This book has been out of print for a good many years. Still, if you logged onto this entry, you must be a fan, a TRUE fan. Since you are, this book is certainly for you, adding a little personal information on a producer who absorbed and delivered the sensitive, innovative, and intelligent work that most horror profiteers can't. The concept of producer is misleading and mostly boring. Often, the producer is the guy who pays for the filmed project - a guy who considers the money angle, considers the production costs, and goes home at the end of the day. (Mr. Jerry 'Pearl Harbor' Bruckheimmer I'm looking at you. Shame on you....) Other times there are 'producers' who are assigned by movie studios to deliver the movie on time, and on budget. Val Lewton was one of those producers, given an assignment, and always a subordinate of the RKO film system.

Yeah, it was/is a bad system, but there are & were producers who not only 'oversaw' film but were a creative part of those same projects. There have been so FEW of them. Val Lewton was one of them.

What a legacy. Val Lewton's productions had a talented staff and even better directors. Considering the budget of those epic films ('Cat People', its sequel, 'The Body Snatcher)it's astonishing how vital these films are. I don't have alloted time to tell you, but Carol Reed's 'The Third Man,' Hitchcock's 'Psycho' shower scene, and many other films owe a debt to Lewton's creative influence. Val Lewton created a profound influence that's here with us today. But you already know that. That's why you clicked on to my review. Buy this book.

McFarland & Co. have published many fine books on film folks, and this is one of my favorites. Not only because I'm a big fan of the Lewton productions, but it's a brilliantly written book. Lewton was responsible for some of the best so-called Horror movies ever made, like "I Walked With A Zombie", "The Body Snatcher" and "Curse Of The Cat People". -All favorite films of mine. The book naturally covers all the famous thrillers, but it also tells the story of his relatively short life. I especially like the anecdote about how Lewton apparently once tossed away the script for "Gone With The Wind", calling it sentimental trash !. -Way to go, Val - I couldn't agree more. Lewton really knew what it took to make a good and eerie movie full of atmosphere, but film-makers of today sadly seem to have forgotten all about this. -Suspense is not something you can SEE, it's something you're supposed to FEEL. Director Robert Wise later showed what he learned in the "Lewton school", when he gave us the original "The Haunting". Director Jan De Bont recently showed us he didn't pay attention in his class. He, and everybody else ought to read this wonderful book.

Yawn. Val Lewton's extraordinary horror films of the 1940s are certainly worthy of heavy analysis. Constant themes abound: good people doomed by their nature & fate, with even their closest friends powerless to help them. (And in some films, no close friends to be had.) Loneliness, sadism - heavy stuff.

If you're looking for a book that deals with the symbolism and thematic consistencies of Lewton's films, this book may be adequate. I personally found the text as dull as any college text, and I struggled to finish the book. There is little biography or technical information on the filmmakers themselves, or the artistic process. Mainly psycho analysis. Again, yawn.

A far better choice would be Joel E. Siegel's now-quite-rare "Val Lewton: The Reality of Terror" (1973). Sadly out-of print for many decades, it captures the best observations of this book, with lively writing at half the length. It is superb. Also recommended is Edmund G. Bansak's 1995 "Fearing the Dark: The Val Lewton Career." That expensive but in-print book is may be the best of the lot, with a lively balance between analysis, honest criticism and hard industry tech-talk.

J.P. Telotte's "Dreams of Darkness" doesn't come close to justifying its Marketplace cost.