Women's Work - Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Like James Cameron with his original Terminator, hallowed producer Val Lewton got his break turning a low-budget genre film into a work of art that captured the wider public. The Yalta-born ex-novelist and former story editor for David O. Selznick transformed a box-office-bruised RKO Studios into a literate, stylish horror brand in the 1940s, starting with Cat People (that masterful exercise in unseen menace, psychological hair-raising and sound effects that seep rather than startle); then followed with the equally incredible, Haitian-set chiller, I Walked With a Zombie; and many others, including The Seventh Victim, Curse of the Cat People,Bedlam and The Body Snatcher. These were moody, intelligent and often expertly crafted tales of the terror and allure of what lies beyond the well-lit, recognizable world, their obliqueness perhaps demanded by a deficit of production money but aesthetically in line with a view of life that respects what cannot be explained. Their titles screamed, but the movies behind them were often eerily calm in evoking their poetic pall, and aficionados of Lewton’s artistic stamp won’t want to miss Turner Classic Movies’ original documentary Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows. Written and directed by author/critic Kent Jones, it’s a lovingly hushed journey — not unlike the trademark hypnotic walks that characters often take in Lewton’s films — through the producer’s tragically short life, and how the pressure to make good films with limited means both freed him and became something of a prison. Martin Scorsese narrates too, with a kind of quiet reverence, as if he’d been transplanted to the sets of these classics and was afraid of breaking their delicately obscene atmospheres. But not to worry: Since you’ll be thirsty to watch his films afterward, TCM is airing 10 of them in an all-night marathon, after which you can truly claim, “I Walked With Lewton.”

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES | FOX | Mondays, 9 p.m. | Two-night series premiere, Sun., Jan. 13, 8 p.m. and Mon., Jan. 14, 9 p.m.

MARTIN SCORSESE PRESENTS VAL LEWTON: THE MAN IN THE SHADOWS | TCM | Mon., Jan. 14, 8 p.m., midnight encore. With Val Lewton marathon to follow until noon Tuesday. Also, the TCM documentary will be available as a single-disc DVD for $19.97 or as part of the Val Lewton Horror Collection six-disc DVD set for $59.92, from Warner Home Video.