Rating: NR
Genre:
Film, TV & Radio
Release Date: 01/29/2008
SubTitles: English/French
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD2
Run Time: 87 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: Warner Home Video
While his name was known to only the most obsessive film fans during the course of his career,
Val Lewton produced a handful of low-budget
horror movies in the 1940's that had a revolutionary impact on the genre. Working within a special production unit at
RKO Pictures,
Lewton's films were mood pieces that created an atmosphere of anxiety rather than aiming for blunt shocks, and used shadowy camerawork and careful pacing to infer more than the audience actually saw. Several of
Lewton's productions became minor hits, most notably
Cat People, and a number of others (including
Isle Of The Dead,
I Walked With A Zombie,
Curse Of The Cat People,
The Seventh Victim and
The Body Snatchers) are cult favorites to this day.
Lewton also discovered a number of directors who would become major players later on, including
Robert Wise,
Mark Robson and
Jacques Tourneur, but
Lewton's efforts to move on to bigger budget projects fared poorly, and poor health claimed his life in 1951, six years after his last picture for
RKO. Film critic and archivist
Kent Jones traces the story of
Val Lewton's life and career while paying homage to the films that made his name in the
documentary Val Lewton: Man In The Shadows, which features highlights from
Lewton's best films while sharing the memories of those who knew and worked with him. Originally produced for the
Turner Classic Movies cable network,
Val Lewton: Man In the Shadows is narrated by filmmaker and lifelong film fan
Martin Scorsese.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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