Classic of the Week: "The 7th Victim"
Val Lewton's 1943 chiller about devil worshipers in New York City is on TCM
DVR alert! “The 7th Victim” (1943) comes to Turner Classics Friday (9/10) at 8:00 p.m. A thoroughly unnerving and, for its time, quite daring drama about a Satanic cult in Greenwich Village, it’s the fourth of producer Val Lewton’s terrific little horror films for RKO, all of them subtly eerie thanks to Lewton’s personal tastes and his decided lack of budget. (If you can’t afford to show something scary, Lewton reasoned, just suggest it and let the audience’s imagination do the rest.) “Victim” is also the first movie for Kim Hunter, who’d go on to fame as Stella in “A Streetcar Named Desire” and Zira in “Planet of the Apes.” That said, the person you’ll remember is Jean Brooks as Hunter’s sister, lost to the cult and coming on like an early screen incarnation of Morticia Addams.
The movie itself is a crucial forerunner of “Rosemary’s Baby” in its exploration of the demons lurking within all those swank New York sophisticates. (Also, check the trailer below for a possible influence on a certain scene in Hitchcock’s “Psycho.”) But the original stands on its own. “The 7th Victim” has an unsettling and inconsolable knowledge of the dark that gets under your skin and stays there, and how director Mark Robson got that pitch-black ending past the Production Code Office remains a mystery. (If you miss it on TMC, the movie’s available as a two-dollar rental on Amazon Prime Video.)
George Sanders' reliable brother older, Tom Conway. I mostly think of Kim Hunter in Michael Powell's "A Matter of Life and Death." There's a complete, watchable copy on YouTube.
It's strange that Hitchcock made a movie about a peeping Tom who murdered, and it further enhanced his reputation. Powell made a movie that same year about a murdering Peeping Tom, even giving it that title, and it ruined his reputation.
Anyone with a cable subscription that includes Turner Classic Movies can access Watch TCM. Besides offering two live streams, most of the movies are available for a while after airing, in a web browser or with the app. I have Fios TV, which offers TCM in SD, but the online service is in HD.
Available on demand from Spectrum/Time Warner Cable, just search for "The 7th Victim" - I assume I'm not paying extra for TCM, who knows. What a treat this was for a Saturday night! Loved the use of shadows. As someone who's used to seeing Hitchcock influences on other filmmakers, it was really neat to see it go the other way in the shower scene. Another great find from Ty Burr, never would've heard of this film otherwise!