Wonkette Movie Night: Cat People (1942)
'You can fool everybody, but landie, dearie me, you can't fool a cat. They seem to know who's not right, if you know what I mean.'
Beautiful Irena Dubrovna has caught the eye of marine engineer Oliver Reed while visiting the Central Park Zoo. Irena is sketching a black panther, but after a conversation with the gentleman finds herself interested in him. She asks if he would like to have tea in her home.
In her apartment Oliver is fascinated by a figurine depicting King John of Serbia as a medieval warrior impaling a large wild cat on his cutlass. Irena tells him an ancient legend from her home village, that after enslavement by the Mameluks the Christians used witchcraft to fight back. But after King John finally kicked the Mameluks out he didn’t like that the village was no longer Christian but more feline and killed them all. Except one who escaped.
Irena and Oliver’s relationship grows and Irena reveals to him her dark secret. She believes she is a descendant of that one villager who had escaped the wrath of King John. She tells him sexy times turns her into a beast. But not in a fun way. Passion unleashes the blank panther that she truly is. But he still wants to marry her.
Oliver is the kind of man who thinks he can change her, that she just needs psychiatric help. He believes Dr. Judd can help Irena overcome her fear of intimacy, help her to understand that she won’t become a cat if their marriage is consummated.
But Oliver is a bit of a dog and starts an affair with his assistant Alice after Alice admits to haven fallen in love with him. Meanwhile some sheep have turned up dead and the pawprints leading away from the dead sheep fade into shoe prints.
While swimming in her apartment building’s basement swimming pool Alice is stalked in the darkness by something unknown. Screaming for help brings Irena who arrives to turn on the lights and the something unknown has disappeared. Oliver finally admits his love to Alice and tells Irena that he wants a divorce. (Oliver is a jerk.)
That evening a growling beast corners Alice and Oliver but they escape after smelling Irena’s perfume. They realize they should warn Dr. Judd before Irena arrives to her next appointment. But they’re too late and when Irena is kissed by Dr. Judd she turns into a panther and mauls him to death. Maybe he should have believed her.
Cat People (1942) is available for free on the Internet Archive. On Hulu with subscription, $3.99 in the usual places.
Cat People stars Simone Simon, Mark Robson, Kent Smith, Jack Holt, Tom Conway, and Jane Randolph. Directed by Jacques Tourneur.
To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules go to WonkMovie.
The animated short is The Human Fossil created by Rebbersome.
Our next Movie Night selection is The Muppet Movie, it is free on the Internet Archive. On Disney+ with subscription, $3.79 in the usual places.
𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐀:
The horror movie technique of slowly building tension to a jarring shock which turns out to be something completely harmless and benign became known as a "Lewton bus" after a famous scene in this movie created by producer Val Lewton. The technique is also referred to as a "cat scare," as off-screen noises are often revealed to be a startled harmless cat.
𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐀:
RKO executives were reportedly skeptical about the finished film, which they believed was too subtle and possibly not overt enough to compete with Universal's brand of horror. The film was in theaters for so long that critics who had originally bashed the film were able to see it again and many rewrote their reviews with a more positive spin. The film was such a hit at the box office, the releases of the next two Lewton films (I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Leopard Man (1943)) were delayed.