MovieChat Forums > The Seventh Victim (1943) Discussion > Where was all the Devil Worshipping?

Where was all the Devil Worshipping?

posted 16 years ago by hannahp1
26 replies | jump to latest

It started off well enough but got corny as it went along. The "Devil Worshippers" are searching for this girl and can't find her? Her doctor is telling everyone that he is treating her, why not just follow him? This girl wanted to kill herself, so whats the big deal?

I found the part of suicide in this movie fascinating. You rarely see this type of thing in these old movies and her doing it at the end was a nice twist.

The part where the two guys lecturing the devil worshippers that they are wrong was so corny.

Speaking of the devil worshippers, these were the weakest I have ever seen on screen. There vow of no violence was silly.

But it still was pretty good for an old movie.

6 out of a 10.

[–] BwlBoy 16 years ago

I gave it a 6 too. Somewhere in it are flashes of a good film but it is let down by some poor scripting (I agree with you on the corny Lord's prayer reference by Judd as to the virtues of good over evil), some over the top acting (Jacqueline's clearly lesbian ex-lover) and a confusing title (its called The 7th Victim yet one of the devil worshippers comments on seven previous betrayals and deaths. Jacqueline was the eighth betrayal so surely the film should have been called The 8th Victim).

I've seen 3 of the Val Lewton RKO productions, this, I Walked with a Zombie and Cat People. I personally don't think any are classics but Cat People was the best of them.

[–] Ted-C 16 years ago

Watch the movie again. The devil worshiper in question clearly refers to six previous betrayals and deaths so Jacqueline would indeed be the seventh victim.

[–] BwlBoy 16 years ago

I must have seen a different version to you then Ted.

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[–] paintedplates 16 years ago

Ya the part where Tom Conway quotes the Lord's Prayer, and the devil worshippers all bow their heads in defeat is weak. They would react in a mocking manner.

And devil-worshippers believe in non-violence? Are they sure they are worshipping the devil? I mean, what are they doing exactly to show that. Card tricks? Why are they so anxious to protect their society from the public when it doesn't seem like they are doing anything sinister other than hunting down their own members.

It's interesting early in the movie Conway speaks dismissively of dipsomania, calling it a 'sordid affair' when both he and the actress who plays Jacqueline both died from it.

Finally ... how it is she is in love with Ward Cleaver... there's like no chemistry at all, and then, suddenly, ya I'm in love with you too. Why? She fall for the first old guy with a bland personality that comes along??

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[–] paintedplates 15 years ago

Not essential to the plot. Got ya. Good post, thx.

[–] preppy-3 15 years ago

Well there was nothing explicit about the Devil worship because they probably couldn't get it through. The Hays Code was in strong effect during the 1940s and really clamped down on anything explicit. Anyways it was a Val Lewton horror film. He believed (and I agree) that nothing he shows the audience could be as scary as what they're thinking. Every time I see this I actually get scared just imagining what they're doing when the cameras aren't around. And their being ashamed at the end was probably just more censorship at work. Back then evil HAD to be punished. If they didn't react the censor probably would have ordered the scene to be changed. Remember people--this is a 1943 horror film. There were rules that had to be followed or the picture wasn't released.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] preppy-3 15 years ago

Back then the evil people HAD to be punished. That was just the way it was. If they weren't the picture wasn't released. I know it seems silly today but that's the way it was.

[–] small-mister 15 years ago

The Diabolists won in the end as Jaqueline eventually did kill herself...........

[–] preppy-3 15 years ago

True. I'm surprised that was kept in. I guess the fact that her friends told the devil worshippers off was enough.

[–] AnnieKay 15 years ago

I didn't think the Satanists "bowed their head in defeat" - I thought the idea was to show them as civilised people, and to show that apparently civilised people can perpetrate evil.

So when they get the lecture, their polite reaction seems to say "Well, you've had your say young man, and you're entitled to your opinion, but it changes nothing and we are confident that His Infernal Majesty will prevail".

[–] bob_gilmore1 15 years ago

I guess that definitions of "corny" vary. To me watching the endless string of action movies and comic book flix that pass for movies are what is corny. It seems that with each new generation of FX that come out of the lab we witness a string of dull films enlivened by things blowing up in a more realistic manner. "7th Victim" represents a time when movies were aimed at adults not teenagers with short attention spans. The film is excelent in its mood and deviant theme. It captures an essence of dispair unlike any other film of its era or since and when you consider that it was directed by novie director on a shoestring budget it is all the more special.

[–] Pythe 15 years ago

I agree. These were the least threatening devil worshipers ever committed to screen! It just felt like a bunch of bored suburbanites who have nothing better to do. I can see their calenders: "Wednesday, 9:30: Worship Prince of Darkness. Thursday, 6:00: Pampered Chef Party."

----
Finally I can stop suffering and write that symphony!

[–] bstephens21 14 years ago

There seeming innocuousness is the whole point. And it's probably accurate. Take one look at what we know about most "secret societies" like this, and they're mostly bored, spiteful bourgeoisie, the kind who use to hover around Crowley and LaVey. Actual murderous cults like Adolfo Constanzo's (which wasn't Satanism, mind you) are few and far between.

Flash forward a few years, and Polanski uses the exact same framework for Rosemary's Baby. Considering Polanski actually hung around them for research, and ultimately described them as being bored and bitter people without anything particularly horrifying or mystic about them, kinda shows how accurate Lewton was.

[–] dogteamtrail 13 years ago

SPOILERS!

However, there is some satanic payoff in Rosemary's Baby, bstephens21, unlike Seventh Victim. Having said that, I think it's true that the cult in 7V is made out to be impotent in the same way that Jacqueline is powerless in the face of her imminent suicide. The film's subject is despair and powerlessness: the failed poet, the failed cult, the failed marriage, the failed boarding school education, the failed homosexual relationship, the failed attempt to save the sister--even the failed satanic hitman! And throughout, the characters are curiously aware of this futility, something I have never noticed as much in other films of this era. I think this is what makes 7V so unusual and special--its despondent atmosphere. This atmosphere is almost like an omniscient character--a brooding, sentient presence--since it seems to have so much control over the actual characters' lives. I have to say, I was pretty *meh* about this film until I watched it a few times, and now I'm sold on its excellence.

[–] KingCobra686 9 years ago

I like this explanation. The satanic cult was so boring, but if you view them this way it kind of fits well.

[–] bayardhiler 11 years ago

A worthy point in regards to many actual secret societies, I didn't think about that reality.

[–] Tchoutoye 13 years ago

OP:

It started off well enough but got corny as it went along... Speaking of the devil worshippers, these were the weakest I have ever seen on screen. There vow of no violence was silly.

On the contrary. I thought the film escaped being corny by NOT showing the devil worshippers doing their rituals. You only have to watch some of the satanism movies from 1960s to understand what I'm talking about (Devils of Darkness, The Devil's Own a.k.a The Witches).

Decades of (mostly) sensationalist films about satanism and paganism have skewed our expectations of what these topics "should be about" in order for them to be believable, sophisticated and/or entertaining.

It's interesting to note that the The Seventh Victim's screenwriter Dewitt Bodeen met up with real life satanists in New York's West Side during his research for the film. He got permission to observe their meetings. He recalled:

"It was during the war, and I would have hated to be Hitler with all the spells they were casting against him. They were mostly old people and they were casting spells while they knitted and crocheted. A bunch of tea-drinking old ladies and gentlemen sitting there muttering incantations against Hitler. I made use of the experience in that the devil worshippers in The Seventh Victim were very ordinary people..."

Who says satanists can't be good patriots?

Why are they so anxious to protect their society from the public when it doesn't seem like they are doing anything sinister other than hunting down their own members.

We don't know that. Whatever they are up to isn't part of the plot. It's left to our imagination.

The Seventh Victim gets better every time I watch it. 8/10

[–] Balok-2 13 years ago

I think that _The Seventh Victim_ is a great (if extremely nihilistic) film. After all, how many B-movies of the time were inspired by a poem by John Donne? As a previous poster noted, the devil-worshippers are portrayed as a bunch of poseurs because the devil-worshippers that the screenwriter met were a bunch of poseurs (as were the devil-worshippers in _The Ninth Gate_, FWIW).

As for their commitment to non-violence, the head honcho explicitly states why they are non-violent: because violence (i.e. not the devil) can control its perpetrator, and at that point, the perpetrator cannot tell whether it will lead to evil or to good (as in, at the time the movie was being made, the Good Guys were being extremely violent toward the Bad Guys). The latter outcome is, of course, the exact opposite of what the devil-worshippers are after.

[–] JoeKarlosi 10 years ago

There was no devil worshipping. Hell, even THE BLACK CAT (1934) had some, and that was almost ten years earlier. Don't get me wrong, I understand the fear and terror that the most plain-looking and ordinary people could be satanists, but ROSEMARY'S BABY ultimately did the same thing much better, because RB's everyday cult members had been ordinary but yet creepy and dangerous.

In The Seventh Victim, these are all harmless socialites, having meetings and drinking wine. They're so ineffective that they bow their heads in shame just by hearing The Lord's Prayer.

[–] spookyrat1 10 years ago

In The Seventh Victim, these are all harmless socialites, having meetings and drinking wine. They're so ineffective...

Totally agree. The film did start well. I loved the sequence of Mary and August in the building at night and the follow-up on the subway, but somewhere in the latter half, the wheels came tumbling off the billy-cart. You just couldn't take the cult seriously. Gregory claims to know virtually nothing of his wife's adventures in Satanism and suddenly turns his affections to Mary, the (high school?)kid sister. It degenerated from an interesting noirish thriller into some sappy hybrid Peyton Place-like episode with a downbeat ending.

[–] essex9999 9 years ago

Why are they so anxious to protect their society from the public when it doesn't seem like they are doing anything sinister other than hunting down their own members.

We don't know that. Whatever they are up to isn't part of the plot. It's left to our imagination.

Well, I think we can guess at least one reason: They presumably all had real job or social positions to maintain. Being revealed as a Satanist would threaten that. It still would today, in fact.