Today’s horror scene that I love comes to us from the 1942 psychological thriller, Cat People!
In this noirish scene, Alice (Jane Randolph) goes for a swim, just to find herself suspecting that she may not be alone.
Be sure to check out my reviews of the original Cat People, the sequel, and the remake by clicking on the links in this sentence!
It’s Halloween, and we’ve finally made it to the Universal Classic Monsters! Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, and The Wolf Man had last appeared onscreen in 1945’s HOUSE OF DRACULA. Shortly thereafter, Universal merged with International Pictures and decided to produce only “prestige” pictures from then on, deeming their Gothic creature features no longer relevant in the post-war, post-nuclear world. The comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were also in danger of becoming irrelevant, victims of their own success, as audiences were beginning to grow tired of them after twenty movies in a scant eight years.
That “prestige” thing didn’t work out so well, and Universal went back to what they did best…. producing mid-budget movies for the masses. Producer Robert Arthur developed a script called “The Brain of Frankenstein”, giving it over to Frederic Rinaldo and Robert Lees. Lou Costello hated it, and the team’s gag writer John Grant was brought it to punch things…
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So, you can add the 1944 film The Curse of the Cat People to the list of films that made me cry.
And I know that you’re probably going to point out that it’s already a very long list and I know that some people believe that I cry at every movie that I see. (Listen, if I cried every time that I watched a movie, that would mean that not a single hour would pass without me shedding tears and … well, anyway, lets move on…) But seriously, The Curse of the Cat People is a wonderful and heartfelt film.
Technically, it’s a sequel to the original Cat People. Oliver (Kent Smith) and Alice (Jane Randolph) are married now and they have a six year-old daughter named Amy (Ann Carter). Irena (Simone Simon) does return but we’re never quite sure whether she’s a ghost or if she’s meant to be a figment of Amy’s imagination. There is no mention of Irena being cursed, though a hissing cat does make an appearance at the beginning of the film. In the original Cat People, Elizabeth Russell played a mysterious woman who asked if Irena was her sister. In The Curse of the Cat People, Russell appears in a different role but, interestingly enough, she’s still linked to the memory of Irena.
Instead, The Curse of the Cat People is about Amy. Amy is a shy girl who spends most of her time daydreaming and Ann Carter (who was 8 years old at the time) gives a very real and very authentic performance, one that is totally the opposite of the type of performance that we often expect from child actors. I was a shy child myself (I was famous for always hiding behind my mom whenever I saw a stranger approaching) and, from the minute Amy appeared, I knew exactly how she felt and what was going through her mind.
While Alice feels that Amy’s daydreaming is harmless, Oliver worries about her daughter. At one point, he says that he fears that she’ll never leave her fantasy world and that she’ll grow up to be like Irena. (Interestingly enough, this line suggests that Oliver still doesn’t believe that Irena was actually a cat person.) Amy, meanwhile, has a vision of Irena standing in the backyard and soon, the two of them are best friends.
At the same time, Amy has also become friends with Julia Farren (Julia Dean), an elderly woman who lives in the neighborhood. Just like Amy, Julia lives in a fantasy world. She treats Amy like her own daughter. Meanwhile, Julia refuses to acknowledge her true daughter, Barbara (Elizabeth Russell), accusing Barbara of being a spy and saying she is only pretending to be her daughter. Barbara grows more and more resentful of Amy and that resentment leads her to consider doing a truly terrible thing.
I guess it’s debatable whether or not The Curse of the Cat People can truly be called a horror film. While it does have elements of the horror genre, The Curse of the Cat People is ultimately both a coming-of-age story and a plea for adults to allow their children to be children. It’s all so heartfelt and so wonderfully performed by Ann Carter, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Elizabeth Russell, and Simone Simon that I couldn’t help but cry at the end of the film. The Curse of the Cat People is a great film to watch in October or any other month.
The 1942 horror classic Cat People is often described as being a horror film where, up until the last few minutes, the monsters are mostly psychological. And there is some definite truth to that. The title creatures remain a mystery for the majority of the film and, up until those final minutes, the audience would have every right to wonder whether or not they actually existed. This is a film that seems to take place almost totally in the shadows, a film noir without detectives or gangsters but featuring a memorable and compelling femme fatale.
However, I would argue that there is a monster who is present on-screen long before the audience first sees the shadowy form of a cat person. That monster is named Louis Judd and he’s the true villain of this story. As played by Tom Conway, Louis Judd is a psychiatrist and, from the minute we first see him, we know that he’s not to be trusted. He’s far too smooth for his own good and his soothing tones barely disguise the arrogant condescension behind his words. If his pencil-thin mustache didn’t make him sinister enough, Dr. Judd also keeps a sword concealed inside of his walking stick.
Irena Reed (Simone Simon) is one of Dr. Judd’s patients. A fashion designer from Serbia, Irena has recently married an engineer named Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). Despite the fact that she loves Olivier, she cannot bring herself to be intimate with him. As Dr. Judd discovers, Irena fears that she has been cursed and, if she ever allows herself to become aroused, she will be transformed into a panther. Dr. Judd repeatedly tells her that her belief is just superstition and that her fears are the result of repressed trauma from her childhood. When Irena refuses to accept his diagnosis and continues to insist that she is cursed, Dr. Judd assumes that he can prove her wrong by forcing himself on her. (Big mistake.)
Meanwhile, Oliver loves Irena but her refusal to consummate their marriage is driving him away. He finds himself growing more and more attracted to his co-worker, Alice (Jane Randolph). At first, Irena is upset to discover that Oliver has been telling Alice about their problems. But eventually Irena realizes that all she can do is watch as Oliver and Alice grow closer and closer. Irena knows that she can’t give Oliver what he desires but the confident and outspoken Alice can. As Irena grows more and more jealous, Alice starts to feel as if she’s being watched and followed. She starts to hear growls in the shadows and when she’s at her most vulnerable — swimming alone at night — she is shocked when Irena suddenly appears and demands to know where Oliver is.
And really, that’s what makes Cat People such a great film. It’s not necessarily a scary film, at least not to modern audiences. Sadly, we have seen so much graphic real-life horror and have become so jaded by CGI that we’re no longer scared by the mere cinematic suggestion of a monster. But the film still works because we can relate to both Irena and Alice. When I look over my relationships, I can see times when I’ve been both the insecure Irena and the confident Alice. For a film where the word “sex” is never uttered once, Cat People is a penetratingly honest look at relationships, love, and sexuality.
And it also features a truly memorable monster.
Seriously, that Dr. Judd is the worst!
Through the Shattered Lens 