2 - Fractured Reasons and Fractured Reason in i Walked With a Zombie

Summary

Val Lewton's Dog Puke Tie

Val Lewton's second film, I Walked with a Zombie, entered pre-production before Cat People reached theaters and proved its commercial viability. The studio's marketing department harbored doubts after a screening of Cat People. RKO's head of foreign marketing criticized the film's slow pace, concluding that its market potential was “either very high or none at all.” Ed Robat, head of domestic marketing, wrote more generously of the film:

Personally I enjoyed this picture very much. It is well written, beautifully produced and acted. I’d hate to attempt to predict its box office qualities, because the “horror” is so subtly done that it may not be sufficiently obvious to the masses, so they’ll not get a kick out of the theme. But RKO can be proud of having made this picture.

Under Charles Koerner, the studio did not need to feel proud of its pictures, so Lewton enjoyed no clout as yet for having “saved the studio” with his horror programmer. This situation explains the hectoring Lewton received from Lew Ostrow, head of “B” production.

Ostrow hated Cat People. A few days into shooting, he tried to have Jacques Tourneur, Lewton's handpicked director, removed from the film. Koerner ultimately overruled Ostrow. Then, after a test screening of the finished film for RKO executives, Ostrow ordered Lewton and Tourneur to take the leopard from the zoo scenes back to the ship drafting office to add footage of Irena in cat form into the final film. Ostrow never liked Lewton's subtlety, and his dislike can be seen in those few shadowy shots.

The title I Walked with a Zombie, again dredged up by Koerner's “system of market pre-testing,” drove Val Lewton close to despair. Worse, Lew Ostrow assigned Curt Siodmak to write the script. Siodmak had considerable experience writing horror scripts for Universal Pictures including The Wolf Man, the very film Lewton had used to illustrate everything he did not want to do.

Val Lewton detested Lew Ostrow, but he also feared unemployment. Lewton used to show his insolence toward people above him at RKO by keeping a hideously ugly tie around. He called it his “dog puke tie” and told his unit that by wearing it in the presence of men like Ostrow, he was displaying his contempt for everyone to see.