Val Lewton Discussion - Historic Hollywood (October 16th, 2015)

Today on Historic Hollywood We're discussing the works of Val Lewton!
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Historic Hollywood hosts Lex Michael, Karie Bible, and Byron Thompson do an an in depth discovery of the masters of film who built Hollywood. In depth biography and filmography of the cinematic masters of the past. Today we're talking about Val Lewton.
Lewton worked as a writer for the New York City MGM publicity office, providing novelizations of popular movies for serialization in magazines, which were sometimes later collected into book form. He also wrote promotional copy. He quit this position after the success of his 1932 novel No Bed of Her Own, but when three later novels that same year failed to succeed as well, he journeyed to Hollywood for a job writing a screen treatment of Gogol's Taras Bulba for David O. Selznick. The connection for this job came through Lewton's mother, Nina.[clarification needed]
Though a film of Taras Bulba did not follow, Lewton was hired by MGM to work as a publicist and assistant to Selznick. His first screen credit was "revolutionary sequences arranged by" in David O. Selznick's 1935 version of A Tale of Two Cities. Lewton also worked as an uncredited writer for Selznick's Gone with the Wind, including writing the scene where the camera pulls back to reveal hundreds of wounded soldiers at the Atlanta depot. Lewton also worked for Selznick as a story editor, a scout for discovering literary properties for Selznick's studio, and as a go-between with the Hollywood censorship system.
On the documentary The Making of Gone With the Wind Lewton is described by another Selznick employee as warning that Gone With the Wind was unfilmable, and Selznick would be making "the mistake of his life" trying to make a successful movie of it.
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[@blatttman]

For Val Newton, mention should be made to Jane Eyre in the West Indies, otherwise known as "I Walked with a zombie"! (1943)a classic, also directed by Jaques Tourneur.
And in my opinion Jaques Tourneurs finest horror film, "Night of the Demon",(1957)or as its known in the USA "Curse of the Demon". But as you say at the end of your discussion, go see.

[@cs.1762]

blattman-I think you're right. Not only is Curse/Night of the Demon my favorite horror film of the 50's, but I believe, like you do, that it is Jacques Tourneur's finest horror film.

[@markking7418]

As regards the excellent sets and overall look of the Lewton films, we have to keep in mind that although "low-budget" they DID have the backing of RKO's studio which includes the resources of excellent sets already standing, and a stable of talented technicians. RKO was NOT considered a "Poverty Row" studio, even after taking a serious pounding by the "failures" of the two films made there earlier by Orson Welles ["Citizen Kane" (1941) and "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942)]
Also the use of light and shadow, and the Lewton films as "film noir" That probably stems from the fact that most of the Lewton films took place in our everyday world (as did the Noir films). However this use of light and shadow stems from early German Expressionist cinema from which these lighting techniques were first employed. The films of James Whale at Universal borrowed heavily from German Expressionism, as did the Noir films would a decade later.

[@cs.1762]

Robert Louis Stevenson did not write The Swiss Family Robinson, but he did write-and this is the one the radio guy was talking about not being able to remember- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

[@BattyNos1922]

I loved the Robert Wise directed "The Body Snatcher" (1945) starring Boris Karloff!

[@deanmccaskill5495]

That's one of my favourite Karloff performances.

[@bobtaylor170]

I am so tired of people saying that "The Curse of the Cat People" is a sequel to "Cat People" "in name only." Of course it's a sequel! It is as much a sequel to "Cat People" as "The Godfather, Part II" is a sequel to "The Godfather." Good grief, it has the same three main characters! And it develops their story. But as with "The Godfather, Part II," perhaps being better than "The Godfather," "The Curse of the Cat People" ( and I agree, the title is misleading ) may be, in fact, probably is, better than "Cat People." Yes, of course, its story is much different than "Cat People," but then, the same is true of "The Godfather, Part II" vis a vis "The Godfather." Ann Carter, the little girl in "The Curse of the Cat People" was remarkably talented. And the movie itself is a visually radiant thing, and far better than it ever could have been had it been in color.
Notwithstanding, this is excellent. I wish everything on UA-cam were as intelligent and classy.

[@deanmccaskill5495]

I know this is totally inappropriate and I apologize but I find the female cohost extremely attractive. She also has a sexy brain.

[@corneliusdobeneck4081]

I was distracted by that too. ;)

[@naftalibendavid]

Smart