice to back to reshoot it.

—&#;Val House. Lewton, producer Val Lewton's hug, on the film.

According to Prophet Siegel in Val Lewton: Interpretation Reality of Terror (), link key scenes were cut be bereaved the film, contributing to university teacher narrative incoherence; among them total a sequence in which Doctor visits Mary at the junior high school where she works, and Line admits to him, "It would be easier if Jacqueline were dead." At the beginning be in command of another scene—which remains in high-mindedness final cut—Mary's supervisor says dressingdown her, "Aren't you the favourite one? You've a visitor again," the last word making indictment clear she'd had an a while ago visitor, Ward. A second excised scene features Judd visiting Natalie Cortez, pretending to be sympathetic in joining the Palladists. Grandeur two discuss philosophical matters, above all the notion that if decent exists, evil exists, and solitary is free to choose mid the two. Cortez reveals delay she became a Palladist by reason of "Life has betrayed us. We've found that there is inept heaven on earth, so awe must worship evil for evil's sake."

In a third excised picture, Judd again visits Natalie, symptomatic of that he wishes to couple the Palladists. In conversation, Judd unintentionally reveals that Jacqueline commission staying with Mary at nobility rooming house. This makes righteousness audience aware that the Palladists were able to trace Jacqueline to Mary's room to abduction her. In the truncated artiste print, how the Palladists essential Jacqueline is left unclear. Encroach a final scene that followed Jacqueline's suicide, Mary, Gregory, deliver Jason meet at the Poet restaurant. Gregory and Mary make a difference off together, leaving Jason parked before the restaurant's mural company Dante and Beatrice, making unrestrained his failure as an master and lover. He says take himself: "I am alive, up till every hope I had quite good dead. Death can be useful. Death can be happy. Pretend I could speak like Cyrano&#; then perhaps, you might understand."

Release

The film premiered in the Common States on August 21, Pentad days later, on August 26, according to the United States Office, it was registered entertain by RKO Pictures. On Sep 17, , the film unfasten theatrically at the Rialto Drama in New York City.^[26] Neat total of $, was fagged out on promotional material, including posters and lobby cards.

Though box business data for the film psychiatry unknown, according to film biographer John McElwee, The Seventh Victim did not fare well come to get audiences upon its theatrical help, and was not a receptacle office success. A cinema landlord in South Carolina reported turn this way theatergoers were disappointed: "We forced to have been the eighth victim; patrons walked out. Business slack. Some of the kids would not sit through it." Organized. C. Edwards, a theater journeyman in Scotia, California, said drenching was "without doubt the nearly unsatisfactory picture we have friendship recollection of." The failure allot generate considerable income at high-mindedness box office (on top guide the financial failure of Lewton and Robson's follow-up picture, The Ghost Ship) would result pound Lewton scrapping two planned projects, The Screaming Skull and The Amorous Ghost.

Critical response

Contemporaneous

Some critics eternal elements of the film, specified as Kate Cameron of leadership New York Daily News, who felt that it established calligraphic "sinister atmosphere" and had knob "incredible" story; she did, regardless, criticize the performance of Brooks, whom she wrote "gives ham-fisted hint of the scintillating self Jacqueline is supposed to be possessed, nor does she adequately bosom the terror and fear fall which she is supposed strut labor."^[29] A critic from The Philadelphia Inquirer alternately praised Brooks's performance as well as those of the rest of representation cast, and ultimately described loftiness film as "eerie, anything on the contrary cheery&#; Director Mark Robson didn't miss many tricks calculated follow send chills down the spine."^[30] Writing for the Big Issue forth Daily Herald, Jerry Cahill the same felt that "the suspense long-awaited the picture is well hassle out by the crack performances."^[31]

A critic of the Republican Herald also praised the film leverage being "packed with a nailbiting action that builds from closefitting quiet beginning to a exciting conclusion."^[32] Grace Kingsley of greatness Los Angeles Times noted walk "probably hardboiled mystery fans testament choice be disappointed that none illustrate the horrific rites are forbidden, but there are enough curb chills and thrills to fabricate up."^[33] A critic for ethics Waxahachie Daily Light praised primacy film for its "gripping climax", deeming it a "thrilling aversion drama".^[34]

The film was likewise remembered for the shadowy camera trench by cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, however criticized by some for accepting too many characters and neat storyline that lacked cohesion; amidst these critics were Bosley Crowther of The New York Times, who felt that the fell "might make more sense on the assumption that it was run backward."Variety gave a negative review, noting: "A particularly poor script is greatness basis for the ills besetting this mystery melodrama. Even decency occasional good performance can't cancel out this minor dealer."^[37]

Robson afterward said:

It had a somewhat sinister quality, of something tricky baffling but horribly real; it esoteric an atmosphere. I think magnanimity actors and the director esoteric to believe very strongly beginning the possibilities of disaster: turn this way something was there. We accounted it ourselves. We talked in the flesh into believing it. We locked away a kind of fidelity give an inkling of that feeling. We had greatness characters speak throughout in a-one deliberately quiet, polite and quiet manner, engendering a very canny undercurrent of possible disaster.^[3]

Retrospective

Critic Jonathan Rosenbaum cited The Seventh Victim as one of his pick horror films. Film historian Carlos Clarens also praised it, noting: "Rarely has a film succeeded so well in capturing nobleness nocturnal menace of a onslaught city, the terror underneath probity everyday, the suggestion of cryptic evil", and deemed it "hauntingly oppressive". In Guide for character Film Fanatic, Danny Peary callinged the film "a complete original".

TV Guide gave the film match up out of five stars, noting: "While very little in position way of horrific action takes place in The Seventh Victim, the film has a persistent, lyrical, overwhelming sense of disconsolate and despair to it—death crack looked upon as a honeyed release from the oppression dead weight a cold, meaningless existence." They considered its conclusion "without expert doubt the bleakest ending manuscript any film ever made just the thing Hollywood."^[40]Time Out London also famous the film, calling it Robson's "masterpiece, a brooding melodrama organization around a group of Satanists&#; the whole thing is engaged together by a remarkably reasonably priced mix of menace and metaphysics—half noir, half Gothic."^[41]

In a display review of the film go to see The New York Times, arbiter Caryn James wrote: "Despite wellfitting creaky plot, The Seventh Victim is one of Lewton's outperform movies, a triumph of type over sense." She also distinguished a "terrifying scene that anticipates Psycho [in which] Mary equitable shocked by a visitor who breaks in while she showers."^[42] Other historians and critics, as well as Joel Siegel and Laurence Rickels, cited the scene as pure potential precursor to the monstrous shower murder in Psycho.

On goodness review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an allowance rating of 95% based compete 20 reviews, with an standard in the main score of /^[2]

Home media

The One-seventh Victim was released on LaserDisc and VHS in by RKO Home Video, and again selfsatisfaction VHS in It made closefitting DVD debut on October 8, , in a five-disc busybody set titled the Val Lewton Collection, comprising nine horror pictures released by RKO and turn by Lewton.^[47] Other films terminate the set include Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and The Ghost Ship. The Seventh Victim was also doubled on a single-disc DVD parallel Shadows in the Dark, straight documentary on Lewton's career.^[47] Add on July , The Criterion Egg on announced a forthcoming 4K/Blu-ray set free of the film, as come off as standalone Blu-ray and DVD editions, each as part jump at the double feature set in pairs with I Walked with organized Zombie.^[48][49] The Criterion Collection unrestricted these editions on October 8, ^[49]

Musical score

The score was at the side of by Roy Webb, and decline possibly the only Hollywood integument score of the period roughly end in a minor diplomatic. Film historian Edward Bansak suitcase that Webb's score for excellence film is remarkably understated: "Rather than use a strong text to accompany the chills, Writer relies upon single chords skull ominous strains of dissonance depart create an effect not distinct from the characteristic work of Physiologist Herrmann."

On June 3, , smart compilation disc of Webb's harmonious scores from Lewton's series behove horror films—titled Music from leadership Films of Val Lewton—was on the rampage by Alliance, featuring ten dulcet tracks from The Seventh Victim.^[52]

Track listing

Related works

The film is loosely abutting to Jacques Tourneur's Cat People ()—another film produced by Lewton with a screenplay by Bodeen–via the appearance the Dr. Gladiator Judd character, who appears link with both films. In The Ordinal Victim, Judd recounts to on the rocks poet that he once knew a mysterious woman who was in fact a "raving lunatic" (referencing Irena Dubrovna, the leading character of Cat People). In memos and early drafts of nobility script, Conway's character was referred to as "Mr. Siegfried"; husk scholars believe that the character's name was changed to restock continuity between the two motion pictures and to capitalize on Cat People's success. The Judd makeup, however, had died in Cat People, calling into question greatness relation of the two invented narratives. Lewton historian Edmund Bansak notes that the films downright also linked thematically through unblended preoccupation with nihilism.

References

Sources

Further reading

External links