Lewton used three directors for the series: Jacques Tourneur, Mark Robson, and Robert Wise. Each of these men had worked as film editors, with Wise editing Citizen Kane (1941) and Robson on board as the associate editor. After directing Cat People, Tourneur directed the next two: I Walked with a Zombie (1943), a voodoo reworking of Jane Eyre, and The Leopard Man (1943). Robson, who was the editor on the three helmed by Tourneur, graduated to director with The Seventh Victim (1943), all about a satanic cult in Greenwich Village, and The Ghost Ship (1943). Wise, replacing Gunther V. Fritsch and sharing screen credit, took over the directing chores on The Curse of the Cat People (1944), a sequel only in a loose sense, and then made The Body Snatcher (1945), the film that brought Boris Karloff into the Lewton fold. Lewton’s final two, both starring Karloff and directed by Robson, were Isle of the Dead (1945) and Bedlam (1946). (The cheesy titles of all these films continue to do them a disservice.) All three directors took what they learned here—how to do a lot with a little—and brought it to film noir, a genre whose emergence certainly owed a debt to the fatalistic mood and shadowy style of Lewton’s work. Tourneur directed Out of the Past (1947), Wise made Born to Kill (1947), and Robson gave us the noir-ish boxing classic Champion (1949). Tourneur’s career never rose to the A list, but he continued to do fine work, such as Stars in My Crown (1950) and Wichita (1955), two exceptional Joel McCrea vehicles. Wise and Robson became big-time Hollywood players, with Wise winning Oscars for West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965), and Robson bringing Peyton Place (1957) and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) to box-office glory. (Wise returned to his “horror” roots with 1951’s memorable sci-fi drama The Day the Earth Stood Still.)

excerpted from John DiLeo’s
Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
© 2008 Hansen Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved.