Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows

Val Lewton was another one of these guys (Sol Wurtzel was another) who was terrific at making "A" pictures on a "B" budget. To this day, Lewton's horror films are fairly well-known and receive wonderful notices by critics and film historians.

This look at the somewhat-but-not altogether famous filmmaker is a 77-minute very interesting excursion that was made, I believe, for the Turner Classic Movie (TCM) network, and was aired several times recently (mid January of 2008). I assume it will run numerous times on the network, in future months. Director Martin Scorcese narrates this tale about Lewton, his history and his films.

Some of the comments that particularly caught my ear, made by either Scorcese, Val Lewton's son, or by someone else in here, included:

"His movies moved and spoke to audiences in a different way....Lewton's films were more terror than horror....He was always at odds with his bosses but never satisfied with is own achievements....There is no film footage of him, no voice recordings of him.......He had no inkling he would be remembered by posterity......Many scenes in his films reflected his own phobias and views on life, as an outsider......We are all potentially evil and possible murderers."

Some of Lewton's films are examined in detail, beginning with "The Cat People," followed by "I Walked With A Zombie," "The Leopard Man," "Curse Of The Cat People," and to a lesser extant, films that followed those. It was interesting to hear about his struggles with RKO and his unexpected success later with Boris Karloff in several of his movies ("The Body Snatcher" being his best, in many people's opinion.) We also hear from directors Roger Corman, Jacques Tourneur (who worked with Lewton on a number of films) and the famous Robert Wise.

This is a long documentary - and it is definitely slanted in favor of Lewton - and might have been more effectively edited down to an hour, but still pretty fascinating. I recognized the voice of actor Elias Koteas, who was reading some of the comments Lewton made over the years, almost in dairy or autobiographical form.

Some of the Lewton's film clips shown here will just about give you chills watching them. This man was a master at frightening you with things unseen.

VAL LEWTON gave us many wonderful horror films throughout the '40s, but at one time he worked as a reader for David O. Selznick and told the producer his feelings about GONE WITH THE WIND: "This is the biggest piece of rubbish I've ever read. You'll be making the biggest mistake of your career if you decide to make this." (paraphrasing, of course). Well, he may never qualify as an accurate prophet, but he did know how to use subtle horror to make films like THE CAT PEOPLE and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE.

MARTIN SCORSESE narrates this thoughtful documentary on the producer with many interesting film clips from the low-budget horror films that are now considered film classics of their kind by a man who was "drawn to the darkness of the shadow world." He trusted many of his associates when he began filming the features at RKO with men like Jacques Tourneur, Nicholas Musuraca, DeWitt Bodeen, Roy Webb, and later Mark Robson. His films had an hypnotic effect on audiences, providing subtle horror through the power of suggestion.

In private, he was a sensitive man, never fully satisfied with his work or his assignments, but happily married to a woman who understood him and his needs. He was really not tough enough to be a Hollywood survivor and had a few heart attacks before the major one that killed him at the age of 46.

The documentary tells how he ignited the career of BORIS KARLOFF when Karloff was assigned to films like ISLE OF THE DEAD, THE BODY SNATCHERS and BEDLAM. As the war drew to a close, people began to turn away from horror films and Lewton's career began to decline when the defining films of his earlier career were no longer being made.

His low-budget films really were low-budget: for CAT PEOPLE he was given a budget of $150,000, but the film was a huge hit, made a million at the box-office when only A-budget features made as much and stayed in big city theaters longer than CITIZEN KANE that year!

New Documentary produced and narrated by Martin Scorsese on the life and work on the films of Val Lewton. It premiered tonight on Turner Classic Movies and has occasioned the reissue of the box set of the Lewton RKO horror films on DVD. To be honest I don't think this is really a documentary so much as its film essay on the Lewton produced films and his life. There is no nitty gritty about the making of the films (the fact that one of his films occasioned the last screen teaming of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi is not mentioned). If one wants details one has to look to the documentary that was originally released with the DVD set, Shadows in the Dark:The Val Lewton Legacy. Here Scorsese talks about the deeper meanings of the films Lewton over saw and how they affected the people who saw them.Its clear that Scorsese is in love with the poetry of the movies, and its nice to have him as a guide into their recesses, indeed watching the film I picked up a good many details that I had never noticed before. It also reveals symbols and character types that reoccur in his movies. Its an examination of how Lewton's melancholy nature produced some very dark and troubling films, films which echo to this day. I liked the film a great deal but I'm not in love with it. While I learned some new things I didn't learn enough (I think the earlier Shadows in the Dark is slightly better, but that may be purely a matter of personal taste).Its very good but there is something that keeps me from saying its great. Is it worth seeing, absolutely, it will reveal many things to you about the films that you probably never noticed. Ultimately it will make you want to see all the films again, which is a pretty good thing if you ask me

Val Lewton: Man in the Shadows (2008)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Martin Scorsese produced and narrates this documentary that takes a look at the life and career of producer Val Lewton who hated the horror genre but become best known for his horror titles like The Body Snatcher, Bedlam, I Walked with a Zombie and Cat People. I personally find many of Lewton's horror movies overrated but they are popular so I understand the need to do a documentary on them but to do one on Lewton never really made much sense to me. It's even more senseless when you consider that another documentary, Shadows in the Dark was just made in 2005. As with that documentary, there really isn't much to Lewton so we learn very little. He didn't do interviews, didn't have any on camera stuff and in reality there's very little known about him so we don't learn a thing. When they discuss the movies we still don't learn anything outside the fact that Lewton hated horror movies and didn't want to work with Boris Karloff. Since there's nothing to Lewton I just can't justify having two documentaries about him and in the end neither of them do much. Roger Corman, Robert Wise and Japanese director Kiyoski Kurosawa are the only movie people interviewed and both only get a few clips.

"The Man In the Shadows" is a fairly interesting bio-documentary that covers the life and career of low-budget, B-movie producer, Val Lewton, who worked almost exclusively for RKO Studios (poverty row) from the years 1942-1951.

Originally from Russia - Lewton was clearly one of those very resourceful men who knew just how to produce good quality horror pictures on budgets of only $150,000, or less.

Through stills, film clips, and interviews - The viewer learns all about the ins & outs of being a successful, but unappreciated, film producer like Lewton.

*Note* - In 1951 (at the age of 46) Val Lewton died from a heart attack.