The last in Val Lewton's brilliant series of horrors for RKO in the 1940s - I've now seen them all. Goes out with a bang, a truly original and ambitious film set in eighteenth century England, inspired by Hogarth engravings, a beautifully literate script written by Lewton and Robson. Anna Lee is terrific as the feisty woman heroine (many of these films are primarily about the women characters, refreshingly) who defies local Lord Billy House and asylum head Boris Karloff (who's brilliantly nasty) and ends up being committed there.
Bursting with great touches and ideas - do you think Fleming saw this and stole the idea of murder from gold paint covering the skin? And as always, brilliantly lit by Nick Musuraca and scored by Roy Webb.
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| Did Polanski nick this for Repulsion? |
Creepy moments also abound but the power of the story is how she essentially becomes a better person through her incarceration and good treatment of the 'loonies'.
Interesting cast. With Richard Fraser, Glen Vernon, Ian Wolfe, Jason Robards, Leyland Hidgson, Joan Newton, Elizabeth Russell.
Lee was British, in films from 1932. Was in How Green Was My Valley, The Ghost and Mrs Muir, Hangmen Also Die!, Fort Apache, Two Rode Together and The Prize (uncredited American reporter)!
The 'RKO Story' notes that audiences had lost their appetite for horror films, the film lost money and it ended Lewton's career as a producer at the studio. He did in fact produce three more films, the last - Apache Drums - released in the year of his death, 1951.
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