Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #950 in VHS
• Original language: Czech, English

Amazon.com
The original 1943 film that inspired the sexier 1982 Natassja Kinski remake is an intriguing metaphor for sexual repression and anxiety. When a Manhattan ship architect named Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) marries beautiful but psychologically tortured fashion sketch artist Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), he has little knowledge of her past other than that she is tortured by myths from her European homeland. His bride fears she will transform into a deadly panther if aroused or angry. Once their passionless marriage deteriorates, and Oliver begins to ponder a romance with his coworker Alice Moore (Jane Randolph), Irena's jealousy and anger begin a series of transformations that threaten her therapist, her husband, and Alice. Director Jacques Tourneur never shows Irena's metamorphosis, usually implying the presence of her feline alter ego through creepy sound effects, ominous shadows, and dramatic camera angles, all elements that effectively generate suspense and fear. This black-and-white mood piece takes its time building up its story, and while Irena's inner panther could easily be interpreted as representing the wrath of a woman scorned, Cat People goes deeper in probing her psychic scars. --Bryan Reesman

Customer Reviews

A Poverty-Row Masterpiece of Terror through Suggestion
Producer Val Lewton, working near if not on Poverty Row, learned to assemble the chilling moods of his films through ellipsis and suggestion. His director for The Cat People, Jacques Tourneur (later to helm Out of the Past), elegantly delivered the goods. Basically, Simone Simon, as the feline heroine living in Bohemian 40s Manhattan, hails from a part of old Europe where... There are scenes in Central Park and the YWCA (both, of course, at night) where the all-but-unbearable suspense is generated by the most indirect and economical of means. This may be the most perfectly realized horror film ever made, because they knew then what they've forgotten now -- that the worst images come not from speffex but from deep within our own ids. Paul Schrader's lavish and literal-minded remake in the 80s can't begin to give an idea of this unforgettable, black-and-white jewel.

More than the Sum of It's Parts
There's a pivotal scene in Vincente Minelli's "The Bad and the Beautiful" where Kirk Douglas and Barry Sullivan, portraying a fledgling Hollywood producer and director are given the task of making a horror movie with little more than a title (and a silly one at that). In a flash of desperate inspiration, they eschew the typical men-in-suits method that never works anyway, relying instead on the two oldest and most reliable special effects in filmaking: the Dark and the Imagination. Needless to say their film is a hit. I have no doubt this scene was a direct tribute to the careers and films of an unjustly obscure pair of visionaries, producer Val Lewton and director Jaques Tourneur and their most "famous" film, 1942's "Cat People."

Shot at RKO in under a month for less than $140,000, this dark little gem stars Simone Simon as Irena, a Serbian woman (immigrant? refugee?) who is convinced that her blood carries the curse of a race of European Satanist druids, and that any hint of passion, love, desire, anger, jealousy will turn her into a murderous cat-creature. The tiny, lovely Simon plays the role beautifully, with a fragile, feline grace that hints at something very dark (kinky?) lurking just underneath her almond-shaped eyes and alluring smile. Kent Smith plays her husband Oliver Reed rather woodenly by comparison, but Tourneur is smart enough not to try making him any deeper than a typical all-American boy type - at one point he describes his life as "swell" and somehow we don't laugh...maybe you could say stuff like that in the 40s.

DeWitt Bodeen's script efficiently zips through the boy-meets-girl part, but not without giving us things to think about. After brazenly inviting (luring?) Oliver to her apartment for tea after having just met, we soon find Irena humming an exotically European lullaby in the darkened room as Oliver lays on her sofa...though both characters are fully dressed and on opposite sides of the room, the feeling that something did/will/should/wants to happen is palpable. Particularly chilling is a moment when Irena and Oliver enter a pet shop only to find every single animal in the room shrieking with horror, the din ceasing the moment Irena opts to stand by herself in a pouring rain while Oliver shops in the now peaceful establishment. I've seen more graphic depictions of the excluded outsider, but none more poigniant. At a party thrown in honor of their engagement, a mysterious and beautiful stranger who "looks like a cat" according to one guest greets Irena as a familiar, saying something in a language only the two of them understand. It's a simple moment, but a dark one...dark because the audience realizes that Irena truly is something other than what she seems, and because the people around her don't believe it, something bad is going to happen.

This is when Tourneur and photographer Nicholas Musuraca do their work, mixing our own expectation of something awful with shadows, sounds and silence, standing by as we push our own buttons. Utterly normal things like walking to a bus stop, answering the phone, taking a swim and even having coffee and pie morph from the common into hair raising incidents. As we watch we're more frightened each time something dosen't happen, convinced that it's going to be really awful when it finally does. It isn't until the film's bittersweet finale, that we realize that Tourneur and Bodeen have been toying with our very conception of what scary is...conning us into scaring ourselves because we already know how.

Wonderfully Creepy
One of the best of the 1940's era horror films highlighted by Val Lewton's use of shadow and understated horror. Produced by Lewton, this film, the Wolf Man, and Dead of Night rank as the best horror films from the lean 1940's. Directed by Jacquest Tourneur (Curse of the Demon) and starring the sexy Simone Simon, this film is one of the few perfect horror films. This VHS edition is in SP speed and gives a very clear picture and sound. The black levels are good so night scenes (of which there are many) are always nicely visible. The VHS features a reproduction of the film's wonderful poster.If you like classic horror, this is for you.