"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.
★★★

"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).

"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.
★★★

"The Seventh Victim" - Val Lewton (directed by Mark Robson, 1943)

The Seventh Victim (The 7th Victim), a 1943 film produced by Val Lewton, was one of a string of hypnotic films noir he brought to the screen, coming right after Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, and The Leopard Man. What makes this film interesting is the wide gulf separating its virtues and its flaws.

The story concerns Mary, a young woman from a conservative boarding school, who decides to leave and go to New York to search for her missing older sister, Jacqueline, who has been her sole means of support. In New York she quickly learns that her missing sister has apparently sold her cosmetics factory (to an unfriendly, brusque colleague) and that Jacqueline had been secretly married to a man who is also looking for Jacqueline. Mary also meets a strange psychiatrist who has apparently been treating Jacqueline, and through him she learns that Jacqueline’s disappearance is linked to her membership in a Satanic cult of devil worshippers. It turns out that Jacqueline’s desire to flee from the cult was forbidden, and the cult members had decreed that she, like six earlier disenchanted members, must die for this betrayal. She is under the threat of becoming the seventh victim.

Mary does eventually find Jacqueline and try to help her. In the meantime, though, Mary has attracted the romantic affections of both Jacqueline’s husband and a failed poet who is constantly quoting verse while trying to assist her to find Jacqueline. Although Jacqueline finally manages to get away from the cult, and also from an assassin she encounters on the street, she is unable to escape her own obsession with death. At the end of the film, she commits suicide by hanging herself in her room.

Like most of the Lewton-produced films, there are no supernatural events or ghosts in the film; all events are grounded in this world. Nevertheless, the implausibility of the plot is the principal weakness of the film. Throughout the film, people appear and events take place without any justification. Many of the characters, particularly seemingly minor participants in the story, are bizarrely overplayed by the actors and actresses. And the romantic relationship between Jacqueline’s husband and the fresh-from-boarding-school Mary is completely far-fetched. In addition, the weird behaviour of the creepy psychiatrist provides further dislocation. Perhaps casting Tom Conway, brother of the super-smooth George Sanders, in the psychiatrist’s role induced Lewton and director Robson to unleash Conway’s thespian pyrotechnics, even though the role was minor.

With these rather devastating flaws, one would assume that The Seventh Victim is completely irredeemable. But strangely, the film has a haunting quality that stays in one’s memory. Why is that? For one thing, the film comprises a set of brilliant set pieces, each of which holds together on its own. Even the opening sequence in the boarding school is eerie and claustrophobic in the extreme. In addition, there is the famous shower sequence, in which Mary is visited by her sister’s hostile colleague, who is seen in shadowy outline behind the shower screen. This scene is utterly compelling and stands high above the justifiably famous shower sequence from Hitchcock’s Psycho. There is also the dark scene depicting the devil-worshiping cult members trying to exert their will on Jacqueline. Because the tenets of their Satanic beliefs forbid them to carry out violent acts, they try to compel Jacqueline to commit suicide by exerting overwhelming peer pressure. Jacqueline almost succumbs, but manages to escape, only to fall prey to her own death fantasies at the end of the film. And finally, there is the bizarre sequence late in the film depicting Jacqueline walking on the city street late at night, after getting away from the cult members, and being followed by a mysterious assassin. Although this scene makes no sense, it has a disturbing quality that adds to the total effect.

When these various set pieces accumulate, even though they don’t fit together neatly into a narrative whole, they give the film a disturbing, nightmarish quality, like seeing broken reflections in a fractured mirror. The individual characters are also dream-like in their characterisations. The Mary character, played by Kim Hunter in her first role, is one of complete virtue and innocence. She is basically a wide-eyed Alice wandering around in a dark, haunted Wonderland. Many of the other characters are emphatically willful and cynical, such as the boarding school headmistress, the new owner of Jacqueline cosmetic factory, and the chief cynic-in-residence, himself, the psychiatrist. All of them are creatures from your last nightmare. In contrast to Mary, who represents the innocence and vitality of youth and life, the Jacqueline character, whose delayed appearance doesn’t come until the latter stages of the film, represents the opposite ─ that of despair and the death wish. The closing act of suicide is not shown, but only signaled by an offscreen noise in the final shot of the film. It shows Jacqueline's neighbor, a dying woman in her last days who has decided to dress up and go out on the street for one final experience of the joy of life. As she passes in the hallway by Jacqueline's closed room door, one hears the sound of a chair beneath a hangman's noose (shown earlier in the film) being kicked over.

For all of these things, The Seventh Victim is worth seeing and offers a good display of the Lewton company’s cinematic skills of dream weaving.
★★★