Val Lewton is best known as the father of the low-budget horror film.
The Body Snatchertakes places in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1831.
Gray tells the young doctors assistant that there are no suitable bodies available at the morgue or newly buried.
We only see the street as we hear the girls ballad abruptly end with a tiny choke.
The movies produced by Val Lewton arent as much scary as they are unsettling.
Lewton went to Hollywood to write an adaption of GogolsTaras Bulbafor the producer David O. Selznick.
RKO Pictures was known for its musicals.
The studio gave the world Fred and Ginger, as well as Katherine Hepburn and Robert Mitchum.
No matter who sat in the directors chair, it was Lewtons vision that was projected onscreen.
Lewton also revolutionized the way sound was used at the time.
Tourneur met Lewton while working as second unit director on the filmA Tale of Two Cities.
On this film, Tourneur also created the Lewton Bus, a horror technique still used today.
It is a skewered take rather than a sequel.
Tourneau returned as director.
Evelyn Brent is beautifully grating as Natalie Cortez, her shower scene probably gave Alfred Hitchcock an erection.
Tom Conway again plays Dr. Louis Judd, but its not the same Dr. Louis Judd fromCat People.
Looks are deceiving and deception is the underlying reality in the film.
Catholic kids who saw this movie at the time had to confess it.
The demonic acolytes call themselves Palladists.
The Order of Palladium was reputed to be a real Theistic Satanist society.
It is a suitably enigmatic choice for a film that hides so much on bright city streets.
These people could be anywhere or anyone.
Released on Christmas Eve in 1943,The Ghost Shipis a rarity.
Lewton was reportedly depressed by this for a long time.
Mademoiselle Fifi was a period piece based on two short stories by Guy de Maupassant.
Mademoiselle Fifi was shot on leftoverHunchback of Notre Damesets and in front of cardboard boxes.
It was written by John Fante, Herbert Kline and Ardel Wray.
Directed by Mark Robson.
the movie starred Bonita Granville, Kent Smith, Jean Brooks, Glen Vernon and Vanessa Brown.
I havent seen it, so I cant say much about it.
The last three of the nine films Lewton produced for RKO were collaborations with the Frankenstein Monster.
Boris KarloffsBody Snatcheris one of cinemas great villains and he plays it with an intimidating bonhomie.
He snuffs the drunken life out of Bela Lugosis Joseph cheerily while singing pub songs.
Lewton wrote the script under the pen name Carlos Smith and Robert Wise darkened the directors chair.
Isle of the Deadfrom 1945 was inspired by a painting of the same name by Arnold Bocklin.
The painting was featured inI Walked With a Zombie.
Superstition is reasonable on theIsle of the Dead.
The movie was the most expensive of Lewtons RKO Radio Picture offerings, at a still-reasonable $246,000.
It was re-issued on a double bill withMighty Joe Youngin 1953.
Bedlams screenplay was credited to the painter William Hogarth whos painting A Rakes Progress inspired the film.
Very true to the times it portrayed,Bedlamwas an indictment of political corruption masquerading as terror.
It was also an indictment to Universal, which had largely wasted Karloff behind monster masks.
It wasnt the least bit creepy.
He had been working on the filmMy Six Convicts.
Kirk Douglas portrayal of Jonathan Shields inThe Bad and the Beautifulwas based on Val Lewton.
Val Lewton will forever be associated with low-budget horror, but that sounds like he made cheap pictures.
Martin Scorsese calledIsle of the Deadthe eleventh scariest movie of all time.
