Title	Year	Director	Stars
The Bad and the Beautiful	1952	Vincente Minelli	Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner
Between Two Worlds	1944	Edward A. Blatt	John Garfield, Sidney Greenstreet
Born to Kill	1947	Robert Wise	Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney
The Brighton Strangler	1945	Max Nosseck	John Loder, June DuPrez
Citizen Kane	1941	Orson Welles	Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten
Curse of the Demon	1957	Jacques Tourneur	Dana Andrews, Niall MacGinnis
The Day the Earth Stood Still	1951	Robert Wise	Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal
Dead of Night	1945	Cavalconti, Basil Deardon, Robert Hamer, Charles Crichton	Michael Redgrave, Mervyn Johns
The Devil and Daniel Webster	1941	William Dieterle	James Craig, Walter Huston, Edward Arnold
Experiment Perilous	1944	Jacques Tourneur	Paul Lukas, Hedy Lamarr
The Falcon and the Co-Eds	1943	William Clemens	Tom Conway
Gaslight	1939	Thorold Dickinson	Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard
The Harder They Fall	1956	Mark Robson	Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger
The Haunting	1963	Robert Wise	Julie Harris, Claire Bloom
The Innocents	1961	Jack Clayton	Deborah Kerr, Michael Redgrave
Jane Eyre	1944	Robert Stevenson	Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine
Journey Into Fear	1942	Norman Foster	Joseph Cotten, Delores del Rio, Orson Welles
The Lodger	1944	John Brahm	Merle Oberon, George Sanders, Laird Cregar
The Mummy	1932	Karl Freund	Boris Karloff, Zita Johann
Out of the Past	1947	Jacques Tourneur	Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer
The Picture of Dorian Gray	1945	Albert Lewin	Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders
The Queen of Spades	1949	Thorold Dickinson	Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans
The Set-Up	1949	Robert Wise	Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter
Stranger on the Third Floor	1940	Boris Ingster	Peter Lorre, John McGuire
A Streetcar Named Desire	1951	Elia Kazan	Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh
Sunset Boulevard	1950	Billy Wilder	William Holden, Gloria Swanson
A Tale of Two Cities	1935	Jack Conway	Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allan
The Third Man	1949	Carol Reed	Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles
The Uninvited	1944	Lewis Allen	Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Gail Russell
The Walking Dead	1936	Michael Curtiz	Boris Karloff, Ricardo Cortez
White Zombie	1932	Victor Halperin	Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy
Zombies on Broadway	1945	Gordon Douglas	Wally Brown, Alan Carney, Bela Lugosi

Comments

1932 The Mummy

My pick for the best of the Universal monster movies. Director Karl Freund, a veteran of many classic German expressionistic silents, brought a haunting, Germanic sensibility to the atmosphere, photography, and sets. And of course there's Boris Karloff (ID, BS, BD), giving one of his best performances. Don't confuse this with the inferior Lon Chaney Jr. Mummy series from Universal, or the Hammer series. [Top]

---

1932 White Zombie

Bela Lugosi's (BS) best role may not be that famous vampire, but Zombie Master Legendre in this eerie low-budget picture from a "Poverty Row" studio. Visually striking, but somewhat stilted in other ways. [Top]

---

1935 A Tale of Two Cities

Val Lewton's first screen creditand first teaming with Jacques Tourneur (dir: CP, LM, IW), "revolutionary sequences staged by Jacques Tourneur and Val Lewton," for this powerful adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel set during the French Revolution. Of special interest to Lewton fans is Isabel Jewell (LM, SV) in a smallish but very memorable role at the end - that's her as the seamstress holding Ronald Colman's hand. [Top]

---

1936 The Walking Dead

Despite the lurid title and premise (an innocent man is framed for murder by racketeers, executed, brought back to life when a witness comes forth clearing him, then goes after the men who framed him) this movie doesn't go for the straight horror nearly as much as you might think. Instead it tends more for thoughtful matters, of life and death. Combined with stylish direction and a subtle, sympathetic performance from Boris Karloff (ID, BS, BD), this movie has the potential to be quite a pleasant surprise or a whopping disappointment, depending on the viewer. (I was in group #1) [Top]

---

1939 Gaslight

This English period thriller was remade in 1944 America with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, that version is much better known. It was a lush production with exquisite MGM polish, but in nearly every other way I prefer the original. The story is tighter and tenser and the performances generally better (especially the sophisticated menace of Anton Walbrook). Not that the American is bad, it's just too... pretty. [Top]

---

1940 Stranger on the Third Floor

Frequent Lewton crewmembers like cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, art director Albert S. D'Agostino, and special effects man Vernon L. Walker teamed to bring a rather Lewton-ish look to this early blend of noir and horror. Peter Lorre plays one of the type of pathetic psycho he was so good at. Too bad his time on screen is so short... [Top]

---

1941 Citizen Kane

Shadowy, gothic settings and groundbreaking camera-work, all the more influential toward Lewton's movies as both Robert Wise and Mark Robson were developing their skills as editors on this. And in a way, Orson Welles can be credited with Val Lewton's entire job at RKO. It was the studio feeling burned by Welles' prestigious and costly pictures that persuaded them to start a unit to produce quick, low-budget horror films in the first place. [Top]

---

1941 The Devil and Daniel Webster

A combination of good old-fashioned deal-with-the-devil story and folksy Americana from a Stephen Vincent Benet story, as a hardworking but unlucky farmer sells his soul to Mr. Scratch for money and "all that money can buy" (that phrase was used at one time as a title for this movie) then. When payment time draws near, he has second thoughts about the transaction asking the great lawyer and hero of the people Daniel Webster for help. Lewton fans will note Simone Simon (CP, CCP, MF) as a provocative demon sent by Scratch to keep an eye on his property. And Robert Wise as editor. (And fans of the TV series The Simpsons will remember an episode in one of their Halloween specials called The Devil and Homer Simpson which cleverly parodies this movie.) [Top]

---

1942 Journey Into Fear

Orson Welles getting more into the realm of suspence thrillers here than in his two earlier (and better, to be honest) pictures Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons (Norman Foster is credited as director officially, but the consensus of opinion is that Welles did most of the actual directing.) Mark Robson edited this, and he was developing many suspence techniques which would later become Lewton staples, like the "bus". [Top]

---

1943 The Falcon and the Co-Eds

The Falcon series of "B" movies at RKO was a light-hearted blend of mystery and adventure (and at times, maybe a little too much comic relief,) a thinly disguised copy of their earlier Saint series. As "B"s at RKO at the same time as Lewton's, they often drew from the same pool of actors. The Falcon and the Co-Eds is as good a sample as any (better than most) it has Tom Conway (CP, IW, SV) as the Falcon (taking over the role filled by his brother George Sanders in three installments) and also Jean Brooks (LM, SV, YRW), Isabel Jewell (LM, SV), Rita Corday (BS), Ian Wolfe (BD), and others. [Top]

---

1944 Between Two Worlds

In 1930, a successful play called Outward Bound was made into a film of the same name starring Leslie Howard. Then in 1944, it was remade as Between Two Worlds with a backdrop slightly updated to WWII and John Garfield in Howard's role. I like that version a bit better, so this is where I'll file them. The story is an odd one, a group of people are in a city being bombed on their way to catch an ocean liner leaving. Then they're on it, but things are not quite right - few other passengers, a crew of only one steward, just where are they going anyway? The movie is imaginative and thought-provoking on one hand, talky and more than a little stagey on the other. [Top]

---

1944 Experiment Perilous

Jacques Tourneur goes "A". This period thriller often seems a sort of lesser relation of Gaslight, the villain driving his delicate beauty of a wife insane and all. But in sumptuous atmosphere and photography, it more than holds its own. [Top]

---

1944 Jane Eyre

Before RKO came calling, one of Val Lewton's projects for David O. Selznick was preparing a screen treatment of Charlotte Bronte's novel, but the movie didn't get made until after he left. Makes a dandy double-bill with I Walked With A Zombie, which Lewton called a "West Indian version of Jane Eyre." And in case you want more Lewton tie-in, there's Henry Daniell (BS) as a chilling Master of Lowood School. Also worth mentioning is that in beginning of Lewton's The Seventh Victim, the woman who runs the orphanage/school Mary attends is Miss Lowood, a reference to this Lowood. [Top]

---

1944 The Lodger

The best parts of this Jack-the-Ripper movie are the visual ones. The foggy atmosphere, the moody gaslight, Merle Oberon's exotic beauty... If this sounds light the American version of Gaslight which came out it the same year, well, I thought so too. Unfortunately, the story doesn't maintain that comparison, even the normally fascinating George Sanders is an unremarkable hero. He makes a much better cad. Well, there is one more positive: Skelton Knaggs (GS, ID, BD). [Top]

---

1944 The Uninvited

Chilling, lovely ghost story from the Dorothy Macardle. Serious, and with no contrived explanation of how the ghosts were really a man-made fake - a landmark there. Then there's Elizabeth Russell (CP, CCP, YRW, BD) as Mary Meredith (the ghost, and she also posed for the painting) and Alan Napier (CP) as Dr. Scott. [Top]

---

1945 The Brighton Strangler

Nifty "B" movie of not the most original plot around. (see A Double Life from 1947 for an "A" movie take on it) Stage actor gets conked on the head and confuses his identity with that of the character he is playing - that would be the Brighton Strangler. Not up to Lewton standards, but effective. I liked the way they melded it into a contemporary WWII-era backdrop, and it gets points for having Ian Wolfe (BD). [Top]

---

1945 Dead of Night

Gem of a horror movie from England, produced at the end of a 10-year ban on horror movies there. Several small stories of the supernatural linked together by another. One is even humorous and features Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne (Charters & Caldicott from The Lady Vanishes) as fanatic golfers! My favorite has Michael Redgrave as a ventriloquist losing control of his dummy. [Top]

---

1945 The Picture of Dorian Gray

Excellent version of Oscar Wilde's story with Hurd Hatfield as Dorian, a man free to pursue a life of debauchery, as he keeps a portrait locked away which takes the ravages of his ill-spent years for him. George Sanders in one of his best cad roles as the man leading him into corruption. (And I feel slightly ashamed that it took me so long to figure this out, but Sibyl's brother is played by our favorite Quaker stone mason, Richard Fraser (BD))[Top]

---

1945 Zombies on Broadway

Silly/stupid comedy with Brown & Carney (a poor man's Abbott & Costello) sent by a gangster to the island of St. Sebastian to bring back a zombie. In a move later picked up by A&C when they met horror icons, Bela Lugosi (BS) plays a zombie master, but don't confuse this movie with White Zombie. Many in-jokes and references to I Walked With a Zombie, including Darby Jones (IW) as a zombie and Sir Lancelot (IW, GS, CCP) as a calypso singer. Oh yes, and the prolific Ian Wolfe (BD) is in here. [Top]

---

1947 Born to Kill

As a book, this story was originally entitled Deadlier Than The Male, referring to Claire Trevor's character. But the studio wanted a more striking title for a film noir with tough guy Lawrence Tierney (GS, YRW) who was coming off big success in Dillinger so it was changed. Also with Lewton connections are Isabel Jewell (LM, SV), Ellen Corby (BD), and Jason Robards Sr. (MF, ID, BD) [Top]

---

1947 Out of the Past

Jacques Tourneur does film noir as well as you might think, given his flair for moody atmosphere. Robert Mitchum at his best (see Sharon Knolle's comments at her outstanding Mitchum tribute site at http://www.projectionmag.com/projection/articles/mitchum/default.asp as she puts this movie at #1 in her Top 10) and Jane Greer is also amazing as the femme fatale. [Top]

---

1949 The Queen of Spades

Superior production of an Alexander Pushkin story is terrifying tale with Anton Walbrook as a soldier in Czarist Russia determined to obtain the mystical secret of winning at cards, even if the finding costs him his soul. [Top]

---

1949 The Set-Up

Hollywood has lots of movies about boxing, for my money this Robert Wise film is the best of them. Gritty, noirish picture about an aging boxer who just can't seem to see when it's time to quit. Pay attention to the clocks btw, it plays out in real time. [Top]

---

1949 The Third Man

Atmospheric noirish thriller strikingly shot in bombed-out post-war Vienna, with a memorable zither score. [Top]

---

1950 Sunset Boulevard

Billy Wilder bites the hand that feeds him in this harshly cynical tale of Hollywood eating its own. The character of Norma Desmond is a composite of many real-life people, one source being Val Lewton's aunt Alla Nazimova. [Top]

---

1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still

Science fiction doesn't get much better than this. Michael Rennie is an alien envoy who comes to Earth in a saucer with the robot Gort (a strong, silent type if ever there was one) with an anti-nuclear warning from the rest of the universe. Finding that mankind isn't interested in listening to reason, he turns to women, children, and old people. [Top]

---

1951 A Streetcar Named Desire

Kim Hunter (SV) contributed to making this adaptation of Tenessee Williams' play, one of the best-acted movies ever. And she won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar playing Stella to Marlon Brando's Stanley Kowalski in the process. [Top]

---

1952 The Bad and the Beautiful

An ambitious, ruthless movie producer (played by Kirk Douglas in his typically zesty fashion) uses and abuses everyone on his way to the top, then needs their help on his way down. The connection to Val Lewton is that at the beginning of his clime, the producer is assigned to make trashy "B" horror movies, and uses darkness and suggestion in very Lewton-like ways, rather than guys in cat-suits, to make them successful. (His personality seems to be more David O. Selznick, though.) And here is Tessa Brind (YRW), billed as Vanessa Brown. [Top]

---

1956 The Harder They Fall

I wasn't going to include this one as I already have one boxing picture, but wanted some post-Lewton Mark Robson, and this is his best one, in my opinion. From a novel by Budd Schulberg based on the career of heavyweight Primo Carnera. That's fighter Max Baer, the man who took the title from Carnera, playing fighter Buddy Brannen. [Top]

---

1957 Curse of the Demon

Jacques Tourneur back in horror territory in grand style with this adaptation of M.R. James Casting the Runes. A British movie, the original UK title is Night of the Demon. (The US prints also had 13 minutes cut out to save time, but with video came a restored print.) Full of Lewtonish terror tactics like busses, walks, and things, the only real flaw is at the very beginning, where the studio forced inclusion of up-close demon footage. Granted, it's a terribly hideous and horrifying demon (I mean that in a good way) so the damage is less than it could be, but still... [Top]

---

1961 The Innocents

Lovely adaptation of Henry James' ghost story The Turn of the Screw with Deborah Kerr as Miss Giddens, the twitchy governess to two beastly children. It does an outstanding job of keeping the ambiguity: are there really ghosts or has Miss Giddens just gone completely nutty? [Top]

---

1963 The Haunting

Robert Wise's return to his Lewton roots was a movie from Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House about four people who stay in a house reputed to be haunted, an attempt to discover the nature of the haunting (not to be confused with House on Haunted Hill a 1958 William Castle movie with Vincent Price, or The Legend of Hell House a 1973 movie with similar premise and Roddy McDowall), a story that fit perfectly with the suggestive style of horror Wise used with Lewton. A movie often found on people's "scariest movies" lists, despite no monster ever appearing. [Top]

Back to the Val Lewton homepage