The Seventh Victim

The Seventh Victim is a 1943 American horror film directed by Mark Robson, and starring Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, Kim Hunter, and Hugh Beaumont. Written by DeWitt Bodeen and Charles O'Neal, and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Radio Pictures, the film focuses on a young woman who stumbles on an underground cult of devil worshippers in Greenwich Village, New York City, while searching for her missing sister. It marks Robson's directorial debut, and was Hunter's first onscreen role. O'Neal had written the script as a murder mystery, set in California, that followed a woman hunted by a serial killer. Bodeen revised the script, basing the story on a Satanic society meeting he attended in New York City and setting it as a prequel to Cat People (1942), with Conway reprising his role as Dr. Louis Judd. Filming took place over 24 days in May 1943 at RKO Studios in Los Angeles. Released on August 21, 1943, the film failed to garner significant income at the box office and received mixed reviews from critics, who found its narrative incoherence a primary fault. It was later revealed that Robson and editor John Lockert had removed four substantial scenes from the final cut, including an extended conclusion. In spite of its mixed reception, the film became a cult film in England, noted by critics for its homoerotic undertones. Plot Mary Gibson, a young woman at Highcliffe Academy, an expensive boarding school, learns that her older sister and only relative, Jacqueline, has gone missing and has not paid Mary's tuition in months. Therefore, the school principal tells Mary that she'll have to leave the school, but could remain if she works as a teacher's aide. She decides to leave to find her sister, who owns La Sagesse, a cosmetics company in New York City.