Cat People ***** (1942, Simone Simon, Tom Conway, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Jack Holt) – Classic Movie Review 2463

‘She knew strange, fierce pleasures that no other woman could ever feel!’ and ‘ The strangest story you ever tried to get out of your dreams!’ screamed the posters.

Director Jacques Tourneur’s 1942 cult horror classic stars Simone Simon as Irena Dubrovna, a Serbian fashion designer who thinks that if her lover arouses her she will become a panther and kill him. Producer Val Lewton’s first psychodrama was a huge success, which started his hit series at the RKO Radio Pictures studio.

Irena meets a fascinated Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) in New York’s Central Park and they are soon married, but he persuades her to see a psychiatrist (Tom Conway) and she becomes jealous of Smith’s intimacy with his attractive colleague (Jane Randolph).

Though made by Tourneur, Cat People is full of classic Lewton touches: look at the swimming-pool sequence where Simon appears to stalk her rival Randolph. This is horror of the imagination, and it all depends on style, wit and verve.

Simon’s performance is as eerie, subtle and fascinating as the other key elements of the film: DeWitt Bodeen’s screenplay (he also co-wrote the story with Lewton and was dialogue director), Tourneur’s direction, Nicolas Musuraca’s starkly gleaming black and white cinematography and Roy Webb’s music score. The Panther is played by Dynamite and the Cat voice is that of Dorothy Lloyd.

Also in the cast are Jack Holt, Alan Napier, Elizabeth Dunne, Mary Halsey, Alec Craig, Elizabeth Russell, Dot Farley and Theresa Harris.

It was looking good again in 1999 when Britain’s National Film Theatre screened a new 35mm print.

Followed by The Curse of the Cat People in 1944 and Paul Schrader’s 1982 remake Cat People.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2463

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