Cat People (1942 film)

This article is about the 1942 film; Cat People is also the name of a 1982 film.

Cat People is a 1942 horror film which tells the story of a young Serbian woman, Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) who is haunted by the myth of the cat people of her village. Kent Smith portrayed her husband Oliver Reed, Tom Conway played psychiatrist Dr. Louis Judd and Jane Randolph was Alice, Oliver's colleague.

The movie was produced by Val Lewton. The writing is credited to DeWitt Bodeen, but Tourneur, Roy Webb, Lewton and his secretary all contributed to the script. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur, and the cinematographer was Tourneur's sometime collaborator Nicholas Musuraca. It was followed by a sequel, The Curse of the Cat People, in 1944.

A remake using the same title was made in 1982. The later Cat People was directed by Paul Schrader and starred Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, and John Heard.

The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Synopsis

Irena falls in love with and marries 'good, plain Americano' Oliver Reed, but she is deathly afraid that, when sexually aroused, she will transform into a panther and kill somebody.

The film is notable for frightening audiences through the suggestion of unseen horrors with cast shadows and ambiguous sound effects, specifically in the celebrated swimming-pool sequence. The panther remains unseen until the final scenes of the film, although Simone Simon displays increasingly catlike behavior and the viewer is bombarded by images of cats in paintings and statues.

Although Cat People is usually categorized as a horror movie, many film critics also consider it a film noir, as Irena assumes many of the traits of both femme fatale and the typical noir hero alienated from conventional society, psychologically wounded and morally ambiguous.

Critical reaction

Reviews of the film were positive when the film was first released. Today, the film still has a cult following. TV Guide's review of the film praised the film's cast:

"Superbly acted (with Simon evoking both pity and chills), Cat People testifies to the power of suggestion and the priority of imagination over budget in the creation of great cinema. The film was Lewton's biggest hit, its viewers lured in by such bombastic advertising as "Kiss me and I'll claw you to death!"--a line more lurid than anything that ever appeared onscreen."

Trivia

The film was shot with a budget of under $140,000.

Lewton and his production team claim credit for inventing the popular horror film technique called the "bus". The term came from the scene where Irena is walking behind Alice; the audience expects Irena to turn into a panther at any moment and attack her. At the most tense point, when the camera focuses on Alice's confused and terrified face, what sounds like a hissing panther jumping out at her turns out to be the sound of a bus pulling over to pick her up. After the excitement dies down, the audience is left uncertain whether anything supernatural or life-threatening actually happened. This technique has been adapted into a great many horror movies since then. Anytime a movie creates a scene where the tension rises and dissipates into nothing at all, merely an empty boo!, it is a "bus".

This film was referenced in the novel Kiss of the Spider Woman by Argentine novelist Manuel Puig. In the book, two inmates pass the time by discussing the films one of them has seen. Though this movie is not mentioned by name, the parallels to the plot and the protagonist's name being Irena clearly indicate that Puig was speaking about this film.

In an episode of the animated sitcom Family Guy, Deep Throats there is a reference to Cat People. When an angered character is caught destroying anothers car he turns into a panther and runs into the night.

External links

Katzenmenschen (1942) | La Féline (1942) | Il bacio della pantera (film 1942) | Люди-кошки (фильм, 1942)

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Synopsis

Critical reaction

Trivia

External links