PRODUCED BY VAL LEWTON - I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE/THE SEVENTH VICTIM: Blu-ray (RKO, 1943) Criterion

If not for a fortuitous decision made in the fall of 1941, the name Val Lewton might never have been known outside of Hollywood. Lewton, who began his career as a newspaper hound, fired for fabricating a story about crated, Kosher chickens prostrated and dying from the heat, eventually found more lasting fame as the author of a lurid novella, No Bed of Her Own. It was exactly the sort of dime-store pulp that sold copy. And it caught Hollywood’s attention. More sordid fiction from Lewton quickly followed. A bit of a dreamer, something of a wanderer, and thoroughly bored with the stalemates of his own life, Lewton’s initial aspiration was to live in the sort of romanticized exoticism his woolgathering – if highly literate and star-struck – mother had encouraged throughout his youth.

Lewton was blessed with a fanciful imagination to be sure, and the gumption to pursue every avenue opening up before him. But he was as short-fused and prone to bouts of deep depression when those around him failed to share in his vision. Lewton would have rather a bad time of it as story editor for impresario, David O. Selznick, infamously calling out Margaret Mitchell’s runaway novel, Gone With The Wind as a “ponderous piece of trash” during his editorial tête-à-tête with Selznick (and this, after the producer had already made the executive decision to film it). Lewton suggested Selznick would lose the shirt off his back if he proceeded to ignore his advice. Selznick persisted. The rest…as they used to say…is history.

Naysaying aside, Lewton was not very happy working for Selznick. Hence, in the fall of 1941, he made his move to RKO – then on the verge of bankruptcy, thanks to back-to-back misfires from their young protégé, Orson Welles. To Welles, the enfant terrible who had terrorized radio listeners with his realistic broadcast of War of the Worlds, RKO threw open their doors, convinced Welles held the keys to a bright future of fiscal solvency. T’was not to be. But to Lewton, RKO had tossed aside their now emaciated remains with a promise of ‘showmanship in lieu of genius’ to denote the company’s future plans to make quick n’ dirty programmers on a shoestring budget. These would capitalize on the public’s insatiable appetite for crime stories and tales of the supernatural. Lewton’s desire, however, was to produce as well as write quality fare. No one could have anticipated Lewton would go far beyond expectations, transforming such idiotic titles as ‘Cat People’ and ‘I Walked With A Zombie’ into masterpieces of psychological horror. Screening the daily rushes, executives at RKO feared they had another Welles on their hands. Lewton’s approach to the material seemed too cerebral, too highbrow for the masses.

In hindsight, they had nothing to fear and virtually everything to gain. Lewton’s logic was sound. His ability to perfectly cast from the studio’s homegrown roster of hungry unknowns, giving it their all, resulted in an uninterrupted series of remarkably literate horror classics that have since withstood the test of time and, in their day, made RKO a king’s ransom to rebuild their ailing coffers.  Lewton’s Russian heritage bowed with a passion for recreating pseudo-European folklore as contemporary and uniquely American fright fests. Yet Lewton was disinterested in merely resurrecting the arc of Gothic chills already well-established at Universal Studios. Hence, Lewton’s stories were born in the concrete jungles of bustling cities or tropical hideaways more commonly focused on the tourist trade.  Of the nine films eventually to summarize Lewton’s legacy, two from 1943 - I Walked With A Zombie, and, The Seventh Victim, arrived almost on top of one another, to be initially misjudged by The New York Times as “dull” and/or “disgusting” – which only made audiences, primed by their memories of Cat People, wanting to see them more.

In our present era, overly saturated in tales of the undead and satanic cults, we pause to reconsider how neither of these concepts had been popularized at the movies in 1943. So, retrospectively, Lewton was very much ahead of his time. Even the word - ‘zombie’ – was largely unknown to the movie-going public back then, despite the release of a 1932 pre-code thriller, White Zombie, that did little to propagate what has since become a main staple of horror lore. Lewton had little to zero interest in making a ‘traditional’ zombie picture – whatever that may be, turning to screenwriters, Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray with the high concept of transforming Inez Wallace’s serialized stories into a repurposed account of Emily Bronte’s immortal Jane Eyre, relocated to the West Indies. For creative inspiration, Lewton relied on director, Jacques Tourneur and his verve for moodily lit film noir.

As he had done previously with Cat People, Tourneur approached I Walked With A Zombie with a visual elegance that belied the picture’s miniscule budget, using sparsely repurposed sets already built on the RKO backlot, adding chiaroscuro lighting and wind effects for atmospheric embellishment. As with his earlier foray, Lewton cast from the studio’s ‘B’ list contract players. The biggest name here was Tom Conway – the brother of formidable 2oth Century-Fox contractee, George Sanders, affectionately known around the RKO backlot as ‘the nice George Sanders’. Conway, who had inherited the role of The Falcon from his brother, in RKO’s serialized franchise of low budget crime thrillers, was, at least for Lewton, ideally trademarked as the ambiguous man of means, unscrupulous, or at least seemingly so, and, enterprising to a fault.

For the part of the empathetic nurse, newly arrived to look after a paralytic patient, Lewton chose Canadian actress, Francis Dee. Despite a decade’s worth of tireless work, Dee had yet to break out in the industry. Dee would never become a star, though she unequivocally proved quite the actress, giving every indication that stardom might be just around the corner. The rest of the cast fell into place almost as an afterthought. James Ellison - against type as the seemingly forthright leading man, Wesley Rand, who harbors a deep secret. Christine Gordon affectingly played the undead, Jessica Holland, perversely drawn into the woods by a voodoo spell. And the chronically underused Theresa Harris became Alma, the kindly housemaid administering sound advice on this remote sugar plantation. For sheer filler, Edith Barrett played Paul and Wesley’s devoted mama, Mrs. Rand.

Two African-American actors would ensure a certain air of authenticity for this otherwise studio-bound production: Sir Lancelot, herein as a nondescript and rather insidious Calypso singer, his pleasantly warbled strains of island songs simultaneously drenched in ominous foreboding. Also on tap, Darby Jones as Carrefour – at seven-feet, with contact lenses to cloud his eyes, proving a formidable presence. Carrefour is first glimpsed in shadowy silhouette, strolling along an isolated stretch of beach with Dee’s kindly nurse, Betsy Connell. Much later, Jones proves a considerable fright, confronting Betsy in the dried out and rustling sugar cane fields, dotted with animal sacrifices and other paraphernalia devoted to the ritualized summoning of the dead by the true believers of this island faith.

I Walked With A Zombie is perhaps Lewton’s most elegant and proficient horror classic. Tourneur’s minimalist approach perpetually sheaths his interiors in refracted light, filtered through half-drawn bamboo shades or lattice work, creates interesting shadows.  The film’s premise is deliberately meant to ferment and linger under a cloud of suspicion. Is the catatonic Jessica Holland suffering the ill effects of a tropical malaise? Or has she truly been transformed by local lore into a zombie? There is some evidence to suggest Tourneur might have preferred a more clear-cut explanation. Jessica, a lithe and willowy figure with a far-away stare, appears to levitate one half-moonlit night, passing Betsy’s boudoir in her flowing white lingerie as she enters the tower on the plantation grounds, pursued by Betsy and glimpsed with split-second precision in an affecting makeup to hollow out her eye sockets.

This illusion is both terrifying and fleeting, as Betsy’s terrorized screams draw Paul to her rescue. The glow from his oil lamp casts less-threatening shadows across Jessica’s blank and withdrawn face. It is a deliciously terrific moment, Tourneur topping it as his camera follows Betsy and Jessica through a labyrinth of dried sugar cane rustling in the cool night air. The echoes of voodoo drums grow louder as the ladies stumble upon several omens, an animal skull supported on a wooden dowel, then a more recent animal sacrifice dangling from the gallows of a nearby tree, and finally, the unexpected and sudden appearance of albino-eyed Carrefour caught in the dim pall of Betsy’s flashlight. 

Throughout, I Walked With A Zombie burns with an ember of distinct melancholy. Situated somewhere between western-culture rationalism and ancient superstitions, the locals of this remote, but seemingly thriving tropical paradise are a strange lot. The Holland manor – the most profitable plantation – is framed by imposing wrought iron gates, dense vegetation and a rather bizarre forecourt fountain, its statuary depicting a tortured Saint Sebastian, staring with panged suffrage into the heavens, pierced through his chest with multiple arrows. Betsy’s introduction to Paul Holland seems promising enough, even if the prospects of breaking the spell of his wife’s catatonia prove impossible from the outset. Throughout these establishing scenes, Lewton and Tourneur give us flashes of bleaker premonitions yet to come; a pervading sense of unquantifiable evil derived from little more than paralytic stares, as well as Paul and Wesley’s sibling rivalry. Their unresolved guilt dovetails into mutual contempt and jealousies directed toward more sinister accusations and suspicions. These miseries are exacerbated by the ancient voodoo cult and nightly worship taking place just a few miles away.

Interestingly, the main title sequence, depicting Frances Dee and Darby Jones strolling along a windswept bulkhead has no referenced sequence in the actual body of the movie. Nor does it serve as denouement to our tale told in flashback. Dee’s voiceover narration regresses the audience to Betsy’s blissful appointment to San Sebastian. In short order, Betsy meets Paul. The starry night is initially set up through the romantic porthole of a young woman’s heart. Paul’s interpretation is more skewed by his circumstances. He explains how the flying fish are not leaping for joy, but racing to escape larger predators in the sea. A sudden streak of light in the heavens is actually the remnants of a dying star. “Everything good dies here,” Paul painfully suggests. 

San Sebastian is managed by a small constituency of white settlers who, long ago, brought the slaves to work their land. The story is recalled by the carriage driver who takes Betsy to the Holland plantation house. She can only see the grandeur of the place, describing its open airy rooms with all the optimistic exhilaration of a wide-eyed stranger in a faraway land. The mood remains light as Betsy meets Wesley. His congenial start masks contempt for his half-brother. Wesley diverts Betsy’s suspicions momentarily, talking about their mother, who runs the local dispensary, despite having no professional training as either a doctor or nurse. As the sun sets, Betsy begins to feel the island’s more sinister sway, foreboding drums in the distance and later, stirred from her slumber by quiet whimpers. Following this sound to a nearby tower, Betsy is startled by the sudden appearance of Jessica Holland. Concealed in half shadow, her visage momentarily takes on a demonic presence that causes Betsy to scream in terror.

Rushing to her aid, Paul is brittle in his admonishment, suggesting the position for which Betsy was hired is not for any woman who scares so easily. Betsy challenges his notion she behaved like a silly, frightened child. Paul agrees to give her another chance, introducing Betsy to Jessica’s physician, Dr. Maxwell (James Bell), a kindly sort, who nevertheless adds to Betsy’s mounting dread by referring to his patient as “a beautiful zombie”, stricken by an incredible fever that caused irreparable damage to her spinal cord. Sometime later, Wesley escorts Betsy into town. He offers to buy her a drink. But the mood turns sour when a local musician warbles a gossipy ditty about the Holland clan and Rand’s forbidden love for his brother’s wife. Wesley admits he was drawn to Jessica, but explains Paul was hardly a devoted spouse. Nor is his devotion as the grieving husband now, anything but an act – and not of contrition. Betsy stays with Wesley as he continues to drink himself into oblivion. At twilight, the musician returns, having added a new verse and chorus to the song with which to taunt Betsy. “Oh woes, ah me; shame and sorrow for de family.”

At this juncture, Betsy is introduced to Mrs. Rand. Betsy would like nothing better than to restore the peace between Paul and Wesley. Momentarily Paul weakens and begins to explain how he discovered Jessica having a torrid liaison with his brother. But the sound of native drums causes him to revert to his former reserved self, sternly ordering Betsy from the room. The next day, Dr. Maxwell and Betsy present a united front to Paul with the highly experimental option of shock therapy to revive Jessica. This too fails, leaving Betsy distraught and apologetic. Wesley, however, is condescending, reeling against Paul who he believes is making a play for Betsy. The next afternoon, the housemaid, Alma suggests to Betsy that the Houngan (Martin Wilkins) might be able to cure Jessica of her catatonia by performing a ritual voodoo ceremony. Driven by her desire to restore Jessica to Paul, Betsy skulks off with her patient through the swampy marshes and dried sugar cane, encountering the lanky Carrefour.

Betsy is even more perplexed to find Mrs. Rand working behind the scenes, offering pragmatic alternatives to those who have come to ‘be cured’ by the Houngan. While Betsy and Mrs. Rand confer in private, Jessica inadvertently becomes the focus of the ritual. A local thrusts his sword into Jessica’s arm, startled when the wound does not bleed. Jessica is a zombie. Carrefour appears, intent on carrying Jessica into the jungle. Instead, Mrs. Rand gives a stern command for Carrefour to retreat without his victim. The next afternoon, Paul is informed by Dr. Maxwell, the local magistrate intends to conduct an investigation into the family’s past. Mrs. Rand intervenes, revealing it was she who caused Jessica’s condition. As the Houngan’s hypnotic ceremonies intensify, Wesley begs Betsy to put an end to Jessica’s suffering with a mild poison. He really does care for Jessica. Remarkably, Betsy is not shocked by this request, though she refuses to fulfil it. Realizing what must be done, Wesley kidnaps Jessica, carrying her into the rippling surf. He is pursued by Carrefour. Wesley and Jessica are deliberately drowned, their bodies pulled from the rough seas by local fishermen and carried back to Holland House where a distraught Mrs. Rand, Paul and Betsy await. A local cleric’s prayer condemns the evil done to Paul by the sinful lust Jessica and Wesley shared, absolving Paul of any wrong doing and thus, liberating his heart to pursue Betsy.

The finale to I Walked With the Zombie is, at once, apocalyptic and uncharacteristically hopeful. As with the ending to Cat People, reign of terror plaguing the lovers in this movie is resolved before the final fade to black. Paul and Betsy are set free from a seemingly eternal curse. I Walked With A Zombie was a sizable hit for RKO, confirming Lewton’s deeply disturbing visions were in tune with the public’s fascination. For Lewton’s next production, he would not be as assured. Nevertheless, The Seventh Victim, immediately to follow, is a fascinating flick. Shot on the still free-standing sets devoted to Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons (and previously seen as the hotel lobby in Cat People), The Seventh Victim is perhaps the most perverse and darkly purposed of all Lewton’s classic tales. It tells of a young ingenue, Mary Gibson (played by an affectingly wide-eyed Kim Hunter), who ventures from her parochial youth into the big city, only to find her elder sister, Jacqueline (Jean Brooks) involved with Greenwich village Satan worshipers intent on bringing about her suicide.   

Deeply atmospheric, thanks to Mark Robson’s swift direction and cinematographer, Nicholas Musuraca’s deep-focus visuals the story, co-authored by Charles O'Neal, and, DeWitt Bodeen, was deemed by some critics as too fantastical. More than any other movie Lewton had yet to produce, The Seventh Victim bounds from one nail-biting sequence into the next. There are no dramatic respites to intercede. The movie’s premise, a young girl’s quest to seek out what has become of the sister she adores, gets established within the first 5-minutes.  We meet Mary Gibson, a pupil of the posh Highcliffe Academy, suddenly informed by its stoic principal, Miss Lowwood (Ottola Nesmith) of Jacqueline’s delinquency in paying her tuition. As such, Mary is forced to leave school. Electing to play amateur detective, Mary’s first port of call is La Sagesse, a cosmetics company Jacqueline owned in New York City. Alas, Mary soon learns from Jacqueline’s assistant, Esther Redi, the company has since been sold to her. What became of Jacqueline thereafter is anyone’s guess, at least, according to Esther.

But Jacqueline's closest friend, and La Sagesse employee, Frances Fallon (Isabel Jewell), quietly informs Mary she saw Jacqueline only a week ago at Dante, an Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. A little more investigating, and Mary unearths Jacqueline is renting the apartment above Dante, though she has yet to actually move in. Convincing the restaurant’s owners to let her have a look at Jacqueline’s room, Mary finds it virtually empty aside from a wooden chair with a noose dangling overhead. Also at Dante, Mary is introduced to the poet, Jason Hoag (Erford Gage), in love with Jacqueline. Piecing together the clues, Mary learns Jacqueline had a secret life, married to attorney, Gregory Ward (Hugh Beaumont). She was also seeing psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway, reprising his role from Cat People... and very odd, as Judd was murdered in that movie. So, the events taking place in The Seventh Victim must have come before those depicted in Lewton’s previous flick.)

From Judd, Mary learns Jacqueline was desperately seeking treatment for depression, stemming from a Satanic cult - the Palladists, goading her into its membership by none other than Esther, and, Jacqueline’s subsequent efforts to end this association for good.  After a chance meeting at the police precinct, Mary enlists detective, Irving August (Lou Lubin) to help in her search. Alas, while sneaking into La Sagesse after hours, August is stabbed to death by an unseen murderer. Fleeing the scene by subway, Mary is as startled when two men board her car, dragging August’s lifeless remains between them, feigning he has passed out from drunkenness. Escaping into the night, Mary’s attempts to forewarn the police of August’s murder fall on deaf ears as August has since vanished into thin air. Now, Judd offers to reunite Mary with Jacqueline. The contact is brief, and again, Jacqueline disappears into the night. Determined to unearth the truth, Mary gets a job and takes an apartment. Not long thereafter, Esther breaks in and confronts Mary while she is in the shower, suggesting it was Jacqueline who murdered August. Aside: some historians have inferred this scene to foreshadow Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960).  More directly, however, it looks back to Hitchcock’s own bent for showcasing scenes of lesbianism in pictures like 1940’s Rebecca and 1941’s Suspicion.

Mary confides in Gregory and Jason, who now align with Judd to arrange a meeting with Jacqueline. Jacqueline details how she came to join, then flee from the Palladists. She also confesses to August’s murder, believing he was sent by the Palladists to assassinate her. Meanwhile, the cult congregates to decide Jacqueline’s fate. Frances begs for Jacqueline’s redemption. Instead, the cult kidnaps Jacqueline, determined to force her into committing suicide by drinking poison. Jacqueline refuses. Next, the cultists send an assassin to stab Jacqueline in the streets. Again, she escapes their death wish, returning to her rented room over the restaurant. In the adjacent hall, Jacqueline finds her terminally ill neighbor, Mimi (Elizabeth Russell) who confides her own fear of death. In response, Jacqueline returns to her apartment. We hear a loud thud and the sound of a chair toppling over. Presumably, Jacqueline has hanged herself.

The Seventh Victim was highly praised for its suspense-laden, all-pervasive sinister darkness, with some critics distinguishing Nicholas Musuraca’s camera work and Mark Robson’s direction. The picture was shot in just 24 days. Kim Hunter’s central performance is truly moving, and her brief alliance with Lou Lubin’s private dick creates a memorable sequence capped off by the hair-raising appearance of August’s lifeless remains being passed off as mere drunkenness. The chief criticism lobbed at the picture is, it’s initial focus on Mary’s search for the truth gets subverted, proving inconsequential misdirection in the end. Fair enough, the picture’s scant 71-min. runtime is stocked with too many characters. We also could have done without Mary’s Highcliffe prologue. As already mentioned, the return of Dr. Judd is curious, as it forces the audience to reconsider the story herein to have occurred before the events in 1942’s Cat People. As The Seventh Victim is neither a sequel – nor prequel – to Cat People, resurrecting Conway’s Judd is just perplexing. Nevertheless, The Seventh Victim is proficient at whipping its midnight menace into a heightened frenzy, perfectly pitched to prowl and plumb the depths of human fear with gothic dread from which only death can seemingly liberate.

The O’Neal/Bodeen screenplay endured several permutations to pass Hollywood’s self-governing code of censorship. Begun as a story about an orphan caught in a murder plot, the heroine then, on a quest to pieced together the orphan's true identity in order to spare him from becoming ‘the seventh victim’ of an unknown serial killer, Bodeen later rewrote under Lewton’s supervision, with Lewton landing on the idea of a woman in peril from Satanists. Bodeen purportedly based this version on his own experimentation with a Satanic society and was further inspired by previous journalistic writing for several cosmetic companies. The Seventh Victim represents, arguably, the zenith in Lewton’s brief tenure as the sultan of shudders. The films to followed it, relying on Boris Karloff’s participation, became increasingly morose, though oddly, more psychologically superficial.

When RKO head, Charles Koerner unexpectedly died in 1946, Lewton lost his most ardent proponent. Lewton’s contract was allowed to lapse. Bitter and unemployed, Lewton made vain attempts at a comeback, first at Paramount, then MGM. But he no longer held dominion over the artistic decision-making. By 1950, Lewton had had enough, entreating protégés, Robert Wise and Mark Robson to join him in an independent venture. Regrettably, creative differences effectively ousted Lewton from his own enterprise. Producer, Stanley Kramer then tendered a lucrative offer. Tragically, Lewton was felled by gallstones, then two major heart attacks, dying at the unremarkable age of forty-two. As something of a homage, MGM would release The Bad and The Beautiful one year later, with Kirk Douglas playing a B-unit producer of Lewton’s vision and demeanor, the parallels in Charles Schnee’s screenplay, transparently inspired by the follies Lewton had once endured on the set of Cat People.

Warner Home Video’s commitment to Lewton’s RKO heritage has had a decidedly spotty history. A DVD box set, released in 2005, while packed with goodies, showcased all 9 of Lewton’s masterpieces riddled in video-based anomalies, with virtually zero effort put forth to remaster them. With Blu-ray’s debut, rumors circulated that restoration efforts were underway. But then, nothing happened. Then, Warner farmed Cat People out to third-party/boutique distributor, Criterion, sporting a refurbished print. Another fallow period followed, with no future releases of the remaining 8 movies planned. Two years later, Shout! Factory put out Cat People’s sequel, Curse of the Cat People (1944), also sporting a refurbished print supplied by Warner Home Video. Then, the Warner Archive (WAC) countered, releasing two Lewton double-bills of the Lewton/Karloff movies – also with renewed elements. For reasons known only to the company, it chose to do absolutely nothing with either I Walked with A Zombie or The Seventh Victim. But now, nearly 8 years after Criterion was offered first-dibs, they have been bestowed the honor to showcase these last remaining hold-outs in hi-def, double-billed as ‘Produced by Val Lewton’.   

Has it been worth the wait? Arguably, yes. Criterion has made each movie available in 4K and standard Blu, with only the standard Blu’s jam-packed full of extras.  The refurbished elements here are reason enough to rejoice. While the 4K offer a noticeable uptick in contrast, depth and grain structure, all appearing natural, the standard Blu’s are as impressive, having been derived from these same transfers. Grayscale tonality greatly advances. Age-related artifacts have been eradicated. There is some residual softness to each transfer, though arguably, this is in keeping with the original cinematography. Criterion showcases PCM mono tracks here. The 4K’s each contain an audio commentary, ported over from the retired (and tired) old DVD releases from Warner Home Video.

On I Walked With A Zombie we get historian, Kim Newman with writer/editor, Stephen Jones. Historian, Steve Haberman provides commentary on The Seventh Victim. Both tracks cover a mountain of production history. Each is worthy of your time.  The remaining goodies are housed exclusively on standard Blu and include nearly 40-mins. with Imogen Sara Smith reflecting on themes, characters, etc. Also on tap, 50+-mins. from Adam Roche’s podcast, The Secret History of Hollywood, and, Constantine Nasr's Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy, the 2005 doc running just under an hour and offering comprehensive insight from Newman; Lewton’s son, filmmakers, William Friedkin, Guillermo del Toro, George A. Romero, John Landis, Joe Dante, and Robert Wise, and, many others. A 12-min. excerpt from PBS’ Monstrum follows, as well as trailers for each film; plus, liner notes from critics, Chris Fujiwara and Lucy Sante. Bottom line: with this double-bill, collectors can officially retire their now-defunct and abysmally substandard DVD sets from 2005. Criterion’s Lewton twosome is an exceptional way to experience Lewton’s finest horror/suspense classics. Very – very – highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

5+ (both movies)

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

5