The 7th Victim

The 7th Victim

1943

Director- Mark Robson

Cast- Kim Hunter, Tom Conway, Hugh Beaumont,  Erford Gage, Jean Brooks

           

This movie, about a girl trying to find her sister, is interesting not only for its plot but also because of its cast. It was produced by horror great Val Lewton (Isle of the Dead, I Walked with a Zombie) and is related to another Lewton pic (Cat People) through a shared character. It was the directorial debut for Mark Robson, who would later be nominated for an Oscar for Peyton Place.

            Mary is looking for her sister ,Jaqueline, whom no one has heard from in months. Her search leads her to Greenwich Village. She finds a lot of people who know Jaqueline but no one seems to know where she is. We hear a lot about what an impression Jaqueline makes. Mary’s search leads her to three men; a lawyer who was married to Jaqueline (played by Hugh Beamont, famous as the father Ward Cleaver in Leave it to Beaver , just let that sink in for a minute) ,a psychiatrist (Tom Conway, who played the same role in Cat People) and a down and out poet (Erford Gage).

            Mary’s search eventually reveals that Jaqueline has gotten involved with a group of “devil worshipers”, the Palladists (an actual 19^th century Satanic cult). It’s interesting to note the film never uses the term “Satanists”. Jaqueline has broken the cults code by talking to her psychiatrist about them and now they have declared she must die. Jaqueline doesn’t appear until the final quarter of the film, but when she does appear, the film changes its focus from Mary to Jaqueline in a way that is either jarring or disjointed depending on your perspective.

       Hollywood didn’t start exploring Satanism en masse until the 1960s so this movie was pretty far ahead of its time. Although it’s very moody in places, it still feels like a movie from the 1940s and doesn’t have the stylishness of horror movies that would come later. However, it also lacks the sensationalism of the 1960s. The devil worshipers wear regular clothing not black robes and rather than a pentagram, their occult symbol is double triangle within a parallelogram.

            Kim Hunter (who played the main character, Mary) may not be immediately recognizable but she had a long genre career. She played Zira in the first three planet of the apes movies and was also in the 1980s horror film The Kindred (that’s a long career!) .On the other hand, Erford Gage (the poet) had a very short career. He joined the Army and died liberating the Philippines from the Japanese. Jean Brooks, who plays the mysterious Jaqueline, died young from alcoholism. This is a bit ominous given that her character in the film was suffering from depression.

            If you are wanting thrills and chills, this film won’t deliver. However, if you want a thoughtful film with a good cast, that was 20 years ahead of its time, check this out.