Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows (2007)

Director:

Kent Jones

Writers:

Kent Jones (writer)
Kent Jones (writer)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

Cast

Martin Scorsese	...	Narrator
Elias Koteas	...	Voice of Val Lewton (voice)
Roger Corman	...	Himself - Interviewee
Dr. Glen Gabbard	...	Himself - Interviewee
Kiyoshi Kurosawa	...	Himself - Interviewee
Val E. Lewton	...	Himself - Interviewee
Alexander Nemerov	...	Himself - Interviewee
Ann Carter	...	Herself - Interviewee (as Ann Carter Newton)
Geoffrey O'Brien	...	Himself - Interviewee
Jacques Tourneur	...	Himself - Interviewee (archive footage)
Robert Wise	...	Himself - Interviewee (archive footage)
Alla Nazimova	...	(archive footage) (as Nazimova)
Simone Simon	...	(archive footage)
Ben Bard	...	(archive footage)
Sir Lancelot	...	(archive footage)

Also Known As:

Martin Scorsese Presents: Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

USA:77 min | USA:77 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French | Japanese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

USA:TV-PG (TV rating)

Company:

Turner Classic Movies (TCM)

Trivia:

Orson Welles' voice is heard narrating the trailer of Citizen Kane (1941) as a brief clip of it is shown.

Movie Connections:

Features The Body Snatcher (1945)

A Master At Making 'B' Look Like 'A'

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.