Cat People (1942)

Directed by

Jacques Tourneur

Genre

fantasy film, film noir, horror film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 13m

Rated

NR

Rating

6.9 of 10 from 675 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A Serbian fashion illustrator named Irena becomes convinced she comes from a line of people who turn into panthers when aroused. She marries a man who later grows close to a coworker, and Irena begins to follow her. The film follows Irena's struggle with her secret and the danger it brings.

tenseatmosphericmelancholichauntingslow-burnunsettlingbroodingsuspenseful

What happens

Cat People is a 1942 American supernatural horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced for RKO by Val Lewton. The film tells the story of Irena Dubrovna, a newly married Serbian fashion illustrator obsessed with the idea that she is descended from an ancient tribe of Cat People who metamorphose into black panthers when aroused. When her husband begins to show interest in one of his co-workers, Irena begins to stalk her. The film stars Simone Simon as Irena, and features Kent Smith, Tom Conway, Jane Randolph, and Jack Holt in supporting roles. Production began in 1942, when Lewton was placed in charge of developing RKO's low-budget horror films. He brought together a team of filmmakers that he had worked with in the past, including Tourneur, editor Mark Robson and screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen. Cat People was the first film upon which the team worked. They were given the title by an RKO executive, who instructed them to develop a film from it. After researching various horror films and cat-related literature, Bodeen and Lewton developed the script with Lewton doing extensive uncredited work on the story. The film was shot at RKO's studios reusing sets from previous films such as The Magnificent Ambersons. During editing, Robson developed a technique later called The Lewton Bus, a jump scare that Lewton used in his subsequent films. Cat People had its premiere at the Rialto Theatre in Manhattan on December 5, 1942, before having a wider release on December 25. Contemporary critics were tepid, though the film did well at the box office, being one of RKO's biggest hits of the season. Several horror films of the 1940s and 1950s were influenced by Cat People, either drawing on the film's shadowy visuals or containing a female character who fears that she possesses a hereditary trait that makes her transform into a monster. The film was followed by a sequel, The Curse of the Cat People, in 1944, and a remake, directed by Paul Schrader, was released in 1982. The film has become well known, though created as a B-movie, being selected by Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1993. Retrospective reviews of the original have been much more positive, with praise directed at the film's atmosphere and sophistication, with the critic Roger Ebert describing it and the other Val Lewton productions as landmark films of the 1940s. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Casablanca (1942)
• Les Visiteurs du Soir (1942)
• I Married a Witch (1942)
• Crossroads (1942)
• A Light in the Window (1942)
• Temptation (1942)
• The Glass Key (1942)
• This Gun for Hire (1942)