Cat People (1942)

An American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if they are intimate together.

Director:

Jacques Tourneur

Writer:

DeWitt Bodeen

Stars:

Simone Simon, Tom Conway, Kent Smith

1 win & 3 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Simone Simon	...	Irena Dubrovna Reed
Kent Smith	...	Oliver Reed
Tom Conway	...	Dr. Louis Judd
Jane Randolph	...	Alice Moore
Jack Holt	...	The Commodore

Storyline

Serbian national Irena Dubrovna, a fashion sketch artist, has recently arrived in New York for work. The first person who she makes a personal connection with there is marine engineer Oliver Reed. The two fall in love and get married despite Irena's reservations, not about Oliver but about herself. She has always felt different than other people, but has never been sure why. She lives close to the zoo, and unlike many of her neighbors is comforted by the sounds of the big cats emanating from the zoo. And although many see it purely as an old wives' tale, she believes the story from her village of ancient residents being driven into witchcraft and evil doing, those who managed to survive by escaping into the mountains. After seeing her emotional pain, Oliver arranges for her to see a psychiatrist to understand why she believes what she does. In therapy, Dr. Judd, the psychiatrist, learns that she also believes, out of that villagers' tale, that she has descended from this evil - women ...

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Plot Keywords:

cat | cat people | serbian | artist | engineer | 

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Taglines:

The most terrifying menace of them all!

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Genres:

Fantasy | Horror | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Czech Serbian

Release Date:

25 December 1942 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Cat People

Filming Locations:

Stage 14, RKO Studios - 780 N. Gower Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$134,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$4,000,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

RKO Radio Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

73 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The suits at RKO were reportedly dubious about the finished film. It was too subtle and possibly not overt enough to compete with Universal's brand of horror.

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Goofs

When Dr. Judd leaves his cane in the apartment, he tucks it into the sofa cushions. When he returns to the apartment to retrieve it, it is leaning against the sofa.

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Quotes

Dr. Louis Judd: You told me of your village and the people and their strange beliefs.
Irena Dubrovna: I'm so ashamed. It must seem so childish.
Dr. Louis Judd: And the Cat Women of your village, too. You told me of them. Women who in jealousy or anger, in want of their own corrupt passions, can change into great cats, like panthers. And if one of these women were to fall in love and if a lover were to kiss her, take her into his embrace, she would be driven by her own evil to kill him. That's what you believe and fear, isn't it?

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Crazy Credits

[From the opening credits] "Even as fog continues to lie in the valleys, so does ancient sin cling to the low places, the depression in the world consciousness."- "The Anatomy of Atavism"- Dr. Louis Judd

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Connections

Referenced in Thirtysomething: Never Better (1990)

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Soundtracks

Dodo, L'Enfant Do
(uncredited)
Traditional French folk lullaby
Arranged by Roy Webb

User Reviews

Vastly underrated and hugely influential

I have this theory about the horror films of Val Lewton. It is my contention that these movies caused a sea change in the content and tone of the movies of Alfred Hitchcock. The reason I say this is simple, really: Lewton is the only filmmaker I have ever caught Hitchcock cribbing scenes from. He did it twice. Once from The Seventh Victim (dir. by Mark Robson), which I swear to god provides the first half of the Shower Scene from Psycho. The second from Cat People, which provided the pet store scene in The Birds. This second scene is almost a shot for shot swipe. Both of these steals are evidence that Hitch knew and admired the Lewton movies. More than that, though, there is a change in the subtext of Hitchcock's thrillers after the Lewton movies. The movies he made before them were cut from the Fritz Lang mold of political thrillers. After the Lewton movies, Hitch's movies became more psychosexual in nature. Vertigo, for instance, could easily fit into Lewton's output.

Cat People is the first of the Lewton movies and sets the tone for them. It pretends to be about a McGuffin (serbian were -panthers), but is actually about something else (in this case, frigidity and repressed lesbianism). This represents a huge change in the evolution of the horror movie. Cat People is the first horror movie to explore these themes as central concerns rather than as sub-rosa undercurrents. It also pioneered the techniques of film noir (which as a genre didn't really exist yet). Cat People is strikingly stylized and its effect is of stranding the viewer in the middle of a darkened room with some dreadful beast circling just outside his sphere of perception. This has a hell of an impact--particularly if you have the good fortune to see this in a theater. I'm not going to claim that Cat People is one of the best horror movies ever made (it does have flaws), but it is one of the four most influential horror movies ever made (along with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Psycho, and Night of the Living Dead). But unlike its brethren, its influence spreads corrosively through the entirety of cinema through both film noir and the films of Alfred Hitchcock. You would be hard pressed to find any film short of Citizen Kane or Rashomon that is nearly as influential.