The Seventh Victim
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| The Seventh Victim | |
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| Directed by | Mark Robson |
| Produced by | Val Lewton |
| Written by | DeWitt Bodeen Charles O'Neal |
| Starring | Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, Kim Hunter |
| Music by | Roy Webb |
| Cinematography | Nicholas Musuraca |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures Inc. |
| Release date(s) | August 21, 1943 (U.S. release) |
| Running time | 71 min. |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
See also the unrelated science fiction short Seventh Victim (short story)
The Seventh Victim is a black-and-white film produced by now famed film producer Val Lewton.
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[edit] Story
A young woman (Hunter) at boarding school finds out that her sister (Brooks), who is her only relative, has not paid her tuition in months. Letters sent to her have never been returned. The school officials tell her she can only stay on if she works for the school, to pay her tuition.
Mary, worried about her sister decides to leave school and try to track her down. She returns to New York City. She tracks down an apartment her sister was renting and finds the only thing in the room is a chair and a hanging noose hanging from the ceiling. Knowing that her sister has never feared death only makes Mary more anxious to find her. When she visits the beauty company her sister owns, she finds out that the company was sold to another woman working there.
Her investigation leads to a failed poet and a mysterious doctor (Conway) who help her locate the sister, who turns out to be hiding from a Satanic cult her co-workers were part of. Mary and her sister’s secret husband fall in love during the investigation. Meanwhile, Mary’s sister is kidnapped by the cult members who insist that she kills herself, because as the history of the cult states that anyone who talks about the cult must die. She is the seventh person to do this, thus she is the Seventh Victim. The cult, however, is not violent and decides that she, who is suicidal anyway, should kill herself. When she refuses, the cult members let her leave only to be stalked on the streets by an apparent hitman. She escapes and returns to her sister’s apartment. Before she can enter the apartment, she meets her neighbor who is a deathly ill young woman. (the dialog can be downloaded here). The woman tells her she’s afraid to die but she’s tired of resting and fearing death. She decides to have a night out before she dies. Mary’s sister, who has always contemplated suicide, instead of entering her sister's room decides it’s time for her to die so she enters room #7 (the empty room she rented with the noose) and kills herself while the sick woman walks down the stairs dressed for a night out.
[edit] Memorable scenes
- Mary, approached while in the shower by a woman who tells her to stop looking for her sister. Her shadow can only be seen through the shower curtain. Wearing a hat, her shadow looks somewhat demonic.
- The ending where Mary's sister Jacqueline hangs herself behind a door. The audience cannot see the hanging, but instead hears the sound effects of her suicide.
[edit] Critical reaction
The film is praised for the shadowy camera work by Musuraca and a number of scenes that would later influence other films, including possibly the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. However, the film was criticized in reviews for having too many characters and a storyline that doesn't always make sense. According to the films DVD commentary, scenes containing additional story lines, some that may have made the film clearer, were cut before the film's release.
[edit] Main cast
- Tom Conway as Doctor Louis Judd
- Jean Brooks as Jacqueline Gibson
- Isabel Jewell as Frances Fallon
- Kim Hunter as Mary Gibson
- Hugh Beaumont as Gregory Ward
