Lewton's Victim

Val Lewton is known, specifically, as the producer of Cat People, and generally, as producer of shoestring-budget black and white horror movies that produce their chills through what they don't show. He owns the technique of scaring by withholding.

In Seventh Victim, he takes this a long way. Like in Laura, we don't meet the object of everyone's obsession until halfway through the movie. Young orphaned Mary Gibson leaves school to find her sister Jacqueline in Greenwich Village. She has sold her business to creepy Mrs. Redi and left no forwarding address. Mary finds the Jacqueline had rented a room above an Italian restaurant, but never stayed there. The contents of the room are enigmatic and frightening, but they bring her no closer to Jacqueline.

As the search goes on, she meets more friends of Jacqueline - many troubled or creepy. She witnesses a murder, in a scene that veers from cute comedy to noir horror.

Finally, we meet the sister. Mary opens a door and there she is. Jacqueline puts a finger to her lips, looks around in fear, and closes the door again. When Mary opens it, Jacqueline is gone.

This is the kind of dream-like horror that Lewton is famous for. The movie is filled with this kind of "did it even really happen?" kind of scene. Unfortunately, Lewton sometimes sacrifices coherence of plot to do this - For example, why is the emotionally unstable, hunted Jacqueline left alone all day, and why doesn't anyone look for her in the most obvious places? As long as he keeps everything vague and shadowy, Lewton succeeds. When he explains, you might find yourself scratching your head.

The film has a beautiful look for a B-movie. Young Mary, played by Kim Hunter, looks lovely - she reminds me of Deanna Durbin or Jane Powell. Seventh Victim even shares plot points with Delightfully Dangerous, the orphaned younger sister leaving school to find her older, disreputable older sister. I wonder what the psychology behind that theme is.

Little poetic touches abound - The film opens with a quote from John Dunne, and the first sound is a schoolgirl conjugating the verb "love" in Latin. When Mary leaves school to find her sister, we hear another girl conjugating the French verb for "search". Dante is referenced - for example, in a mural along with two women, Beatrice and another, reflecting Mary and Jacqueline, perhaps.

So good I watched it twice.