CAT PEOPLE (1942)

 

(Director: Jacques Tourneur. Screenwriter: DeWitt Bodeen.)

Storyline

A Serbian immigrant woman weds an American man, triggering her superstitious belief that she’ll turn into jungle cat if she has sex with her husband.

 

Review

When an American, Oliver Reed (Kent Smith, THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, 1944), marries a Serbian fashion artist, the neurotic Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon, THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, 1944), it exacerbates an irrational terror within her. She fears that if she kisses her husband, she’ll turn into a jungle cat and tear him apart. Her terror and his frustration are heightened when he and his close co-worker, Alice Moore (Jane Randolph, THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE, 1944), realize they’re in love.

A psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway, THE SEVENTH VICTIM, 1943), tries to help the distraught Irena, who stalks Alice and Oliver at night. (Conway reprised his character in SEVENTH, a character-linked prequel to CAT.)

Irena’s downward emotional trajectory worsens, underscoring an increasingly dangerous question: can she be saved before she transforms, goes murderously insane?

At seventy-three minutes, this is a stunning film. The psychological and nuanced potency of DeWitt Bodeen’s taut, character-sketched screenplay is further brought to iconic and suspenseful life by its visual and musical aspects. Roy Webb’s score is dramatic without being overly so; art directors Albert S. D’Agostino and Walter E. Keller’s use of chiaroscuro and animation is enhanced by Nicholas Muscuraca’s cinematography, Mark Robson’s editing and Jacques Tourneur’s direction.

Acting-wise, all the players are dead-on in their roles. The leads are backed by notable actors, including Alec Craig (THE SPIDER WOMAN, 1943) as a “Zookeeper” and Alan Napier (THE UNINVITED, 1944) as Doc Carver─both Craig and Napier are uncredited in their CAT roles.

CAT is one of my all-time favorite films of any genre, one that is worth seeing if you enjoy suspenseful, psychological films with striking visual aspects and haunting characters.