Article
Classic Film Series: Vol. 4 - Val Lewton at RKO
John Kaufman

These days, horror films are relentlessly literal. Blood, special effects and dead teenagers dominate most genre movies. Anti-heroes like Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers star in endless numbered sequels. Each summer, multi-plex marquees look like scoreboards.

Yet, it wasn’t always like that.

Val Lewton made literate, atmospheric horror movies without gore or complicated special effects. Though they rarely showed a monster on screen, the Lewton movies scared the hell out of audiences. His unique films are a valuable chapter in the history of the genre.

While most studios were fairly stable, RKO had a tangled past which involved multiple changes of ownership. That’s why RKO failed to maintain a consistent house style like that of other studios. For instance, MGM films could be counted on for lush production values while Warner movies were gritty, hard edged and often topical. Over at RKO, each new management team had its own ideas. For example; the studio that produced the Astaire/Rogers musicals of the thirties was not the one that became known for film noir.

By the early forties, RKO was going through another one of its lean periods. Studio heads thought profits might be made from a series of inexpensive horror pictures. After all, Universal had done well with a similar strategy. In 1942, Val Lewton was named head of the RKO horror unit.

Lewton had just three rules he was asked to follow. Each film had to run no longer than 75 minutes, would cost no more than $150,000 and the titles of the pictures would be chosen by the studio.

Lewton was brilliant at turning drawbacks into assets. Because of their limited budgets, his films couldn’t afford many special effects or expensively suited monsters. The pictures would have to be made on minimal sets or sets left over from more expansive productions. As a result, the Lewton films could be called horror noir. In these pictures, a mood of dread prevails, but horror is more suggested than shown. Terror occurs less often on screen than in the imagination of the audience.

Val Lewton was no stranger to exotic settings and colorful characters. He was born Vladamir Leventon on May 7th, 1904 in Yalta, Russia. Lewton was the nephew of stage and silent screen star Alla Nazimova. In 1909, Vladamir, his mother and sister immigrated to America where they stayed at the Nazimova mansion in Port Chester, N.Y.

With his name Americanized to Val Lewton, the young man became a writer. He created short stories, fiction, poetry, non fiction, and journalism in such abundance that he undertook several pen names. After Lewton’s mother, Nina, gained a job in a studio story department, her son soon entered in the movie industry.

Lewton found himself working for David O. Selznick. His first credit was for “arranging the revolutionary sequences” in the Selznick production of A Tale Of Two Cities. (1935, Jack Conway). Lewton was said to have suggested the massive crane shot in Gone With The Wind (1939, Victor Fleming).

As head of the RKO horror unit, Val Lewton operated under rigid budget constraints. As a result, when it came to choosing directors for his films, Lewton came to rely on younger filmmakers whose salary demands were less than those of more experienced craftsmen.

Born in Paris on November 12, 1904, Jacques Tourneur came to America with his father, Maurice, who was also a director. Tourneur’s first job in the industry was as an office boy for MGM. He was then a script clerk on several of his father’s films. Tourneur returned to France in 1928 and directed his first picture, Tout ça ne vaut pas l'amour in 1931.

Tourneur first met and worked with Val Lewton when they both were second unit directors on A Tale Of Two Cities (1935, Jack Conway) at Metro. When Lewton became head of the RKO horror unit, Tourneur was the first director he called.

Tourneur directed Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie and The Leopard Man for Lewton. Among his later horror credits were Curse Of The Demon (1957) and The Comedy Of Terrors (1964) which was produced by Roger Corman.

Mark Robson was born on December 4, 1913 in Montreal, Canada. Robson began his career in the prop department at 20th Century Fox before moving to RKO and becoming an editor. It was while working on Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles) that he got to know fellow editor Robert Wise. The two were subsequently involved in the studio-ordered re-cutting of The Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Orson Welles). Robson also edited Journey Into Fear (1942, Norman Foster) which was written and produced by Welles.

For Lewton, Mark Robson edited Tourneur’s Cat People, I Walked With A Zombie and Leopard Man and directed The Seventh Victim, The Ghost Ship, Isle Of The Dead and Bedlam. After his days at RKO, Robson never made another horror movie. He was Oscar nominated as Best Director for Peyton Place (1958) and Inn Of The Sixth Happiness (1959).

Among other films, Robson also directed; Champion, (1948). Home of the Brave (1949), Hell Below Zero, The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1955), The Harder They Fall (1956), Von Ryan’s Express (1965), Valley of the Dolls (1967) and Earthquake (1974.

Robert Wise was born on September 9, 1914 in Winchester Iowa. He got a job at RKO when his brother, who was an accountant at the studio, put in a good word. Wise began as an assistant editor, eventually moving up to editor. He worked on a dozen movies including Citizen Kane (1941) and Magnificent Ambersons (1942) before becoming a director with Mademoiselle Fifi (1944) which was produced by Val Lewton.

For Lewton, Robert Wise also directed Curse Of The Cat People and The Body Snatcher. Later in his career, Wise returned to horror with The Haunting (1963) and Audrey Rose (1977). He was Oscar nominated for Best Editing for Citizen Kane (1941) and for Best Director for I Want To Live (1958) and The Sand Pebbles (1966). Wise won the Best Directing Oscar for West Side Story (shared with Jerome Robbins) (1961) and for The Sound of Music (1966) In addition, he won the Irving Thalberg;] Award in 1966

Wise also directed; Blood on the Moon (1948), The Set Up (1949), The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), Executive Suite (1954), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Run Silent Run Deep (1958), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), The Andromeda Strain (1971) and Star Trek; The Motion Picture (1979).

Lacking the production values of more expensive movies, the Val Lewton films were unusually dependent on the skills of their director of photography to provide atmosphere and mood. Nicholas Musuraca’s bold lighting design and ability to capture the shadowed world of of’ forties noir made him the perfect cinematographer for the RKO horror films.

Born in 1895, Nicholas Musuraca broke into show business as the chauffer for animation pioneer J. Stuart Blackton. He began his live action career at Vitaphone and was a full fledged Director Of Photography by 1923. Musuraca remained at RKO until the late fifties when he moved to Warner Brothers. He returned to his home studio after it had been bought by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball and re-christened DesiLu. There he shot many hours of television programs.

For Lewton, Musuraca shot Cat People, Bedlam, Curse Of The Cat People. and The Seventh Victim.. He would later photograph Tourneur’s Out Of The Past (1947) and Wise’s Blood On The Moon (1948) among his one hundred seventy-four films.

Nick Musuraca was nominated for Best Cinematography for his work on I Remember Mama (1947, George Stevens).

A key element if the Lewton films were their scores. Much of the atmosphere of dread expectation that permeated the movies was due to their incisive use of music.

Composer Roy Webb was born in New York City on October 3rd, 1888. Webb studied at The Art Students League and attended Columbia University, graduating in 1910. In 1926, Webb wrote the Columbia University Fight Song. He then became involved with producer Herbert Fields’ highly successful Broadway musicals. Webb orchestrated and conducted Peggy Ann, A Connecticut Yankee, Present Arms and Chee-Chee, all of which had music and lyrics by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart.

While Webb conducted A Connecticut Yankee at the Vanderbilt, Max Steiner was doing the same for Hit The Deck over at The Belasco. After Steiner was hired by RKO, he made sure the studio engaged Webb. In 1933, Webb gained his first film credit as musical director on Professional Sweethearts (1933, William Seiter). In 1936, Max Steiner departed RKO for Selznick International, leaving Webb in charge of the music department. Webb would remain at RKO for the next two decades.

With his background in musical comedy, it was a bit surprising that Roy Webb became best known for scoring suspense pictures and films noir, which were the dominant genres at RKO in the forties. Webb scored all of the Lewton movies except for Isle Of The Dead which had a score by was by Leigh Harline.

Roy Webb was nominated for Oscars for Quality Street (1937, George Stevens), My Favorite Wife (1940, Garson Kanin), Joan Of Paris (1942, Robert Stevenson), I Married A Witch (1942, Rene Clair), Fallen Sparrow (1943, Richard Wallace) (shared with Constantin Bakaleinikoff), The Fighting Seabees (1944, Edward Ludwig) and The Enchanted Cottage (1945, John Cromwell).

Following the RKO films, Val Lewton went on to produce My Own True Love (1948, Compton Bennett) for Paramount and Please Believe Me (1950, Norman Taurog) for MGM. Though both of these were A productions, neither was successful. Lewton returned to RKO to produce the low budget western Apache Drums. (1951, Hugo Fregonese).

Val Lewton, who had a history of cardiac trouble, died of a heart attack on March 14, 1951. He was 46 years old. He was survived by his sister, wife, daughter and two sons.

The RKO Val Lewton films are poised at the expressionist crossroads of horror and film noir. Sixty years after they were made, these dark fables are rewarding discoveries for discerning genre fans. Val Lewton’s elegant horror films are the stuff of subtle nightmares and are as addictive as poisoned candy.

This One’s for Dudley who understands psychological terror.

The Val Lewton Horror Films:
Cat People (1942)
I Walked With A Zombie (1943)
The Seventh Victim (1943)
The Leopard Man (1943)
The Ghost Ship (1943)
The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
The Body Snatcher (1945)
Isle of the Dead (1945)
Bedlam (1946)