by Nathaniel R
Because Jean Brooks had frequently been mentioned as a supporting actress standout of 1943, the last film I screened for our celebration was Val Lewton production The Seventh Victim. I have only one question: what did I just watch? Kristen Lopez was right on the podcast when she called it a "polite" horror movie. Even the satanic villains are polite...
The film is only 70 minutes long and concerns a young woman (future Oscar winner Kim Hunter, "Stellaaaa!" herself, in her film debut) whose sister (Jean Brooks) has gone missing in New York City. Jean Brooks takes her time showing up in the picture as the missing sister but her entrance is definitely memorable and she's the best thing in the picture by far once her life is perpetually threatened. Plus she can sell the hell out of nearly catatonic closeups and imbue them with the mysteries of depression. I was sad to read afterwards that Hollywood had lost interest in her right around this time despite her inarguable ability to hold the camera. She was 28 at the time of The Seventh Victim. She was gone from movie screens by 1949 and died in 1963 at the age of just 47 due to complications from alcoholism.
One more random thought.
There's a shower sequence that you have to imagine made an impression on Hitchcock (though even that is 'polite,'... well, as polite as a threat can be, that is). One must also assume that Roman Polanski saw the picture at an impressionable age (he was 10 at the time). Hitchcock made his own masterpiece that year with Shadow of a Doubt but I wonder what he thought of the producer Val Lewton who was just churning out cheap thrillers and horror movies that year for RKO (The Leopard Man, The Seventh Victim, The Ghost Ship, I Walked With a Zombie... all in 1943!).
Any Hitchcock or Lewton experts know?