Sunday, June 01, 2014

Lewton movie on Aussie TV

Tomorrow night or more correctly very early on Tuesday morning at 3.00am ABC1 is scheduled to broadcast the 1943 horror movie The Leopard Man, director Jacques Tourneur, producer Val Lewton. 

I'm hoping this means another series of Lewton movies might be broadcast by the ABC. Why are people still watching the work of a 1940s Hollywood producer? Because his movies are special in a way that is hard to pin down. Why was Lewton the one to produce and often write the screenplays for movies that still mean something to audiences over seventy years after they were commercially successful on first release? I think his talent had something to do with his synaesthete mind and his extraordinary and precocious memory and enthusiasm for narratives. A few years ago I had the great pleasure of being apparently the first person to discover and understand evidence that Lewton was a synaesthete, and I put some of my ideas about Lewton and other interesting and creative famous individuals into one of my ebooks, but what does that matter? Just enjoy the movies. 

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