Cat People (1942)

26k jpg Irena and Oliver and the gift of a bird in Cat People

Irena Dubrovna, a beautiful Serbian-born fashion artist, believes that she suffers from an ancient curse: whenever emotionally aroused, she will turn into a panther and kill. Oliver Reed, an average-Joe American, falls in love with her. He believes that the curse is imaginary, so he sends her to psychiatrist Dr. Judd to cure her. Easier said than done...

Director: Jacques Tourneur. Assistant Director: Doran Cox. Script: DeWitt Bodeen. Photography: Nicholas Musuraca. Editor: Mark Robson. Art Directors: Albert S. D'Agostino, Walter E. Keller. Set Decorators: Darrell Silvera, Al Fields. Music: Roy Webb. Musical Director: C. Bakaleinikoff. Costumes: Renie. Sound Recordist: John L. Cass.

Simone Simon (Irena Dubrovna), Kent Smith (Oliver Reed), Tom Conway (Dr. Judd), Jane Randolph (Alice), Jack Holt (Commodore), Alan Napier (Carver), Elizabeth Dunne (Miss Plunkett), Mary Halsey (Blondie), Alec Craig (Zookeeper), Elizabeth Russell (Cat Woman), Dot Farley (Mrs. Agnew), Teresa Harris (Minnie), Charles Jordan (Bus Driver), Don Kerr (Taxi Driver), Betty Roadman (Mrs. Hansen)

"I like the dark. It's friendly." -Irena
Notes:

• Made for $130,000 at a time of great financial trouble at RKO, it grossed several million and is often credited with saving the studio.
• The only two times that the cat actually appears were specifically ordered to be re-shot with a panther by the studio, who was worried that the whole thing would be too subtle for target audiences otherwise.
• Another scene that the studio found to be too subtle and ordered re-shot, was the swimming pool scene, where Alice is menaced during a night-time swim. Instead of using a real panther though, director Jacques Tourneur simply waved his hand in front of a diffuse spotlight, creating a suitably ambiguous shadow.
• When "the Cat Woman" (Elizabeth Russell) greets Irena after her wedding as "my sister", her voice is being dubbed in by Simone Simon.
• The grand staircase to Irena's apartment was built for the Orson Welles movie The Magnificent Ambersons.
• In the excellent 1952 movie The Bad and the Beautiful, Kirk Douglas plays movie producer Jonathan Shields. As a person, Shields has no similarity to Lewton, but his work in B movies (specifically the projects Doom of the Cat Men and Son of the Cat Men) contains some obvious Lewton references.
• In 1973, horror author Robert Bloch was hired to write a made-for-TV movie updating Cat People. Soon realizing that a totally straight-faced re-make would be a mistake, he suggested a blend of many well-remembered horror classics, and adding doses of Egyptian mythology and mysticism with touches of his own dark humor, came up with a fun movie called The Cat Creature. (Look for Kent Smith!)
• A re-make was produced in 1982 with Nastassia Kinski and Malcolm McDowell; it contained gore, nudity, and very little of the style and subtlety that made the original a classic. Robert Bloch was right.
• The 11/10/95 episode of TV's "X-Files" (episode 7 of season 3, "The Walk" written by John Shiban) contained a good tribute to Cat People's Alice-in-the-swimming-pool sequence, complete with ambiguous shadows on the walls.
• Here is what David Skal, in his book The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror, has to say about how the Production Code censors felt reacted to Cat People: "Perhaps because of the film's overall understatement, the literally minded censors gave Cat People scant trouble. The Breen Office objected only to details of one scene in a restaurant: "The drinking at this point should be minimized, and we suggest that Oliver be shown drinking beer instead of Scotch highballs.... It might be better to show them sitting at a table, rather than at the bar, and also be having some sandwiches."
• The cat was played by Dynamite, who also appeared in Lewton's later movie The Leopard Man.
• Voyager's Criterion Collection includes Cat People and their web pages on the movie include information on their laserdisk, an essay on the film, and a video clip from the swimming pool scene.

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