This January, in support of the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre / Multicultural Women Against Rape, friends and family have raised over $1,500 (which, when matched by my employer, totals $3,000). As a result, I now have to watch and write about thirty-one horror movies: one each night. Any donors who contributed over $30 were given the option to choose one of the horror movies I must subject myself to. After each viewing, I will write some things about said movies on this website. Be forewarned that all such write-ups will contain spoilers, and many of them will refer to unpleasant and potentially triggering situations. Today’s film was selected by sci-fi and horror fan extraordinaire, my dear mom. It’s the original Val-Lewton-produced Cat People (1942), directed by Jacques Tourneur (Out of the Past). I rented Cat People from Toronto’s Queen Video.
What happens:
An quotation from one Dr. Louis Judd opens the classic Hollywood horror film Cat People, a passage about ancient sin and how it clings to people no matter how civilization advances. The story opens at the zoo, where a young Serbian woman, Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) sketches a caged panther over and over, each time crumpling up her work and tossing it out. A failed garbage toss results in a meet-cute with a handsome stranger, Oliver Reed (played not by Oliver Reed, but Kent Smith). He finds out Irena is a fashion illustrator and that she is Serbian – her accent gives away that she didn’t grow up in the U.S. of A. – and the two go for a stroll. What Reed doesn’t notice is Irena’s discarded sketch: a very nice art deco panther impaled by a dagger.
The young couple flirt and Irena invites Oliver up to her apartment for tea, noting that he qualifies as her “first real friend” in America. Reed is struck by the strong smell of perfume in her place – like something warm and living (or an animal musk, perhaps?). Tea time turns to night time and Oliver hears the lions in the nearby zoo. Irena remarks that she doesn’t mind the lions, but can’t stand the sound of the panther: “The panther … it screams like a woman. I don’t like that.” That’s when Oliver notices an unusual statue on Irena’s table: a knight on horseback who has speared a cat.
Irena explains the statue’s significance (and, obliquely, the theme of the movie): King John of Serbia is a hero who freed his people, and the cat represents their past evil ways. The Mamelukes (historically a warrior slave class throughout much of the Islamic world) enslaved Irena’s people, who she says turned to the dark arts and witchcraft during this oppression. King John drove out the Mamelukes, but discovered the Serbians they had enslaved had turned wicked. And the most wicked escaped to the mountains, right near the village where Irena grew up. Her life has been haunted by these evil people’s legend. Oliver figures this is a good time to make his departure, and they make plans to meet again for dinner.
Next we see Oliver Reed, he’s busy drafting blueprints for ships at his place of work, C.R. Cooper Ship and Barge Construction. (Given he works in design, it seems strange or disingenuous that he earlier claimed to not know any artists.) Alice Moore (Jane Randolph), the sole woman in the office, hears meowing and discovers that Oliver has snuck a kitten into work. The other fellows (Doc and The Commodore being the only named ones) figure Oliver must have a woman in his life, and he confesses. The kitten is a gift for Irena. However, when Oliver presents Irena with her furry gift, it spits and yowls at her. “Cats just don’t like me,” she shrugs, and they decide to brave the storm outside to exchange the cat at the pet store.
However, it seems like it’s not just a cat problem. When the two enter the pet store, literally every animal inside begins to flip out. They have to step outside with the shopkeeper to even speak over the noise. The kitten is exchanged for a canary (which can’t be the same price, really), and romance between Oliver and Irena grows. They confess their love for each other and Oliver notes, with amusement, that they haven’t even kissed yet. But still, he’s ready to start talking about marriage and children. Irena, however, has dreaded the moment when conversation would turn to kissing. She can’t kiss Oliver yet. She fears kissing him would unleash the evil inside her … the evil inside that King John tried to drive from her people. She needs more time.
But before long Oliver and Irena are attending their own wedding reception at The Belgrade, the lone Serbian restaurant in town. Things go mostly well, save for a mysterious cat-like woman, dressed all in black, who approaches the table and says something Serbian to Irena (which causes her to cross herself), and leaves. When Oliver asks Irena what the strange woman said, she answers: “She called me sister.” Despite their recent nuptials, Oliver and Irena continue to sleep in separate rooms. They haven’t even pressed their larger-than-average lips together. “I want to be Mrs. Reed, really,” Irena insists. “And everything that means.” Irena longingly reaches for her bedroom doorknob, but hesitates hearing cat yowls inside her head. (For a film made in the era of the restrictive Hays Code, it certainly does a good job of depicting sexual frustration.)
Irena visits her old friend at the zoo, the panther, and has a chat with the groundskeeper. The groundskeeper notes that no one ever visits the black panther when they’re happy, and insists the panther is an “evil critter” – it basically says so in the Bible. (Should this guy really be working at a zoo?) Later, at home, Irena takes a break from her sketches to play with her canary, sliding her hand inside its cage and attempting to grasp it. But the bird doesn’t like this game and dies of fright. Disappointed in herself for killing the bird, she finds a perfectly bird-shaped box, puts the dead canary inside, and carries it to the zoo, where she promptly hurls the bird into the panther cage as an impromptu cat snack.
Following the bird incident, Irena and Oliver have an in-depth talk about the lack of intimacy in their marriage. Irena is tormented by the unhappiness she causes Oliver. She says she envies every woman she sees on the street: “They’re happy … they make their husbands happy.” Oliver suggests they seek professional help and Irena passionately requests the best psychiatrist they can find.
Enter Dr. Judd (Tom Conway), a fictional psychiatrist who, nonetheless, was quoted at the beginning of the film. He has Irena undergo some hypnotherapy and learns all about the legendary cat women of her Serbian village. Allegedly, these mythical women turn into cats when they experience strong emotions: envy, anger, arousal. As such, the cat women can never fall in love. And Irena’s own mother was bullied by the children of her village, who teased that she was one of these “cat women.” The first therapy session goes reasonably well, but when Irena arrives home, she finds Oliver and his coworker Alice in conversation and realizes that Alice knows that she’s been seeking psychiatric help. Irena is livid – “There are some things a woman doesn’t want other women to understand” – and storms out to be with the zoo panthers.
The marital unrest takes its toll on Oliver’s work, and no one notices harder than Alice. Over the water cooler, Oliver tells Alice he’s never been unhappy before (must be nice), and doesn’t know what to do with this unhappiness. Alice promptly begins to weep, for – gentle viewers – she has been in love with Oliver a long time. And nothing makes her sadder than a handsome man experiencing momentary unease. (Who cares about the weird Serbian lady who has probably never been kissed, right?) With Alice’s awkward work-break confession of love now hanging in the air, you can probably guess the dangers that lie ahead.
Making full use of the zoo filming location, Irena returns to watch the panthers, and notices the groundskeeper has left the key in the panther’s cage. She returns it to him and Dr. Judd, who has followed Irina to the zoo, remarks on her restraint in not just unleashing the panther upon the zoo attendees. After all, he notes, people have a psychic need, “a desire for death.” (Pretty dark.) But Judd isn’t just there to rap about nihilism; Irena has been skipping appointments and he tries to convince her to continue their sessions. Irena, however, doesn’t see the point.
Oliver and Irena are arguing at home again. Not only do they not touch, they’ve started not talking. Oliver brings up Alice’s name (big mistake), and Irena turns positively incandescent with coiled rage. (Simone Simon gives a really great performance.) Oliver decides to leave for the office to do some work while his wife cools down. However, the cleaning lady is spiffing up the revolving door, so Oliver heads to the nearby café, Sally Lunn’s, instead. When Irena calls the office, Susan (there alone) answers, which only fuels Irena’s jealousy. She refuses to speak. Irena then leaves the workplace and, discovering from the cleaning lady that Oliver went to Sally Lunn’s, decides to join him there for a coffee.
Oliver and Alice stay at the café very late – always a wise decision when fighting with your wife: stay out all night with another woman who is in love with you – and finally part ways in the dark. What Alice doesn’t know is that Irena has left her apartment and stalks her along her route home. The quick-paced parallel walk makes for a dark, tense scene, as Alice soon realizes she’s being followed and breaks into a run. The tension is only released with a hissing cat sound that, wittily, is revealed as the sound of a braking bus – a bus that Alice gladly escapes onto.
Sheep are found dead at the zoo the next morning, with unidentifiable bloody prints found at the scene. Irena arrives home in the early morning, looking completely bedraggled and asking not to be touched. She locks herself in her bedroom and has a solid cry in the bath. That night, Irena has terrible nightmares populated with shadowy, animated cats, and Dr. Judd’s Mid-Atlantic accent reminding her about man’s desire for death. The next day, she returns to the zoo and visits the old Panthera pardus, busy chowing down on a steak, and steals the key to the cage.
Oliver, Irena, and Alice go to the art gallery on an awkward double-date (that’s missing one person), and, figuring Irena will be bored looking at the model ships (which is Oliver and Alice’s business, after all), tell her to go upstairs to look at the modern art. Feeling understandably jilted, Irena leaves, then follows Alice Moore back to her apartment, tailing her to her nightly swim in the building’s pool. Alice begins to sense danger in the darkened locker room and quickly runs to dive into the deep. In the dark pool (the lights are out), she can hear cat sounds and see the dark shadow of a jungle cat. Alice screams and the building staff run to the pool to see what’s the matter. Irena (her usual human self) turns on the light and wonders what the matter is. But after she leaves, the staff find Alice’s bathrobe, shredded beyond recognition. (Well, they can still recognize it as a bathrobe, I guess.)
At this point. Alice decides she could also use some psychiatric help. She visits Dr. Judd, too (which seems unethical), and asks if he believes in “cat people.” Alice then explains her fraught relationship with Irena, her torn robe. Dr. Judd says he’ll need to hear Irena’s side of the story to make up his mind. (Of course he does.) Alice, convinced Irena is able to turn into a deadly feline, worries for Judd’s safety, but just like John Steed, Judd conceals a sword (!) in his cane. Dr. Judd pays Irena a visit and warns her that he believes she’s playing a strange game with her. Crossing the line from unorthodox to harassment, he asks what Irena thinks would happen if he kissed her. Then, petulant at Irena’s apparent lack of romantic interest in him, he tells her she’s so close to insanity he could easily have her committed. (Future psychiatrists, take note!)
Strangely, the bizarre session with Dr. Judd has a positive effect on Irena. She marches back to her husband Oliver and informs him she’s longer afraid of her passions. But she’s just a bit too late, for Oliver has just moments ago decided he loves Alice. On the plus side, he is willing to give Irena a divorce. Irena begins to mumble in a near-cat-atonic state and uses the couch as a scratching post. Dr. Judd meets with new lovers Oliver and Alice and advises them on how to proceed – he dabbles in family law, as well. Oliver can either have Irena committed to a psychiatric hospital, or have the marriage annulled. The heroic Oliver decides that if Irena is really mentally ill, he should make sure she gets the helps she needs. They decide to meet Irena as a group to determine her state and decide on the best course of action.
Irena, however, never shows up. After spending nearly an hour’s wait in the apartment, they leave, but not before Dr. Judd furtively unlocks the Reeds’ apartment so he can return whenever he wants. Later that night, Alice and Oliver are working late again. They work late so often, it’s almost as if “working late” is a visual metaphor for some other kind of activity. In any event, Alice receives another phone call in which no one speaks on the other end. Alice is positively spooked this time. She’s had those calls before and she’s certain Irena is on the other end. Alice and Oliver decide to depart the office post-haste. But when they make to leave, they find the door has been locked and, worse, there’s now a wild panther in the workspace.
The panther stalks the couple in the dark, blending in with the shadows. Finally, Oliver pulls a T-square form the wall and holds it high as if it were a crucifix (modern design as religion). “In the name of God, leave us in peace!” he shouts, and the panther seems to vanish, though the heavy scent of Irena’s perfume does not.
And Irena has not disappeared entirely – she’s making her way back to the apartment, where Dr. Judd is waiting for her. Oliver and Alice call the apartment to warn Judd of her arrival, but he seems unconcerned. When Irena arrives (in human form), Judd embraces her and says he doesn’t believe her cat story. Then he commands her to be unafraid and kisses her right on the mouth. Irena stares at him intently and transforms (off-screen) into a panther. This is a surprise for Dr. Judd, and he draws the dagger from his walking stick. The panther and psychiatrist battle as a shadow play. Oliver and Alice enter the building downstairs and hear Judd’s death scream almost as soon as they arrive.
Irena (now a human again) hides behind a not particularly large plant as Oliver and Alice run upstairs. (Side note: Irena’s unseen half-wave goodbye to Oliver as she descends the stairs is one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.) They find the dead body of Dr. Judd, and see that his “sword cane” (their words) has been broken in half. The other half, naturally, is embedded in Irena’s shoulder. Staggering back to the zoo, she puts the key into the panther’s cage and frees it. The panther knocks her to the ground as it leaps to its freedom, but it’s a short-lived freedom. In the very next scene, we see a taxi has run the poor beast over. The taxi’s passengers, Oliver Reed and Alice Moore, hop out and run into the zoo, only to find a second dead panther sprawled on the ground outside the cage.
Takeaway points:
- Nearly every review of Cat People draws attention the film’s unspoken terror at female sexuality. After all, it’s not that Irena fears transforming into a vicious cat when she’s incredibly sad or incredibly happy. It’s specifically passion, arousal, jealousy – all the emotions we connect with romantic love and lust – that she feels will turn her into a murderous panther. (And she turns out to be correct!) She agonizes that she’s not able to be a real wife. But does Cat People share this fearful view of women’s sexuality? I’d argue it doesn’t: Irena, despite being the monster, is a far more sympathetic character than Oliver or Alice, who become dismissive of her fears. Like an attractive, Serbian King Kong or Frankenstein, Irena slowly becomes the misunderstood victim in this horror tale.
- The film plays off not only puritanical views of female sexuality, but also whitebread American fears of foreigners and immigration. Irena is from what is – to most Americans even today – a mystery of a European country. She might as well have said she was from Genovia, like in the Princess Diaries. The King John Irena talks about at the beginning of the film doesn’t even exist in the historical record, but I certainly didn’t know that. The intermarriage of all-American Oliver Reed and an Eastern European is the catalyst to the horror. Had they never met, had they never fallen in love, had they never married, the natural order could have been maintained. This is highlighted by Oliver’s later romantic interest in the chummy, girl-next-door Alice Moore, who is presented as more of a “fitting” match. What red-blooded American man wouldn’t want to “work late” with Alice? But again, the filmmakers undercut the anti-immigrant undertones by making Irena the real star of the show, and the far more enthralling lead.
- Cat People is remarkable because it’s a film that does a lot with a little. The production had a notoriously low budget (not atypical for an RKO movie) and was shot in 18 days, but producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur made a lot out of a little – keeping much in shadow and suggestion. The horror matched the sexuality: everything was kept under the surface. You don’t even see a single cat transformation. Yet all the unseen dread is very effective – both stalking sequences, when Alice is pursued by a (probably cat) Irena, are mini-masterpieces of tension. Val Lewton shortly thereafter became RKO’s go-to person for turning a profit on low-budget horror flicks.
- Of course, the film was remade in the early 1980s by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) with Malcolm McDowell and Natassja Kinski, where all the subtext became the very graphic text. That said, I haven’t seen the remake, so it could be really great. At the very least, it provided a solid Bowie tune.
Truly terrifying or truly terrible?: Cat People is a compelling, well made film, rife with suspense. You likely won’t have any nightmares from the subject matter, but the mood is definitely atmospheric and the themes are intriguing.
Best outfit: Simone Simon wears a number of incredible outfits to visually enhance her cat-like nature, but I like best the velvety fur coat she offsets with a little white lace around the neck.
Best line: “What does one tell a husband? One tells him nothing.” – Dr. Judd, the best psychiatrist. The very best.
Best kill: Only one person and two jungle cats are killed in Cat People. The best of the three is when the smug and overly familiar Dr. Judd gets his comeuppance at the claws of a cat person.
Unexpected cameo: Again, Cat People has a very small cast, and many of the smaller roles are completely uncredited, so there aren’t many cameos to be had. But of trivial interest: Tom Conway portrayed Dr. Louis Judd in a second film produced by Val Lewton, The Seventh Victim, and he even references a patient similar to Irena in that film. (But he’s also very much dead at the end of Cat People.) And Oliver’s coworker Doc, though uncredited, is played by Alan Napier, best known as Alfred from the Batman television series.
Unexpected lesson learned: “The law is quite explicit,” notes Dr. Judd. “One cannot divorce an insane person.” At first, I figured this was a plot device or relic of the legal past, but it turns out Judd is (with a few exceptions) correct. Turns out he’s a better lawyer than a psychiatrist. Who knew? (Probably every one who had considered divorcing someone with severe psychosis.)
Most suitable band name derived from the movie: C.R. Cooper Ship and Barge Construction. (Though that’s more of a trendy bar name.)
Next up: Return of the Living Dead (1985).