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The Seventh Victim
USA 1943
produced by Val Lewton for RKO
directed by Mark Robson
starring Kim Hunter, Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Erford Gage, Hugh Beaumont, Isabel Jewell, Evelyn Brent, Ben Bard, Chef Milani, Marguerita Sylva, Lou Lubin, Joan Barclay, Wally Brown, Feodor Chaliapin jr, Wheaton Chambers, Kernan Cripps, Edythe Elliott, William Halligan, Milton Kibbee, Adia Kuznetzoff, Eve March, Marianne Mosner, Patsy Nash, Ottola Nesmith, Mary Newton, Betty Roadman, Dewey Robinson, Elizabeth Russell, Sarah Selby, Jamesson Shade, Ann Summers
written by Charles O'Neal, DeWitt Bodeen, music by Roy Webb
review by Mike Haberfelner
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When young Mary (Kim Hunter) learns that her tuition at the boarding
school she's at hasn't been paid for half a year and her sister Jacqueline
(Jean Brooks), her only relative, has gone missing, she declines an offer
to stay at the school as an employee and goes to New York to find
Jacqueline. But once there she learns that not all things are what they're
supposed to be, like Jacqueline has written over her company to an
employee, who shows only very little interest in Jacqueline to be found,
and finds she has rented a room upstairs from a restaurant - but when she
arrives there and persuades the owner (Chef Milani) to open up
Jacqueline's room, she finds it empty but for a chair beneath an as of yet
empty noose. She also meets with a sympathetic private eye, August (Lou
Lubin), who agrees to take her case for free - which results in both of
them breaking into Jacqueline's former company, and which in turn leaves
August stabbed. Mary makes the acquaintance of Jacqueline's lawyer Gregory
Ward (Hugh Beaumont), to find out they're secretly married, but he doesn't
know about Jacqueline's whereabouts either, and of her psychiatrist Dr.
Judd (Tom Conway, playing the same role as in Cat
People), who clearly knows more than he lets on. Mary's attempts
to find Jacqueline add up to naught, until Jacqueline shows up out of thin
air, but her condition is worrying as she seems to be terribly afraid of
something but doesn't say what. Mary, Ward, Dr. Judd, and Jason (Erford
Gage), a nice young poet just happy to help out, soon find out she has
been the member of a coven of Satan worshippers but tries to get out, only
the worshippers aren't likely to let her (and have killed 6 members who
have wanted out already), and seem to now be hell-bent to drive her to
suicide - and the condition she's in, that doesn't seem too difficult a
thing to achieve ... There's so much that's good about The
Seventh Victim, from the premise to the atmospheric direction to the
deliberate and fitting slow pace to the cast - but unfortunately as a
whole it's just not a very good film, thanks to a very confusing
screenplay. And that said, I'm not even a fan of films that try to explain
everything away, but this is a movie that seems to create mystery just for
the mystery's sake, throws in new elements with no rhyme or reason, just
to keep the viewer puzzled, and thus the film seems to just meander along
and eventually end on a very random point in the story, leaving one
dissatisfied even if so much of the film was utterly enjoyable.
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