'The Seventh Victim (1943)' was produced by Val Lewton, who developed a string of well-respected horror pictures for RKO between 1942 and 1946, this particular title being the first that I've seen. Had I been judging the film based only on its visuals, my appraisal would be decidedly glowing. Nicholas Musuraca much surely have been among the most proficient cinematographers of the 1940s, a master of the shadowy film noir, as his wonderful work in 'The Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)' and 'Out of the Past (1947)' can attest. In this twisted thriller, every city alleyway is a looming blanket of darkness, from which scarred, sinister faces emerge to exact their revenge on our helpless heroine. The photography is so meticulously and deliberately staged that the overall mood is not one of realism, but more closely resembles the theatre; it's all so impeccably-stylised that one can't help but be drawn into director Mark Robson's shady world of mystery, murder and deceit and how about that shower scene!
But, alas, for every time Musuraca's superb cinematography managed to draw me into the film, I was jarringly yanked backwards by a ridiculous plot twist, a laughable line of dialogue or a dubious piece of acting. First-rate production values are used to complement a plot that would hardly suffice a B-movie, and so it's an unfortunate waste of talent. The screenplay, by DeWitt Bodeen and Charles O'Neal, seems so preoccupied with approaching taboo material that it flits around in circles, unable to settle on any solid theme or idea. The villains of the picture are ostensibly a secret society of Satan-worshippers whose duties, it seems, fail to stretch beyond discussions of their secret society, and certainly don't appear to include anything even close to devil-worship. If their weekly meetings merely consist of rich people lounging around and drinking wine, then I'm not sure that the society's secrecy is really worth killing for (and, indeed, the members are such ordinary folk that they can't bear to kill anyone, in any case).
You can usually expect the acting in such low-budget horror films to be atrocious at best, but here the cast is quite adequate. Kim Hunter, as a young and vulnerable woman searching for her missing sister, seems out-of-her-depth, not just character-wise, but also as an actress. This being her first film role (in a long and prolific career), Hunter is simply following the script, unwilling to invest any extra emotion into her dialogue. Jean Brooks, after a tremendous build-up of Harry Lime proportions, fails to fulfill the screenplay's bloated expectations; she's hardly the most beautiful woman who ever lived, as described, and even her younger sister has a prettier face. The men Tom Conway, Erford Gage and Hugh Beaumont are sufficient to carry along the story. Before you get the impression that I disliked 'The Seventh Victim,' I'll add that its B-movie status allowed it to get away with some nice plot twists, and the abrupt, cunningly-understated ending the sound of a chair collapsing in another room was a stroke of genius.
But, alas, for every time Musuraca's superb cinematography managed to draw me into the film, I was jarringly yanked backwards by a ridiculous plot twist, a laughable line of dialogue or a dubious piece of acting. First-rate production values are used to complement a plot that would hardly suffice a B-movie, and so it's an unfortunate waste of talent. The screenplay, by DeWitt Bodeen and Charles O'Neal, seems so preoccupied with approaching taboo material that it flits around in circles, unable to settle on any solid theme or idea. The villains of the picture are ostensibly a secret society of Satan-worshippers whose duties, it seems, fail to stretch beyond discussions of their secret society, and certainly don't appear to include anything even close to devil-worship. If their weekly meetings merely consist of rich people lounging around and drinking wine, then I'm not sure that the society's secrecy is really worth killing for (and, indeed, the members are such ordinary folk that they can't bear to kill anyone, in any case).
You can usually expect the acting in such low-budget horror films to be atrocious at best, but here the cast is quite adequate. Kim Hunter, as a young and vulnerable woman searching for her missing sister, seems out-of-her-depth, not just character-wise, but also as an actress. This being her first film role (in a long and prolific career), Hunter is simply following the script, unwilling to invest any extra emotion into her dialogue. Jean Brooks, after a tremendous build-up of Harry Lime proportions, fails to fulfill the screenplay's bloated expectations; she's hardly the most beautiful woman who ever lived, as described, and even her younger sister has a prettier face. The men Tom Conway, Erford Gage and Hugh Beaumont are sufficient to carry along the story. Before you get the impression that I disliked 'The Seventh Victim,' I'll add that its B-movie status allowed it to get away with some nice plot twists, and the abrupt, cunningly-understated ending the sound of a chair collapsing in another room was a stroke of genius.