"The Ghost Ship" - Val Lewton (directed by Mark Robson, 1943)

The Ghost Ship was the fifth successive low-budget “horror” film produced by Val Lewton in a short space of time, following The Cat People (1942), I Walked With a Zombie (1943), The Leopard Man (1943), and The Seventh Victim (1943). This was 29-year-old Mark Robson’s second directorial outing, coming immediately after his inaugural effort, The Seventh Victim. Like all of Lewton’s films, the horror element does not arise from any explicitly established supernatural element, but comes from the dark, unfathomable recesses of the human mind. And because of this, even though The Ghost Ship, like most of Lewton’s productions, has an exotic setting well beyond the shadows of the big-city streets, I would still classify it with the others as a film noir.

The story is set on a merchant ship, Altair, on which young marine officer Tom Merriam has just been given his first assignment as third officer to Captain Will Stone. Though Merriam is cheerful and optimistic, the prospects look ominous from the outset. Before boarding, Merriam hears a blind street singer comment that the ship is cursed, and then he meets a spooky-looking mute shipmate, Finn, whose voice-over comments predict that there will be deaths on the upcoming voyage. And like all of Lewton’s films, the low-key lighting, even in bright daylight, creates shadows and darkness that persistently permeate the mood.

Merriam is warmly welcomed by the friendly, civilized Captain Stone, who says he chose Merriam as third-mate, because he thinks they share a common background and can become close companions. Merriam is suitably impressed, but he soon discovers that the mild-mannered captain is in fact a rigid authoritarian. There is also some other disquieting news. When Merriam first enters the third mate’s cabin, he learns that his predecessor had only recently died from violent convulsions. Then another crew member is found dead. Maybe the ship really is cursed.

When another crew member complains that the ship should dock at the next port to fill out the crew, Captain Stone becomes angry at the insubordination and secretly causes the poor fellow to die in an accident. But Merriam discovers what happened, accuses the captain of murder, and files a formal protest at the ship’s next port of call, San Sebastian (a name of a fictitious Carribean port also used in I Walked With a Zombie). A hearing is held, but the crew, mindful of their lowly status and fearful of the captain’s malice, refuse to back up Merriam, and the case is dropped.

Assuming that he has been fired, Merriam disembarks from the ship, but he gets accidentally knocked out in a brawl and brought back on board the Altair as it sets out to sea. Now trapped with a vengeful, deranged captain, and a fearful crew that refuses even to talk to him, Merriam knows that he is a clay pigeon awaiting a fatal attack. His fears are multiplied when he discovers that the locks have been removed from his sleeping quarters cabin door and window.

When the ship’s radio operator, Sparks, is ordered to respond falsely to a query from the San Sebastian office about whether Merriam is on board, he finally sees Captain Stone’s perfidy and goes to show Merriam the untruthful response message. But Sparks was observed by Stone emerging from that meeting, and shortly thereafter he, too, is reported dead of an “accident”. Upon hearing this, Merriam assaults Stone, but he is restrained by the crew and ordered to be bound and gagged in his bunk and then sedated. Things are looking pretty grim for Merriam at this point.

However, the untruthful radio message is discovered by Finn and is passed to others. Meanwhile Captain Stone grabs a knife and goes to finish off Merriam, who is still bound and gagged in his bunk and powerless to defend himself. But Stone is caught in the act by Finn, and they engage in a ferocious fight, before Finn finally stabs Stone with his own knife.

As is customary with Lewton’s films, the acting in The Ghost Ship is emphatic and almost stereotyped. While this would be a drawback in a more conventional drama, it plays satisfactorily in the present fast-paced and film noir circumstances. One welcome contributor is Sir Lancelot, the famous calypso singer, who plays a ship’s crew member and who had also appeared effectively in I Walked With a Zombie.

On the surface, the story and film seem pretty routine, but there are some interesting elements that make it more memorable than one might have expected. Of particular significance are the five atmospheric scenes, almost set-pieces, that serve as anchoring points for the narrative and help establish lasting mental images in the viewer’s mind.

1. Early on, there is a scene of a very heavy hoist hook on the ship that swings about dangerously, because it has not been tethered. The camera work and editing are excellent here, and the rough, dynamic conditions on board the ship are well presented by this single scene. The outcome of this scene is that it emphasizes the disconnect between Captain Stone’s neatnik fussiness and the realities of responsible ship management.
2. Later, Captain Stone is called upon to perform an emergency appendectomy that is to be guided by remote medical advice provided over the ship’s radio. Stone freezes at the critical moment, and Merriam has to take over. The tension is built up in the scene by excellent shifting between various close-ups. Similar to a scene in which Captain Queeg panics inThe Caine Mutiny, this scene calls into question Stone’s professional equanimity and mental stability.
3. The scene in which the crew member is buried and crushed by the heavy anchor chain is dynamic and brutal, with fast cuts between the panicking crew member and the oblivious sailors on deck feeding more chain into the chain portal. Stone’s calm when he locks the chain cabin door, thereby dooming the crew member, establishes Stone as a cold-blooded murderer.
4. Still later, after Merriam had been unwittingly brought back to the departing ship following his failed complaint about Stone at the San Sebastian office, he is depicted in his cabin fearfully concerned that Stone might attack him in the night. Lewton’s films often have scenes like this in which the protagonist is alone and fearful of danger from the darkness. The tension is built up such that any stray noise can elicit a panicked alarm. In this case claustrophobia is added to the mix, as Merriam tries ineffectually to find a way of booby-trapping the cabin entrance. This eerie scene emphasizes Merriam’s precarious circumstances and helplessness.
5. The final life-and-death struggle in Merriam’s cabin between the mute, Finn, and Stone is violent and climactic. Since it takes place in near darkness, the viewer struggles to make out who has the upper hand. Merriam, bound and gagged to his bunk, can only look on helplessly at what seems to be a mismatch favouring Stone. Again, like the other four scenes above, the violence and dynamic editing ensure that the tension is at the highest level.

Another aspect of the film that sticks in the memory concerns the seemingly simplistic theme of authority. The issue here, of course, is not just authority, but absolute authority. On first consideration, the theme appears to be trivial and overdone in the film, but I am reminded of remarks made to me by a well-known academic about authority in another context. He was speaking of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, and my friend commented that such absolute power can only drive a person to madness. We tend to think of ruthless autocrats, such as Stalin, as always having been essentially psychopathic. But my friend argued that the possession of absolute authority actually drives a person mad, even if he didn’t start that way. On reflection, I wonder if there may be some truth to his comments. It would seem that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini was not such a murderous and ruthless dictator in his earlier days, but he became so towards the end, ordering undocumented mass executions of civilians. And now Khamanei shows similar wilful disregard for human values as the current Iranian Supreme Leader. Lord Acton’s dictum that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” should perhaps be amended to read, “... and absolute power drives you insane”.

In The Ghost Ship Captain Stone may have similarly been driven over the edge by awareness of his absolute authority of life and death over his crew. On a ship, a captain had, by rights, absolute authority and could exercise it without restraint. When the Altair stops in the port of San Sebastian and Stone meets his longtime friend, Charles, and his longtime lover, Ellen, it is evident that he is considered to be a civilized and even lovable human being. But at that time he confessed to Ellen his feelings that something was hounding his peace of mind and that he needed to work out his psychological problems. In this case a civilized, but not entirely stable, mind was not able to deal with the issues of boundless authority.

Absolute authority, of course, can have devastating consequences when applied to larger political scales. In fact over much of Chinese history, at least since the Song dynasty, it could be said that the Chinese emperor did have such absolute autocratic authority, and this came to accepted in Chinese society. At times the only allowable “expressions” of restraint were the natural occurrences of earthquakes and floods, which were interpreted to represent a withdrawal of “Heaven’s Mandate”. Only God was allowed to comment. At the time of the making of The Ghost Ship, the US was engaged in a world war with a Nazi regime whose leader also espoused such absolute authority. At the same time there were questions at home about how much extra authority the US government could reasonably assume in wartime in order to defeat the enemy. Was the seizure of absolute authority necessary to defeat such a tyrant? The argument made in this film seems to be that, even in military situations, the exercise of absolute authority should be restrained. It will inevitably lead to deranged decision-making.

Another theme of interest to some critics is the suggestion of homoerotic elements to the film. Stone seems unable to consummate his “love” for Ellen, and he seems to have expressed more warmth for Merriam early on than he later did for Ellen. And in fact Ellen does warn Merriam in a motherly fashion at one point not to live exclusively among men and to seek the company of women (which he does at the film’s end). However, I think the psychoanalytic analyses and interests in this area are exaggerated and should not be overly stressed.

The Ghost Ship ends rather abruptly, without the usual moralizing that would wrap up many melodramas. In the closing shots we simply see Merriam disembarking back at San Pedro and meeting a young lady who had been recommended to him by Ellen. He has been returned to civilization.
★★★

"The Leopard Man" - Val Lewton (directed by Jacques Tourneur, 1943)

Val Lewton produced a string of low-budget “horror” films in the 1940s that have since attracted a large following and become cult classics. Of these under-appreciated films, the most overlooked of them all, even today, is probably The Leopard Man (1943), directed by Jacques Tourneur. This was the third and final collaboration between Tourneur and Lewton, after Cat People (1942) and I Walked with a Zombie (1943), and while the first two are widely celebrated, The Leopard Man is often dismissed, incorrectly in my opinion, as a failure. On the contrary, I would rate it perhaps the second best, after I Walked with a Zombie, among the films that Lewton produced. It is a surprisingly complex and fascinating work, but like all of Lewton’s films, it suffers from some minor deficiencies, perhaps due in part to resource constraints. On the surface it is a murder story and a film noir, but as with Lewton’s other works, there is a dark undercurrent that conjures up feelings of primitive, supernatural powers that go beyond our “modern” understanding. In fact, like Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and Isle of the Dead, the film suggests an underlying confrontation between a traditional, pre-scientific cultural mode and our own modernist Western culture, which is dominated by positivist and materialistic thinking. In this film, the setting is New Mexico, where the native ethnic Mexican inhabitants sometimes have superstitious fears of dark forces and the mysteries of fatal destinies. This presentation of this confrontation raises the film above the level of an ordinary murder mystery and propels it into the murky regions of our inexpressible fears

The story, based on the novel The Black Alibi, by Cornell Woolrich, begins at a local nightclub in a New Mexican town. A woman entertainer, Kiki Walker, along with her press agent boyfriend, Jerry Manning, have arrived from out of town and hope to win the favour of the local audience. In an effort to outshine a competing local Mexican performer, the dancer Clo-Clo, Jerry arranges for Kiki to enter the nightclub with a semi-tame black jaguar (the leopard) on a leash while Clo-Clo is performing. But Clo-Clo, upset by the upstaging, intentionally antagonises the leopard, and it breaks from its leash and escapes into the night. In the next few days there are a series of grisly murders presented, all attributed to the leopard. As Jerry observes the ongoing police investigation, though, he begins to suspect that the leopard may not be responsible for all of the deaths. His suspicions are quickly directed towards the local museum curator, the urbane pipe-smoking Dr. Galbraith, who is an expert on natural history and local wildlife. Jerry and Kiki attempt to bait the curator into engaging in another attack, and when they are successful, the murderer is finally captured.

The acting in The Leopard Man is generally satisfactory, but Dennis O’Keefe’s performance as Jerry is unfortunately wooden and unconvincing. Another deficiency is the absence of any real “chemistry” between Jerry and Kiki (played by Jean Brooks) as a romantic duo. This was not the only time that a Lewton-produced film was undermined by an unconvincing male character actor. Curiously, the actresses in Lewton’s films were almost always uniformly good. Also, as a whodunit murder mystery, The Leopard Man is not very puzzling and fails to live up to the usual demands of that genre. Halfway into the piece there is enough evidence available for the audience to suspect Dr. Galbraith, and this failure to keep the audience puzzled concerning who perpetrated the crime has led some people to dismiss the entire film as uninteresting. But we shouldn't really look at the film as a just an ordinary whodunit mystery (although that may have been Woolrich's original intention in the novel), because the filmmakers have pursued some more subterranean currents that make the film an interesting cinematic experience. Of particular interest is the portrayal of the circumstances leading up to the three grisly murders, which take up more than half the film's running time.

In connection with the fates of the three doomed women, there is an early portentous, iconic shot of the garden fountain at the nightclub, which constantly shoots a stream of water into the air and maintains a rubber ball aloft at the top of its stream. Dr. Galbraith remarks later on in the story that all people and animals are similar to that fountain ball – they may appear to be in a stable situation, but they are actually driven by powerful and turbulent forces that are beyond their understanding. Our ignorance concerning the dark forces of our destiny is a major theme of the film. In addition to that recurrent visual icon, there is a relentless audio motif associated with the driving, rhythmic sound of castanets, and this haunting background sound similarly conveys a feeling of hidden forces stirring up the passions. While the sound of the castanets is the specific sonic signature of the vivacious Clo-Clo, the pulsating sounds also evoke the passions underlying flamenco music in general. With these symbols and sounds recurring in the background, the film obsessively tracks the fatal narratives of three different Mexican girls, each of whom has the youthful passion for life to try to overcome her fears of the unknown -- that unknown danger that lies just outside and beyond the comforting light of the community and lurks out there in the darkness. Each of these mini-narratives follows one of the girls and quickly establishes its own social context and circumstances filled with both hopes and apprehensions. Each of the girls in her own way resolves to push back her instinctive feelings of fear of the dark in order to follow her own pursuits. And each girl is ultimately subjected to a violent death, apparently by the leopard, and forthwith her story, along with all of it social context and personages, is abandoned. This is an unusual narrative format for a film, but it goes with the themes of fatal destiny and the terminal fears of darkness and death. We follow the story of each girl, becoming involved in her concerns, until she encounters a fearful situation in the darkness. But unlike most stories, where the protagonist survives the scary test and the story continues, here each of these stories ends in the brutal death of the female protagonist, with whom we have come to sympathise. Each of the endings of these mini-narratives is brilliantly filmed and manages to convey a graphic sense of mounting tension and alarm. Particularly noteworthy is the first sequence, involving the teenage girl Teresa, who must go out at night to purchase some cornmeal for her mother. To carry out this task, she must walk across some dark fields and under a railroad bridge in order to get to the store, and this frightening walk in the darkness is truly a cinematic tour de force and a credit to Trouneur and cinematrographer Robert De Grasse. In fact this early sequence is so extraordinarily gripping that the viewer may doubt that the remainder of the film can possibly live up to it. But the second murder sequence, involving an upperclass girl (played by the beautiful Tuulikki Paananen) who goes out at night to a cemetery for a lovers’ tryst, is also haunting and enthralling, in a different way. These two sequences alone make the film a memorable and worthwhile experience.

The three mini-stories are part of the larger themes of the film. Jerry and Kiki, the modernist characters in the larger narrative, are gradually made aware that their own self-images are merely artificial masks that they have adopted from their own cultural backgrounds. They have always been trying to act cool, cynical, and sophisticated, but they come to realize in this film that they are only fooling themselves. They are perpetually hiding their real emotional feelings and sympathies, not only from others, but also from themselves. This contrast between the modernist culture and the more authentically in-touch-with-their-feelings Mexican people is picked up later on in the film during a nightclub encounter between the Hispanic Clo-Clo and a middle-aged gray-haired "European" (i.e. non-Hispanic) gentleman patron. The gentleman’s adult daughter and her husband, who have accompanied him to the nightclub, are also cut off from genuine feelings and bored with their surroundings. When the man's daughter sees him socialising with the Clo-Clo at a separate table, she expresses disgust and embarrassment with his, to her, unseemly behaviour. Meanwhile the gentleman and Clo-Clo, alone at their own table, engage in a spontaneous and cordially innocent discussion about what interests them. We are led to the feeling that this business of being cut off from one's inner feelings is common to our modernist Western culture, whereas the traditionallyl-oriented Mexican people in the film are more natural and emotionally spontaneous.

This brings us to the consideration of Doctor Galbraith, the curator of the museum. He exhibits the behaviour of an academic, familiar with scientific understanding about the natural world. But inside of him is a boiling cauldron of twisted passion that, we ultimately learn, drives him to commit savage, animal attacks on innocent people. It is as though the conflict between his inner self and his outer persona is so great that it leads to violent, uncontrollable eruptions.

The overall outcome of The Leopard Man, with its individual mini-narratives each dead-ended by the cruel turbulence of dark forces, is ultimately a matter of interpretation. Jerry and Kiki resolve to be more authentic and responsive to their true feelings in the future. Perhaps, in the face of the mysterious and turbulent forces that perpetually surround us, just out of sight and in the darkness, this is our only option. Yes, the film seems to suggest, we should all have the courage to walk straight towards our dreams . . . . but don’t go out alone when darkness falls.
★★★½

"Bedlam" - Val Lewton (directed by Mark Robson, 1946)

Val Lewton produced Bedlam (1946) shortly after The Body Snatcher (1945), and like that previous work, it is more of a grisly historical melodrama than a horror film. Also, like The Body Snatcher, there is no suggestion of the supernatural, as there often is in other Lewton-produced films. The screenplay, to which Lewton again contributed under the pseudonym of “Carlos Keith” and on which he collaborated with director Mark Robson, was inspired by Hogarth’s series of paintings, “A Rake’s Progress”, and there are several inset stills from that work inserted into the film for inter-scene punctuation.

The film is set in 1761 at St. Mary's of Bethlehem Asylum, which is an allusion to Bethlem Royal Hospital in London and known as “Bedlam”. In those days citizens could amuse themselves by paying tuppence and entering the asylum to laugh at the lunatics that were held there. On one such occasion near the beginning of the film, wealthy Lord Mortimer and his protege, Nell Bowen, stop at the asylum for some entertainment and learn that one of the inmates has just died trying to escape. Ms. Bowen assumes upper-class airs and feigns indifference, but we soon learn that she suspects that the asylum inmates are ill-treated. Invited by the asylum master, George Sims, to inspect more thoroughly, Nell finds the conditions appalling and vows to campaign for asylum reform. This sets the narrative conflict of the film, as the spirited Nell Bowen, played by Anna Lee, confronts the cynical and cruel asylum master, played by Boris Karloff. But the film is more than a simple melodrama, because it engages in a lengthy and nontrivial moral debate over the course of the drama.

On the occasion of visiting the asylum, Nell runs into a morally upright Quaker, Hannay, who had just applied for a stonemason’s job at the asylum. They start a discussion about the proper attitude towards one’s fellow creatures that will run through the entire film. As a member of the Society of Friends, Hannay, of course, is steadfastly opposed to violence and believes that compassion and love (agape) are the only proper responses to whatever one encounters. Nell gradually becomes sympathetic but is sceptical that such naivete will lead anywhere. She does urge her patron, the rotund and foppish Lord Mortimer, to devote funds to the betterment of inmate conditions at the asylum, but Mortimer balks when he learns how expensive this will be.

Nell becomes fed up with the self-indulgent Mortimer and scornfully abandons his patronage, returning to her former occupation as a street performer. But she continues her campaign against Mortimer and the asylum, and soon the devious Sims has her forcibly committed as an inmate/prisoner in the asylum. Now inside, Nell, is terrified by the possibility of being manhandled by the population of deranged inmates. Hannay manages to pay her a visit, but he tells her that he is powerless to do anything, and in fact now that she is “inside”, she has the opportunity to use Christian love to change the behaviour of the inmates for the better.

This she does, and the inmates become docile and affectionate before her. When Sims comes around to impose his final “treatment” on Nell, the inmates turn on him and Nell escapes. Now in charge, the inmates put Sims before a mock trial. Sims pleads for his life, telling them of his own doubts and fears, and they surprisingly sympathise, but before Sims can make his escape, he is stabbed by a not-quite catatonic inmate. The inmates then use bricks and mortar to wall up the still-conscious Sims in “Cask of Amontillado” fashion, ensuring his death.

Now, at the end of the film, news of the disappearance of Sims draws Hannay and Nell back to visit the asylum. When stonemason Hannay sees the recently cemented wall, he figures out what happened, but he clams up, signaling to us that Nell's pragmatic approach has apparently won out in their own personal contest concerning ethical behaviour. Nell whispers to him that, after all, the inmates have already suffered enough, and Hannay assenting, sighs in resignation that God will give final judgement, anyway.

Despite generally good cinematography and acting, Bedlam has some weaknesses. The early upper-class frolics and witty verbal exchanges are supposed to be humorous, but they have a forced quality to them and don’t seem to lead anywhere dramatically. Anna Lee, as Nell Bowen, is excellent and magnetic, and Boris Karloff, in a strong performance as the evil George Sims, is unusually unctuous and serpentine, even for him. The strength of these two leads serves to carry the action and helps maintain the focus on the primary contest between them. The acting of the others is reasonably good, but as in Isle of the Dead, the performance of Jason Robards, Sr., is completely unconvincing.

Overall, Bedlam is an odd mixture and perhaps tries to do too much. It is sometimes humourous, sometimes spooky, and sometimes alarming. It is expressionistic only at times, and it never quite hits its stride as a thriller, although it does have its moments. A praiseworthy feature is the fact that it reminds us of what dramatists and filmmakers have long sought to expose: the obscenity of psychiatric practice in Western societies and the unjust way that medical staff can incarcerate people indefinitely. Bedlam stands in a line with other excellent films, such as Shock Corridor (1963), and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), that have attempted, so far with very little success, to bring about an end to these practices [1].

Outside of the main conflict between Nell Bowen and George Sims, the subtextual moral debate between Hannay and Nell has its own interest, particularly because of the conclusion it reaches. The film has not finally come down in favour of literal honesty or the strict observance of a code of social morality. Instead, it follows the course of the gradual opening-up of Nell Bowen’s heart and concludes on a promising note of love. Nell has followed her own unique path and has not submitted to anything or anyone -- not to the self-indulgence of Mortimer, not to the cynicism and force of Sims, and not even to the docility and helplessness of Hannay. It is the rigid Hannay, after all, who has changed at the end of the story, not Nell. She has succeeded on her own self-styled and passionate terms.
★★★

Notes:

1. For further reflections of mental health care, see my reviews of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Shutter Island (2010).

"The Curse of the Cat People" - Val Lewton (directed by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise, 1944)

The Curse of the Cat People (1944) was the sixth in a series of “horror” films produced by Val Lewton during the early 1940s and is plotted as a sequel to the first film in that sequence, Cat People. But this sequel, directed by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise (his first directorial outing), is vastly different from the earlier film (directed by Jacques Tourneur) and suffers in the comparison. It is an ingenius characteristic of Lewton’s films that the expressionistic presentation evokes a sense of dread suggesting supernatural events are in play. At the same time there is always a rational explanation for these same events, and the viewers are kept on the dividing line between the two contrasting interpretations. It is this very sense of doubt that make the films plausible for the more sophisticated viewer: the viewer’s imagination is always kept on this knife edge. In The Curse of the Cat People, however, the sense of dread is only toyed with, but largely suppressed. On this occasion it is a child’s clearly imaginary fantasies which are evoked and in which we are suppose to engage, but it doesn’t really work. Instead of truly immersing ourselves in the child's fantasy world, we are only able to see her from the outside – sympathetically, to be sure – but it's not the same sense of shared participation as in other Lewton films.

The story picks up some years after the events of Cat People. Oliver and Alice, who were lovers at the end of that movie, are now married and have a six-year-old daughter, Amy, who is criticised by her parents for being too dreamy. After seeing an old photograph of Oliver’s first wife, Irena, Amy conjures up a special imaginary friend with Irena’s form. Amy also stumbles upon a spooky house in the neighbourhood, where an eccentric old actress befriends Amy and tells her scary tales. Amy wanders off one evening and gets lost, eventually finding her way to the spooky old house. Her alarmed parents alert the police and set about searching for her. They finally trace her to the old house, and the film ends happily, with the parents accepting a child psychologist’s prescription that if they love her unconditionally, Amy will stop making up imaginary characters.

This film fails on several levels, and I find it surprising that many reviewers revere the movie as a wonderful fantasy.

1. The narrative, such as it is, barely moves forward. The only issue is that there is a child who is criticised by her parents for making up imaginary friends. She gets a spanking for this and is ostracised by her friends. At the end, the only resolution is that she still has her imaginary friend, but her parents are now more accepting of her. This is not a compelling plot.
2. The whole intriguing idea of “cat people” (people transformed into ferocious cats when their passions are arounsed) from the earlier film is dropped here. There are no cat people in the film, and there is no curse. At one point in the film, Alice asks rhetorically if their family has been cursed – a line that was perhaps inserted into the dialogue merely to justify the film’s title.
3. The cinematography and editing are below the standards of Lewton’s films with Tourneur and Robson. In fact there are so many jarring jump cuts in the film that one has to wonder if Wise deserves his editing credit for Citizen Kane (1941). There are numerous meaningless overhead shots that don’t fit in, and the dramatic changes in lighting that are supposed to signal Amy’s fantasies appear very artificial and are ineffective.
4. There does appear to be some potential for drama at the old house, but this is just a tease. For example, there’s a tense, dramatic moment when Amy and family servant, Edward, are trying to leave the spooky old house and are unable to open the door to get out. But this is a complete red herring and doesn't lead anywhere. In fact the entire drama between the old actress and her estranged daughter is empty and comes to nothing, despite the poorly motivated suggestion at the end of the film that the daughter is about to murder Amy.
5. And speaking of that daughter, since many of the characters from Cat People reappear in Curse of the Cat People and are played by the same actors and actresses, there is a particular problem with the old actress’s daughter, Barbara Farren. This role is played by Elizabeth Russell, who appeared in Cat People as a mysterious cat-like women who taunted Irena and spoke Serbian. Although the physical identification of Russell is obvious, there’s no indication in The Curse of the Cat People that Barbara Farren, not exactly a Serbian name, is this same person that was in Cat People. What are we supposed to make of this duplication?

There are a couple of redeeming elements to The Curse of the Cat People. The scenes at the old house and the old actress’s (Julia Dean's) scary storytelling do pick up our interest a bit.  There was potential here, but it was just left hanging without being developed. And Ann Carter, in the role of Amy, is wonderfully sensitive and believable. She carries the entire film on her back, so to speak, and almost makes it worthwhile. But not quite.
★★

"Cat People" - Val Lewton (directed by Jacques Tourneur, 1942)

Cat People was the first of a series of horror films produced by Val Lewton during the early 1940s. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur, who would next team up with Lewton to make the sublime I Walked With a Zombie (1943) and would later direct the classic film noir, Out of the Past (1947). The film was a great commercial success on its release, but only gained critical acceptance much later. The enduring qualities of the film lie in its superb black-and-white production values that were used by Tourneur and Lewton to evoke fear of something unknown lurking in the darkness. In fact, the film relies entirely on our imaginative dread of the unknown.

The film opens with a quotation from the fictitious Dr. Louis Judd, who is actually a character in this film – a psychiatrist whose later romantic interest in the main character proves to be his undoing. The same character, played by the brother of George Sanders, Tom Conway, also appears in Lewton’s later film, The Seventh Victim. For reasons that become clear as the story evolves, Cat People can then be considered a sequel to The Seventh Victim, but the two films have no other linkages beyo0nd the commonality of the Dr. Judd character. In addition, Cat People is also a prequel to the later The Curse of the Cat People (1944), although the plot connection between those two is also not very strong.

The opening scene in a city zoo shows a pretty young woman, Irena (played by Simone Simon), making sketches of the black panther in the cage before her. She meets there a young marine architect, Oliver, who is eager to strike up a romantic acquaintanceship with her, and in no time at all he manages to get himself invited back to her apartment. The dimly lit apartment is visually spooky, bedecked with numerous cat images. Oliver’s fascination with a small sculpture in the apartment, depicting a knight who has impaled a cat with his sword, leads Irena to reveal a little about the legends of her Serbian background. It seems that at one time the country was victimised by evil “cat people” who were eventually routed from the country by “King John”, the subject of the table sculpture in her apartment. But Irena says, menacingly, that some of the cat people escaped to the mountains and continued their evil ways. It will soon become clear that Irena fears that she is descendent from the cat people. Subsequent scenes showing animals (“Mother Nature”) becoming agitated in her presence suggest further that there is some disturbing element inside Irena.

Nevertheless, their relationship deepens and Oliver proposes marriage, but Irena still refuses to kiss Oliver. She is fearful that her suspected evil nature will turn her into a vicious cat, a black panther, if something arouses her passions, whether love or jealousy. Although they go ahead and marry, Irena’s inhibition prevent any physical contact with Oliver, and so the marriage remains unconsummated. Oliver recommends that Irena visit a psychiatrist (Dr. Judd), who assures her that her superstitious fears are all in her mind. Meanwhile the frustrated Oliver is spending more and more time with his office friend, Alice. Irena soon becomes mindful of this budding romance, and becomes jealous. One evening she sneaks out to see what Oliver is doing so late at the office, and observes through a nearby restaurant window a chance meeting between him and Alice. When Alice sets out to walk home alone in the dark, Irena follows her. This sets up a celebrated scene, lasting only about minute and a half, in which Alice becomes increasingly fearful of being stalked by someone out of view. The tension builds to a fever pitch, as Alice becomes terrified. Finally, what sounds like the terrifying growl of a panther (to us, anyway), turns out to be the screeching brakes of a stopping bus, which Alice boards in relief. Nothing happened, and our fears are quickly dissipated. Lewton was to repeat this kind of ominous, nighttime stalking scene with equally chilling effect in The Seventh Victim.

The streetwalking scene is followed by another celebrated scene, in which Alice goes for a lone, nighttime swim at her hotel and fears that some fearful beast is lurking in the shadows. This scene, too, is quite short, and there is nothing threatening clearly identifiable, other than suggestive shadows reflected off the rippling waters of the swimming pool. Alice screams, and when the lights come on, Irena is seen standing in the corner with a benign smile on her face. Once again, it was only a false alarm, and our fears could be interpreted as simply overwrought imagination.

The plot now quickly moves towards its conclusion. Irena, having become convinced by Dr. Judd that her fears are only delusions, resolves to consummate her marriage. But Oliver reveals to her that it is too late; he now loves Alice. Irena sinks into a dark despair, and Oliver goes off to consult with Alice. Dr. Judd, now romantically attracted to Irena, sneaks into their apartment in hopes of catching Irena alone. But when Irena comes home and he tries to seduce her, he is attacked by a shadowy beast and mauled to death. Irena then runs off to the zoo and sets the caged black panther free, but she is killed in the act.

This film has some truly outstanding cinematography, wonderful set design, skilful editing, and good acting performances by all concerned. Simone Simon is particularly attractive as the kittenish Irena who descends into the depths of feline mystery. There is something eternally fascinating about cats. Whenever I see one, I am always amazed how it can often be so cute and, at the same time, so capable of disconcertingly vicious behaviour. This is something apparently intrinsic to our eternal fascination with the mystery of cats, and the filmmakers have manage to summon up that fascination in the personage of Irena. So from these production values, alone, the film is worth seeing. But the film also suffers from serious flaws.

In subsequent Lewton films, there is always a “rational” explanation of the events, and a supernatural exposition is not absolutely required. That is one of the attractive features about these productions, because they establish an atmosphere of believable realism and, at the same time, manage to maintain a sense of doubt in our minds. In Cat People a realistic interpretation of the story would suggest that Irena suffered from a mental ailment and occasionally attacked people viciously. This would not require us to believe that Irena actually turned into a real panther. But in Cat People, there are three situations that demand the supernatural interpretation, and these defeat the moody effects of the story:

1. After Irena stalks Alice on the streets, we are shown some sheep that have been slaughtered by a beast. Pawprints leading away from the slaughter are shown to gradually turn into footprints from a lady’s shoes. The only interpretation here is that a panther transformed itself back into Irena.
2. When Dr. Judd is attacked and killed, we actually see a panther attacking him, in one fleeting shot. Again, the only interpretation here is that Irena transformed into a real panther.
3. At the end of the film, when Irena is shown to have died in front of the panther’s zoo cage, there is a momentary final shot of a panther wearing Irena’s coat and lying dead on the sidewalk.

These three scenes, which destroy our suspension of disbelief, were forced upon Lewton by the RKO studio over his objections. He managed to have enough artistic control in his later productions to resist this kind of pressure for cheap shock effects.

There are a few other odd things about this story.

• Simone Simon’s character is so innocent and sweet most of the time, perhaps too sweet, that there doesn’t seem to be any ominous potential of something dark lurking inside of her. This is perhaps a weakness. We need a bit more foreshadowing of the evil that is to overtake her.
• Cigarette smoking is almost obsessively displayed by Oliver, Alice, and several others in the film. These are supposed to be the “normal” people, but the cigarette-smoking behaviour on display suggests a fetish and its own kind of dysfunctional personality.
• The assumption (discussed towards that latter stages of the film) that Oliver and Alice can have Dr. Judd put Irena away permanently in a mental institution reveals a certain sickness of its own about the mental health community that exists in society, even to this day. In fact the serpentine and slimy Dr. Judd is such a caricature of an intellectually dubious profession that one suspects Lewton and Tourneur were having their own private joke at the expense of psychiatry (then in its Freudian heyday).
• There is a kind of negative, anti-feminine tone to this tale. “Normal” women are shown to be sunny, down-to-earth characters – good chums, so to speak. The mysterious, alluring aspect of femininity, even sexual desire, is seen as cat-like – dangerous, unpredictable, psychotic. This is a view that I reject.

These elements are interesting, but they prevent Cat People from being a masterpiece. The true masterpiece was soon to come, though: I Walked With a Zombie.
★★★

"The Body Snatcher" - Val Lewton (directed by Robert Wise, 1945)

The Body Snatcher (1945) was one of the last of the “horror” films produced for RKO by Val Lewton during the 1940s, which included I Walked With a Zombie, The Seventh Victim, and Isle of the Dead. However, The Body Snatcher is not truly a horror film, (there is no real mystery or suggestion of dark forces), and it’s only very marginally an example of film noir. It's primarily a grisly crime film set in the past.

The plot, based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, is set in Edinburgh in 1831, just three years after the notorious Burke and Hare murders and the subsequent sensational trial that led to their hanging. Burke and Hare had pursued the “resurrection trade”, robbing graves and selling the cadavers to doctors at the Ediburgh medical school, for whom cadavers needed for teaching were in short supply. Soon Burke and Hare had expanded their activities by murdering social outsiders and selling their bodies, too. The Body Snatcher is about the continuing activities of this practice.

At the beginning of the film, a young Edinburgh medical student, Donald Fettes, meets a young woman who urgently seeks an operation for her crippled daughter. Famous surgeon Wolfe MacFarlane, the mentor of Fettes, refuses, explaining that the operation would be risky, and he can more effectively use his time to promote human health by teaching student doctors who collectively can then go out and save many times more lives. This establishes the moral compass for the film. MacFarlane, who sees things in rather cold, ends-justify-the-means terms, always seeks to act on behalf of his own vision of the greater good, even if individuals may suffer now and then. As a case in point, we soon learn that he employs a common city cabman, John Gray, to supply him with cadavers robbed from local graveyards. He justifies this practice rather matter-of-factly to young Fettes by pointing out that there are just not enough human specimens available in order to provide proper instruction to medical students. Until the law is liberalised (it would be in 1832), he must engage in this unsavory, but necessary, practice. We also learn that Gray (played by Boris Karloff) shares an unsavory past with MacFarlane that he can use for blackmail purposes.

Fettes finds himself compromised into participating in these highly questionable activities, when, out of compassion for the young crippled girl, he urges Gray to go out and procure another body so that MacFarlane can prepare himself for an operation on the girl. But with graveyards more closely guarded now, Gray goes out and murders a street singer in order to supply the cadaver. When MacFarlane’s assistant, Joseph (played by Bela Lugosi), gets wind of these goings on, he goes to Gray and demands to be cut in on the take. Gray isn’t about to accept so easily, and he murders Joseph. Dr. MacFarlane now sees that Gray is out of control and goes to Gray’s apartment for a confrontation, which ends in the death of Gray. Fettes is horrified by these events, but MacFarlane assures him that with Gray out of the way, they can get back to practising medicine and serving mankind. However, MacFarlane is soon tempted to engage in his own grave robbing, and he convinces Fettes to join him. They go out to a remote graveyard on a dark and stormy night and dig up the body of an old woman to take back to the school. On the way back, MacFarlane begins hallucinating that the cadaver has somehow turned into Gray. He loses control of the carriage, which eventually goes off the road and plunges down a ravine, killing MacFarlane.

Although The Body Snatcher has a number of avid fans, it falls short of the other Lewton films. With a script based on a Robert Louis Stephenson story and a solid cast, featuring Henry Daniell, Boris Karloff, and Bela Lugosi, this film should have been much better. There are three principal shortcomings.

1. The acting. Perhaps the biggest problem of the film is the wildly over-the-top performance of Boris Karloff. He is a constantly leering and smirking bogey man, who devours far too much screen time with these antics. There is no sense of dramatic build-up when the volume is turned up full all the time and with the Karloff's character flashing evil grins at every possible turn, making Jack Nicholson’s performance in The Shining seem tame by comparison. The second biggest problem is Russell Wade, whose performance as the naive Donald Fettes is hopelessly weak and unconvincing.
2. The story. Lewton and director Robert Wise abandoned the polarity developed in earlier Lewton films, such as I Walked With a Zombie, wherein there was an eerie tension between the rationalist point of view and that of dark magic. What they had this time instead was the moral dilemma that can occur when utilitarian-based actions conflict with social mores. Where should one draw the line? MacFarlane thought it was OK to rob graves in order to put the cadavers to a useful purpose in medical training. Would it be acceptable to kill a person in order to save additional, other lives? MacFarlane didn't go that far, of course, but there is a potential tension here that could have beeen engaged. Unfortunately, this line was not developed effectively. Instead, the film is loaded with Karloff’s nasty grimaces and gloomy night shots, as if that alone would compensate. There is indeed one moment in a pub when Gray and MacFarlane look into the mirror and Gray reminds the doctor that, despite his high reputation, he is really just as ignorant as everybody else. He only knows the mechanical operation of the body parts, but he doesn’t understand the truly significant aspects of living. Here we have the intriguing core issue of the film, but, unfortunately, nothing more is made of it. One further weakness of the plot: Lugosi's role is so incidental that one gets the feeling his part was artificially thrown in just to have his name on the marquee.
3. The music. There is intrusive, noisy soundtrack music that is apparently supposed to excite the viewer during action scenes, but it is merely an annoyance.

There are several things worthy of praise, though:

• Henry Daniell gives a splendid performance as Dr. MacFarlane and almost rescues the film single-handedly.
• Karloff’s murder of Lugosi, which demonstrates the suffocation technique of Burke and Hare, is chilling. Since all of the other murders are done off-screen, and the cadavers are never seen in the flesh, this is the one effectively shocking moment in the film.
• The violent fistfight between MacFarlane and Gray in near silhouette darkness before the fireplace is well done. And we are kept from knowing just who kills whom until later.
• The final, deadly carriage ride with MacFarlane and the ghostly body of Gray is also effective and memorable.

Director Robert Wise, who had worked with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane, also directed the over-praised, The Haunting, which I found talky, wooden, and lacking suspense. Admittedly, there were budget limitations, but I found the cinematography and film editing to be much better in other Lewton films that had similar budgetary constraints. Lewton did better with other directors.
★★½

Val Lewton

Films of Val Lewton:

• Cat People - Val Lewton (directed by Jacques Tourneur, 1942)
• I Walked with a Zombie - Val Lewton (directed by Jacques Tourneur, 1943)
• The Leopard Man - Val Lewton (directed by Jacques Tourneur, 1943)
• The Seventh Victim - Val Lewton (directed by Mark Robson, 1943)
• The Ghost Ship - Val Lewton (directed by Mark Robson, 1943)
• The Curse of the Cat People - Val Lewton (directed by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise, 1944)
• The Body Snatcher - Val Lewton (directed by Robert Wise, 1945)
• Isle of the Dead - Val Lewton (directed by Mark Robson, 1945)
• Bedlam - Val Lewton (directed by Mark Robson, 1946)

"Isle of the Dead" - Val Lewton (directed by Mark Robson, 1945)

Isle of the Dead was one of the last of Val Lewton’s films that were produced during the war period, which included The Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, and The Seventh Victim. The basic image of Isle of the Dead is inspired by the famous evocative painting by Arnold Böcklin. The story of this film has some philosophical affinities with I Walked With a Zombie, so it’s interesting to examine why it doesn’t quite measure up to the greatness of that previous film.

The story (a good review of which can be found here) is set during the 1913 Balkan war between Greece and Turkey, and it opens with a scene depicting the kill-or-be-killed brutality of war. Greek general Pherides (played by Boris Karloff, in one his finest performances) condemns to death an officer colleague who underperformed in a recent battle. An American war correspondent, Oliver Davis, who witnesses that scene begins a discussion with General Pherides that results in their joint intention to visit the grave of Pherides's wife on a nearby coastal island. During this sequence, we learn that the army is not only threatened by the enemy but also by the appearance of septicemic plague, which could cause massive casualties. Anyone who dies must be buried immediately in order to curtail the spread of the disease.

When they arrive on the isle, they meet a retired archeology professor, Albrecht, who is living in a house owned by a Greek woman, Madame Kyra, and served by a maid, Thea. Albrecht has offered shelter to three English foreigners seeking to escape the ravages of the war. Very soon one of these guests dies, and when General Pherides summons the military doctor, Dr. Drossos, he is informed that the guest has died from the plague. General Pherides, a man used to making tough decisions in wartime, decides to quarantine the island: in order to protect his troops on the mainland, nobody is permitted to leave the island. So the rest of the film is restricted to the fate of these seven people: General Pherides, Dr. Drossos, Oliver Davis, Madame Kyra, Thea, and the English diplomat, St. Aubyn, and his wife. Somewhat like Albert Camus’s The Plague, they all have their attitudes towards the threat of death.

Soon St Aubyn succumbs to the plague, and Madame Kyra, a woman steeped in superstitious beliefs of evil spirts, decides that Thea is possessed by the vampire-like evil demoness, Vorvolaka. General Pherides, a man guided by strict observance of the whatever laws are in force, dismisses Kyra’s old-wives tales as backward rubbish and out-of-tune with the modern world. Drossos, the doctor, has a firm belief in medical science, but knows that in the present circumstances, he is powerless. Albrecht is something of a pantheist and believes that preying to whatever god one might believe in will give some comfort. Mrs. St. Aubyn, Thea, and Davis are humanists, concerned with the welfare of the people around them and unwilling to submit to draconian schemes that are outside of their horizons.

As the plot unfolds further, we learn that Mrs. St. Aubyn suffers from a form of catalepsis that causes her to appear to be dead for perhaps as long as a day. She confesses this to Doctor Drossos, and tells him that she has always had a horrible fear of being buried alive. It comes as no surprise that Drossos soon succumbs to the plague, and when Mrs. St Aubyn later collapses, she is presumed to have died from the plague, too (but, of course, we suspect differently). So Mrs. St Aubyn is quickly entombed inside a stone casket in the ancient burial crypt.

Meanwhile Kyra has been working on General Pherides, insistently reminding him of her belief that Thea is Vorvolaka. Pherides is susceptible because of some earlier bad-feeling between himself and Thea over Thea’s dislike of his use of military force to solve all problems.

Although a warm sirocco now coming to the island means that it will kill off the plague-bearing fleas and put an end to the quarantine, Pherides cannot rejoice, because he feels the early plague symptoms and knows that his death is near. At the same time, we hear Mrs. St. Aubyn’s desperate screams from the crypt and know that she has awakened, but is still entombed. Meanwhile Davis, now amorously protective towards Thea, urges her to stay outside in the evening, away from Kyra’s accusations. As Thea approaches the crypt, she sees in the dark shadows Mrs. St. Aubyns, who has broken out of her casket and is now utterly mad. Mrs. St. Aubyns, in her deranged state, grabs an ancient trident relic and kills both Kyra and Pherides. She then runs away from her pursuers, towards a terrace cliff wall, where she jumps off the edge to her death.

It is interesting to compare Isle of the Dead with I Walked With a Zombie, since both films present conflicting world-views concerning life and death. Isle of the Dead, offers a clash between scientific beliefs and those of witchcraft, while I Walked With a Zombie depicts a similar clash between Western European thinking and Voodoo. In addition, both films feature brooding atmospheric and evocative black-and-white cinematography, in which characters move about in a shadow-laden interiors and exteriors. But I Walked With a Zombie is definitely superior in all respects, and here are a few areas in which Isle of the Dead is deficient:

1. Although the mise-en-scene of both films is superb, Robson’s cinematic sequencing and editing in Isle of the Dead cannot measure up to Tourneur’s work in I Walked With a Zombie. Isle of the Dead has frequent mildly jarring straight-on-axis cuts to medium shots and close-ups. There are also a number of repetitive front-facing followed by back-view shots of people walking. This is somewhat surprising, given Robson’s role as film editor in I Walked With a Zombie.
2. The plot structure in Isle of the Dead is not well motivated. Why would Mrs. Aubyn not inform others about her cataleptic tendencies after the death of Drossos, given the proclivity of people on the island to bury anyone who appears to be dead? How did she get out of that casket so quickly? Granted such an entombing experience might drive one mad, why did she suddenly become a homicidal maniac? Why does Thea wander over to the crypt when she was waiting outside the house? And the act of Mrs. Aubyn jumping off the terrace is a much too tidy way to finish off the loose ends.
3. The island black people in I Walked With a Zombie are treated with some sympathy and depth, and their world-view is given some weight that balances that of the Western European view. In Isle of the Dead, on the other hand, the superstitious beliefs in the Greek demoness Vorvolaka seem absurdly backward. This reduces the tension between the two perspectives and deflates one’s interest.
4. Despite the superb performance by Karloff, who manages to present the character of a fanatic autocrat with some degree of sympathy and believability, the performances of Jason Robards Sr. (as Albrecht) and Marc Cramer (as Oliver Davis) are completely unconvincing. Robards, who was an established stage-actor, is much too jovial and avuncular for the circumstances of this story. Cramer is so casual it's as if he has jumped into this film from another film set. It seems like everything is a joke to him.

Still, the atmospheric scenes of Thea wandering around in the darkness and getting fleeting glimpses of the mad Mrs. Aubyn in the shadows are gripping. And Boris Karloff’s intense performance alone makes the film worth seeing.
★★★

"I Walked with a Zombie" - Val Lewton (directed by Jacques Tourneur, 1943)

I Walked with a Zombie, one of a series of memorable films produced by Val Lewton in the 1940s, is now something of a cult horror classic. The film was directed by Jacques Tourneur and edited by Mark Robson, who would soon be the director for the Lewton-produced The Seventh Victim. To many people (including me), it’s not typical of the horror genre, but however it’s classified, I think it’s one of the all-time great films and certainly Lewton’s best. What makes the film profound (and demonstrates why cinematic expression can be more powerful than textual) is the way it directly evokes and prods us about our most unspeakable fears.

All the production values of the film go in to making it a superb example of Expressionism in Film, including atmospheric settings, dramatically-lit black-and-white cinematography, and some emphatic (though still realistic) acting performances. Such features are hallmarks of another Expressionistic master, Josef von Sternberg, but there is also a distinction between von Sternberg’s style and this film, too. Whereas Sternberg’s films have slow, dreamy plots without a lot of complicated actions, I Walked with a Zombie, has a complicated plot that touches on many themes of contemporary interest. And it manages to do this all in about 68 minutes of running time. It is the elemental nature of this complicated narrative and the way that it is conveyed on screen that makes the film so compelling. So to discuss the film, I will proceed through the story and the way that various moods are developed. (Don’t worry about giving away the plot: the film can be seen with enjoyment any number of times.)

The are five principal characters:

• Betsy Connell, a young nurse
• Paul Holland, a wealthy owner of a sugar plantation
• Jessica, his wife
• Wesley Rand, Paul’s younger, half-brother.
• Mrs. Rand, the mother of Paul and Wesley.

The story can be divided into five basic sections or acts, although there is no strict demarcation indicating these divisions.

I. Arrival. Betsy comes to the West Indies and meets the two brothers and Jessica.

1. The film opens in Ottawa, Canada, with nurse Betsy Connell being recruited in an agency office for an overseas nursing assignment. Her interviewer tells her that her future employer is a big sugar planter in the West Indies. Then he asks her, without explanation, if she believes in witchcraft, and Betsy laughingly dismisses the idea. This first scene is bright and sunny.

2. A moody night time scene on a sailing ship with very atmospheric lighting. Black sailors on the ship are singing a mournful song. We hear Betsy in voice-over describing her recollections of this sailing experience to her West Indian destination. This sets us up for the feeling that the entire film is a recollection of events in Betsy’s past. She says that she met Paul Holland in Antigua and is now sailing with him to Fort Holland on the island of St. Sebastian. The voice-over indicates that she was silently reflecting that the night is beautiful, when Paul interrupts, in live action, saying, “it is not beautiful.” He tells her that in this part of the world, “there is only death and decay. . . . Everything good dies here”. Back to voice-over, Betsy recollects that she saw something good in Paul – she’s attracted. Already, we have the contrast presented between the sunny, optimistic spirit of Betsy and the dark, melancholy feelings of those around her. In addition, there will be an ongoing confrontation in the film between two contrasting world-views: the rational, perspective reflecting Western empirical science and the European Enlightenment (label it here, “E”, for European) and the dark world of evil spirts and magic (label it “V”, for Voodoo). “E” fuels our dreams; “V” inhabits our nightmares. As things develop, Paul is resolutely rational, though haunted by his own personal demons, while Betsy, Wesley, and Mrs. Rand are variously seduced by the lure of Voodoo. I will label the dominant mood of most of the upcoming scenes. This one is mixed: E+V.

3. Ship disembarking scene (E), which is again bright and sunny. Here, there is a nice tracking shot, as Betsy gets off the boat and walks through town. There’s no indication of any motorcars in this film, only horse-drawn carriages, and there are no telephones or other signs of modern life in the film. Later on, however, we do see a flashlight, which puts the film into more or less contemporary times. Betsy walks to a horse-drawn carriage and gets in.

4. Carriage drive to the plantation, during which the driver gives Betsy some background information (E+V). He tells her that the Holland family is the oldest family and that they brought the coloured folks and “Ti-Misery” to Saint Sebastian. Betsy soon figures out that “Ti-Misery” was the figurehead of the slave ship that brought black people to Saint Sebastian, and it is now installed as a statue in the front garden at “Fort Holland”. The driver says that that ship “brought the long-ago fathers and the long-ago mothers of us all, chained to the bottom of the boat.”. Betsy, oblivious to the driver’s gloomy words, says “they brought you to a beautiful place.” The driver responds, with polite resignation, “if you say, Ma’am.” Here, again, we have a slight further confrontation between the joyful optimism of Betsy and the other possibilities that the world can offer us.

The stature of Saint Sebastian, which shows the martyred saint in the traditional form as shot with arrows, will remain an ambiguous symbol. From one perspective, it's a symbol of Western beliefs, but the black people of the island see it as symbol associated with their own world of inexplicable suffering.

5. The camera tracks through the empty rooms of the Holland mansion, as Betsy, in voice-over, recollects how each of the rooms came to have great meaning for her (E).

6. Betsy meets Wesley for the first time, and he describes the Holland family. Wesley is obviously trying to charm the pretty nurse. During their conversation, we hear the distant sound of ethnic drums beating, which reminds them of the native world, with its different practices, outside their dwelling. Paul then enters, and Wes departs. Paul takes dinner on a platter to his wife (Jessica), and tells Betsy that she will be introduced to his wife, the person she has been hired to care for, the next day (E).

7. Betsy in her room at night (V), sees through her window a strange woman (later we know that this is Jessica) walking in the darkness. Betsy also hears a crying sound outside, puts on her gown, and goes outside into the yard. There, she comes to a “tower” building in the compound, which she enters and sees a mysterious staircase, which she begins to climb. The strange, tall woman (Jessica), in long flowing white robes, arrives and climbs the same staircase and then wordlessly approaches Betsy. Betsy screams in terror as Jessica comes closer. This is our first sight of the ethereal Jessica, a role beautifully played by Christine Gordon in her only credited movie performance. Jessica will not utter a word in the film and will only unblinkingly stare off into the distance.

Paul and black servants arrive, and they tell Betsy not to be afraid. Jessica is led away, and Paul explains to Betsy that the crying sound that she heard is typical for the black people at the birth of a child (which was taking place elsewhere that night). He tells her that these people, with a history of misery from their lives of slavery, always weep when a child is born and make marry at a burial, because their lives are sad.

II. Developing Relationships
8. Morning, the next day (E). Alma, a black maid, comes and wakes up Betsy, and during their conversation tells Betsy that Jessica is “mindless”, although she can walk and will obey simple commands. Later, when Betsy is dressed, she meets Paul in the house. He tells her that this is not a place for a frightened girl, but she assures him that she is a medically-trained professional and is not afraid of the dark. Nevertheless, Paul warns her about the superstitions of the villagers.

9. Betsy with Dr. Maxwell, who explains more about Jessica’s catatonic condition (E). He says that Jessica is incurable. Then Betsy runs into Paul, and they engage in some small talk, but Paul appears negative and sour.

10. Betsy goes to the bustling town, and runs into Wesley (E), who again tries to charm Betsy. In the market, we hear the calypso singing of Ti-Joseph (played by Lancelot, a famous calypso musician of that time). While Wesley tries to flirt with Betsy, he reveals that he is a heavy drinker, which draws polite scolds from the medically-trained and level-headed Betsy. They overhear, Ti-Joseph now singing a song about the history of the two Holland brothers.

The song relates that there was a fight between them over Jessica. She wanted to run away with Wesley (according to the song), but Paul said, no, “and that’s when the trouble start”. When Lancelot sees Wesley, he interrupts his song and apologises to Wesley, but Wesley is abusive and then speaks highly critically of Paul to Betsy.

Later at night (V) at the same café table, now in shadows and with Wesley passed out from his drinking so that only Betsy is there to hear, Ti-Joseph finishes his song and reveals more of the history of the Holland family. Ti-Joseph seems to be more than a singer in this scene and something like a Greek chorus speaking the dark voice of fate.

11. The mother of Holland brothers, Mrs. Rand, who is a widow, makes an unexpected appearance (the first of many) and explains herself (E). She works as a missionary/doctor and doesn’t usually stay at the Holland mansion. Mrs. Rand helps get the drunken Wesley onto a horse to go home, and then she asks Betsy to tell Paul to remove whiskey from the dinner table in the future in order to help Wesley with his drinking problem. On returning, Betsy does ask Paul about this, but he refuses and tells her to mind her own business.

12. Dinner at night, with the sound of distant drums and the blowing of a conch. Paul explains that the blacks are trying to invoke their gods to end a drought. They are having a cermony at the houmfort, which is their Voodoo temple. Wesly complains that there is no whiskey at the table (so Paul has agreed to Betsy’s request), and then he quarrels more with Paul and angrily says that everything that happened back then was Paul’s fault.

Later in the evening, with Paul at the piano, playing romantic classical music, Betsy approaches to listen. Paul, revealing more about himself, talks about that famous night when Jessica wanted to run away. “I told her I’d keep her here by force, if necessary.” But the sound of the Voodoo drums intrude again, and Paul grows distant and departs.

Betsy at the seashore at night. Again the voice-over: she says that moment at the piano was when she knew that she loved Paul. She resolves, our of her love for Paul, to restore Jessica to him.

III. Betsy tries a desperate measure.
13. The next day (E). Dr. Maxwell proposes dangerous insulin shock treatment for Jessica, in the hopes it might wake her up. Paul reluctantly agrees to the treatment. But later that night, we see that the treatment has failed to have an effect. Paul and Betsy, both sad, show some tenderness towards each other. Then Wesley, bitter and jealous, appears and, after Betsy departs, accuses Paul of falling in love with Betsy.

14. The next day, Alma is seen with the new baby (born to her sister). It is a scene of general joy and laughter. Later, Alma, now walking alone with Betsy, says that witch doctors (Voodoo houngans) are more powerful than Western doctors and can cure Jessica.

15. Later, Mrs. Rand and Betsy talk about Voodoo. Betsy asks if Voodoo has “power”, and Mrs. Rand expresses surprise that a nurse would even ask that. She warns Betsy not to go to the houmfort, because these people are primitive and unpredictable.

16. It is now nighttime (V). While Paul, Wesley and the household are still awake, Betsy sneaks out of the house, leading Jessica by the hand. Alma meets her privately at the gate and traces out a map in the sand. She tells her that she will meet Carrefour, who guards the houmfort. To get past Carrefour, Alma gives Betsy and Jessica Voodoo patches that will signal Carrefour to let them pass.

Betsy and Jessica set out on their famous night walk through the sugar cane field. It lasts 4:10 and is one of the most mesmerising scenes in film history. The ghostly Jessica, dressed in white and staring sightlessly sideways, is about a head taller than the fearful, but determined, Betsy, dressed in dark clothing. They walk past dead birds, sacrificed animals hanging from trees, and a human skull. There is no talking, only the sound of the wind blowing through the cane fields. Because the sugar cane is more than head high, Betsy and Jessica are walking though a mysterious labyrinth and are partially obscured sight by the cane branches. As they walk, Betsy’s Voodoo patch is accidentally scraped off of her garment by a branch, but Betsy doesn’t notice. They finally come to Carrefour, an extremely tall, gaunt and disturbingly glaring black man who is motionless and seems to be a zombie. They pass through (despite Betsy's missing Voodoo patch) and finally reach the houmfort. This is the passage into the innermost cave of the hero’s journey.

17. At the houmfort (V) there is a mysterious and haunting ceremony going on which lasts 3:30. We see wild, wanton dancing in front of the voodoo sabreur (a sword-wielding figure, perhaps something of houmgon, himself). Betsy sees that some of the black people approach the door of the houmfort and speak through a covered screen on the door, making requests to someone behind it. Betsy goes up approaches the door with her request for magic to cure Jessica, but she is quickly ushered through the door, only to learn that Mrs. Rand is there inside the room! Now Betsy is in the room, while Jessica is still outside the door with the madly and ritualistically dancing black people..

Mrs. Rand (E) scolds Betsy for seeking out Voodoo power and explains that she, herself, doesn’t believe in Voodoo – she only goes to the houmfort and participates in their rituals in order to help the black people. They seem to listen to her counsel, she tells Betsy, if they think she is on the side of the Voodoo gods. She reassures Betsy that Jessica is scientifically incurable. So Mrs. Rand seems to be in control here, and the voice of scientific rationality has quickly regained pre-eminence.

Meanwhile (V), the sabreur approaches Jessica and somehow, without speaking to her or touching her, compels her only with his gestures to raise her arms . The sabreur stabs Jessica lightly with the sword, but she doesn’t bleed. The black people become excited and start murmuring “Zombie!”. Betsy and Mrs. Rand now come out from the room, and Mrs. Rand, fearing things are getting out of her control, urges Betsy to take Jessica quickly back to Fort Holland for safety. Betsy and Jessica rush back through the sugar cane field.

18. Betsy meets Paul and confesses what she did (E). Paul rebukes her, but is impressed that she would do something so dramatic on his behalf. He says, “you think I love Jessica and want her back. . . I wish it were true, for your sake.”

So Betsy’s descent into the cave of mystery has failed. She can’t cure Jessica, and she can’t help Paul, whether it’s with science or with magic. Voodoo is dismissed as primitive witchcraft.

IV. Voodoo returns 

 

19. It is the next day (E), and Alma is tending a horse in the Holland compound front yard. She tells Betsy that it belongs to the police commissioner, who has come on urgent business.

20. Meanwhile native drums are heard again (V), and we see that a doll replica of Jessica is being prepared by the sabreur. This is the beginning of an extended parallel action between the houmfort and the Holland mansion. The focus from here on will switch back and forth between these two spheres of action and their associated the E and V perspectives.

21. Betsy puts Jessica to bed (E). Paul comes and reveals that the police came, because the black people have become aroused and are potentially uncontrollable. It appears that the blacks want to get hold of Jessica in order to carry out some sort of rituals for zombies.

22. The sabreur is seen with the Jessica doll (V), which he places in the hands of the zombie, Carrefour. He then beckons Carrefour to walk forward a few steps and then repeats the mysterious exercise. What does this mean? It seems that he is instructing Carrefour to carry Jessica somewhere

23. Paul, alone with Betsy, tells her that the police want to take Jessica to Saint Thomas, and urges her to return to Canada (E). Betsy doesn’t want to go, but Paul says that he believes that he only destroys beauty, and confesses that he hurt Jessica. He says that he’s afraid of hurting Betsy and destroying her love. They embrace discretely.

24. Betsy is in bed that night, guarding the sleeping Jessica nearby. Carrefour’s shadow is seen, and the sound of his scraping feet is heard. Betsy wakes up and walks outside. Then she sees something and, frightened, hides in the shadows of the front yard. Carrefour walks slowly by. Paul now appears from his room and orders Carrefour to go away, but Carrefour approaches Paul menacingly and continues towards Paul, despite Paul’s orders. Luckily and just in time, Mrs. Rand shows up suddenly and orders Carrefour to return to the hounfort. Carrefour obeys Mrs. Rands order and departs. Again, the confrontation between the European world (E) and the Voodoo world (V) has ended with the European world in control.

V. The final triumph of Voodoo

25. The next day, Betsy says to Mrs. Rand that she is returning to Canada (E). Doctor Maxell and Wesly then enter and announce that there will be a police investigation about Jessica’s circumstances (this had already been foretold by Paul), because of the native unrest. Wesley expresses satisfaction, saying maybe Paul’s evil actions will finally be revealed to all. But Mrs. Rand, intervenes and confesses to everyone that Jessica really is a zombie (in its Voodoo-understood way). She explains.

At that time when Jessica planned to run away with Wesley, Mrs. Rand says that she was overcome with concern for her family breakup and ran to the houmfort, where she entered the Voodoo ceremony and pretended to be possessed. But, now she knows that she really was possessed, and didn’t realize it. In that ceremony at the houmfort, she asked the houmgon to make Jessica into a zombie. When she returned home, she learned to her horror that Jessica was raging with fever. So Jessica feels that she caused Jessica’s becoming a zombie.

But Dr. Maxwell now speaks up to contradict her story. He says it is well-known that one has to kill a person first in order to make him into a zombie. Since Jessica was not killed before her sickness, he says, it follows that Mrs. Rand’s story doesn’t hold water, even on Voodoo terms. He reminds them that there was no indication of prior death, “there was no coma, nothing.” (We later learn, however, that this claim of absence of coma is untrue.) Mrs. Rand appears to accept Dr. Maxwell’s scientific rationalisation of what happened.

26. Back at the houmfort in the evening (V) and to the sound of ritual drum beating, the sabreur is seen attracting the Jessica doll toward him as it is pulled by a string held by the houmgon.

27. Jessica is seen walking in the darkness by herself toward the compound gate (V). Paul and Betsy see her and give her orders to turn back. Unusually this time, she does not obey verbal commands from Paul and Betsy to turn back, so they lock the gate, and Jessica, unable to open the gate, is stalled.

Cut to the sabreur, whose symbolic attraction of the Jessica doll towards him is also stalled.

28. Continuing with the action at the compound gate, Wesley shows up and says that Voodoo has strange powers and that Jessica must be attracted by some Voodoo calling. Wesly says that the Voodoo can make people do anything. Paul dismisses this as nonsense and says that just because Dr. Maxwell didn’t know about the fact that Jessica really did have a coma doesn’t mean that his main argument against Voodoo was wrong.

29. Betsy going back to her room, sees Wesley, who asks her to kill Jessica and “make her free”. Wesly says that Jessica is already brain-dead, and that euthanasia would be an act of mercy. Jessica refuses, saying that her nurse’s commitment is to preserve life, not end it. Then she retires for the evening.

30. But Jessica is again seen walking alone toward the gate (V).

Back at the houmfort (V), the Sabreur is seen whispering something into the ear of the houmgon.

31. Wesley, now in something of a trance, gets up and opens the gate for Jessica (V) enabling her to walk out of the compound towards the houmfort. He then goes to the statue of the martyred Saint Sebastian and pulls out one of the arrows.

32. At the houmfort (V), the sabreur is shown stabbing the Jessica doll.

Cut to Wesley, who has just finished stabbing Jessica to death. Carrefour appears and watches. Wesley picks up Jessica’s body and carries it to the seashore and then wades out into the ocean. Carrefour is seen holding his hands outward (it is unclear whether this gesture indicates that he wanted to retrieve Jessica’s body from Wesley or he was commanding Wesley to enter the ocean).

33. Cut to a medium close-up scene of black spear fishermen at night wading in the water (V) and singing the same dirge-like song that was sung on the boat at the beginning of the film. They discover Jessica’s drowned body in the ocean. We learn that Wesley has also drowned.

34. A voice-over is now heard that is utterly new (V). It is the voice of an island black person, a Voodoo spokesman, who says in a soothing voice with an air of finality that the woman was wicked and already “dead in her spirit”, because of her selfishness: “her steps led him [Wesley] to evil.” The Voodoo perspective has now completely taken over even the narrative oversight of the film. Betsy’s European-oriented narrative voice-over has vanished.

Paul and Betsy are seen sadly embracing (discretely), consoling each other.

There is a final tracking shot moving closer in to the statue of Saint Sebastian, as the voice-over says “give peace and happiness to the living.”

And so it ends. Everything that happened can be rationally and scientifically explained according to the European perspective. A woman, Jessica, suffered spinal paralysis because of a tropical fever. She was later killed by her grief-stricken and deranged lover, who then killed himself. No magic needs be invoked to account for all the events of the film. At the same time there is much that is left unexplained. We do not understand the rationale behind things, and yet when we watch this film, we recognise our own nightmares.
★★★★