Scene From The Cat People (1942)
Turner Classic Movies will have a documentary on Val Lewton, classic horror filmmaker on Monday, January 14th at 8:00 PM EST. The documentary will be hosted by Martin Scorsese. Val Lewton is known for his “less is more school of poetic film making,” using shadows and sounds to scare us– (the unseen). This made his movies all the more chilling; imagine that, being afraid of what we cannot see. These types of films scare me more than a movie where the creature is all in your face.
Two of his movies come to my mind, “The Cat People,” (1942) and my favorite, “The Body Snatcher,” (1945), not to be confused with the “The Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1956), just thought I’d make that clear. Val Lewton’s movie is a lot more sinister, and is based on a true crime committed in England back in the early 1800’s by a couple of scoundrels named Burke and Hare. Yes, this actually happened, in fact, because of The West Port Murders, in 1832 the Anatomy Act was passed. This makes the movie even scarier to watch. But getting back to Lewton… Lewton strongly inspired and influenced many future horror film directors. Films like “The Haunting,” (1963), and more recently, The Sixth Sense, (1999), and “The Others” (2001) used shadows and sound to scare us.
Remember that scene in the movie “Gone with the Wind,” when at the very end of the movie you see Scarlett walking through rows and rows of dead and wounded Confederate soldiers? Wasn’t that a very eerie scene? Well, Lewton came up with this shot when he was editorial assistant for David O. Selznick at the time. Lewton had it him from early on, he was innovative and very creative. Who can create masterpieces like he did on a meager budget today? Lewton was a wonder as far as I am concerned. His movies not only scared his generation, they still scare us today.
You can catch the documentary on TCM on Monday, January 14th at 8:00 PM, and a marathon of his films will follow starting at 9:30 PM.
