Inspired by the success of Universal’s monster movies, particularly George Waggner’s 1941 The Wolf Man, RKO Pictures turned towards terror. The studio was in need of a hit following several costly failures, so executives appointed producer Val Lewton as head of their new horror department, tasking him with turning their lurid title suggestions into coherent, cheap, and preferably profitable films. The first fruit of this thrifty arrangement was director Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People, released in the US on Christmas Day 1942. Remarkably, it became a classic, and, 80 years on, still stands as one of the most poetic and slyly subversive horror films ever made.
Scripted by DeWitt Bodeen with uncredited input from Lewton, Cat People tells the deceptively simple story of Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), a Serbian immigrant working as a fashion illustrator in New York. When she crosses paths with self-described “good, plain Americano” Oliver Reed (Kent Smith), the stage seems set for a romantic drama. However, Irena is profoundly tormented by a secret fear: according to the legends of her home country, the women of her village turn into panther-like cats when roused by jealousy, anger, or lust. She is terrified that this ancient curse will compel her to change form and kill Oliver if they ever consummate their relationship. Her unshakable conviction strains their marriage to breaking point, and her husband turns his affections to his cheerfully brash colleague Alice (Jane Randolph) — a betrayal that could lead to fatal consequences.
At first glance, the plot synopsis could be interpreted as being distinctly reactionary: a tasteless monster movie warning American men not to marry foreigners, and demonising wives who do not fulfill their husband’s sexual needs. However, Lewton, Tourneur, and Bodeen deliver a far more nuanced and fascinating work, one that refuses to ever entirely yield its meaning and deliberately turns conventional sympathies and expectations on their heads.
The most obvious and widely-discussed innovation of Cat People is in terms of its visual style. Lewton has retrospectively been recognised as a pioneer of quiet horror, favouring the suggestive over the explicit, while Tourneur is critically beloved for his masterful use of light and shadow to create psychological drama and suspense. Beyond a few brief shots of a panther at the climax (inserted at the insistence of the nervous studio), the audience never sees definitive proof of the titular creature — a distinct break with Universal’s more direct approach. We never know for certain whether Irena is truly cursed or just disturbed; simple but effective changes in the lighting and shots of terrified reactions suffice to alarm the viewer, with the rest left to our imagination.
Nicholas Musuraca’s extraordinary cinematography deliberately destabilises spaces for the supernatural set pieces, turning the innocuous into the uncanny. During the famous stalking sequence around Central Park, Alice and Irena walk rhythmically through thick pools of darkness and light as they move beneath the streetlamps, their footsteps echoing off the damp, towering stone walls as though they were traversing an oozing subterranean cavern rather than a popular metropolitan landmark. When Irena later corners Alice at a swimming pool, the rippling water reflects wildly off the walls and ceiling as if everything were suddenly submerged, with the aquatic acoustics turning the growls and screams into a brilliantly disorientating cacophony that seems to come from all directions at once. The climactic confrontation at the office is illuminated from below rather than above by the lights of the drafting tables, allowing Irena to prowl through the low shadows while drawing our eyes to the technical instruments on the wall which will prove Oliver and Alice’s makeshift salvation.
Perhaps less frequently celebrated but just as vital to the film’s continuing power is the way in which it subverts audience sympathies regarding its characters. Bodeen’s thoughtful, provocative screenplay declines to pass firm judgment on its troubled protagonist. Although Irena refers to herself as “evil,” the combination of Simon’s performance and the penetrating script ensures that she arguably emerges as the film’s most tragic and relatable figure, despite ostensibly being its monster.
We first meet Irena at the zoo, sketching a caged panther. Ominously, she is unable to capture the beast to her satisfaction, accidentally littering the ground around her with her discarded efforts. It is one of these failed attempts that first attracts Oliver’s attention to her. Tellingly, he puts the crumpled drawing into the dustbin without actually looking at it, establishing him as a dully practical man rather than a curious or imaginative one, despite his bland chatter about meeting an artist. Ignoring his disinterest, the scene concludes with the camera dwelling on another of Irena’s unfinished pictures lying forgotten on the ground, showing a panther impaled on a sword. Aside from the sketch’s obvious Freudian symbolism, the shot serves to show us that Irena has a rich internal life that Oliver will ignore at his peril.
Although Irena apparently has plenty of acquaintances in business, she describes Oliver as “the first friend I met in America” — a sore misjudgment on her part and an overestimation of his commitment. Irena seems happiest in the warm, natural shadows of her apartment, only switching on the lights for him reluctantly as she explains: “I like the dark; it’s friendly.” In contrast, Oliver seems most at home at his office, working for a nautical construction company: all bright lights, rational measurements, and brisk geometry. Once he moves into her apartment, the light increases, driving out the cosiness she loves and emphasising the harder lines of its furnishings and structure, with doorways, in particular, symbolising the growing division between them. As things fall apart, Oliver increasingly flees back to his office, taking refuge in the unemotional organisation of his work, while Irena is drawn to the nocturnal oasis of Central Park and its zoo, driven from her shelter and seeking the lonely friendship of darkness once again.
Irena’s isolation and insoluble sadness are beautifully portrayed by Simon, whose strong French accent exacerbates her difference from the other actors. It is also conveyed through some truly haunting images: Irena slowly sinking against the closed bedroom door as the snow falls outside, or weeping in the bathtub with droplets of water delicately jewelling her back like frozen tears. Her yearning for a new life is palpable, but she cannot relinquish her past, leaving her hopelessly torn. She is misunderstood and eventually rejected by the bustling city around her, but terrified by unexpected reminders of home, such as the mysterious woman who seems to propose kinship by calling her “sister” at the Serbian restaurant. Despite her more aggressive actions, Irena is never less than utterly sincere; as Oliver says of her at the end, in one of his rare moments of insight: “She never lied to us.”
If Irena’s integrity is beyond reproach, the same cannot be said for the supposedly wholesome characters surrounding her. Doctor Judd (Tom Conway), the psychiatrist hired by Oliver to analyse his wife, hides a distinctly duplicitous, lecherous streak beneath his suave exterior. When she rejects his advances, he threatens to have her committed, and he later schemes with Alice and Oliver to do just that behind her back. For all his patronisingly urbane superiority, he is undone by his own unethical urges, unable to resist making one last foolhardy pass at Irena, despite her warnings. He underestimates her honesty while failing to control his own rampant hypocrisy.
Fittingly, Judd is recommended to Oliver by Alice, who in many ways shares the psychiatrist’s predatory slyness — a concealed cunning that contrasts sharply with Irena’s open horror at her own bestial side. While Alice pretends concern over the failing marriage, she subtly undermines Irena in conversation and draws Oliver ever deeper into her confidence. She smirks at the couple’s “stormy weather” and is only too willing to describe true love for Oliver as “understanding…no self-torture, no doubt,” knowing the advantage her definition gives her confident personality over that of the introverted, tormented Irena. She shows little empathy or curiosity, seeming to view her possibly supernatural rival as merely an obstacle to be dealt with and pushed aside. After the final confrontation, she simply states, “I need a drink,” breezily dismissing both the experience and Irena’s obvious suffering; she just wants to escape the symbolic mist around her and get back to her conventional existence.
While the behaviour of Alice and Doctor Judd is highly questionable, it could be argued that the true villain of the film is Oliver; the fact that he is largely unaware of his part in the damage he causes does little to mitigate his culpability. While he never attacks Irena and outwardly tries to help her, his insensitive actions and his blithe dismissals of her concerns consistently worsen her plight. He seems attracted to her as though she were an exotic ornament, a pretty creature to possess as an end in itself. Having won her heart, he seems surprised to find that there remains more for him to do. He struggles to understand her and fairly swiftly loses interest, easily swayed into the arms of a less emotionally complex woman. His defining moment is his bemused confession to the ever-solicitous Alice: “I’ve never been unhappy before. Things have always gone swell for me. I had a great time as a kid, lots of fun at school, and here at the office.” This bland lack of emotional experience reveals a monstrous absence of imagination, expressing a highly privileged view of life that seems to have no conception of suffering even for himself, let alone any empathy for the miseries of others. Most damningly, having finally had his eyes opened by Irena, his only desire appears to be to close them again and return to his rose-tinted world with Alice neatly replacing her.
If the film outwardly follows the conventions of a ‘happy’ ending, with the cat people defeated and Oliver finding a more compatible partner in Alice, its final tone is one of tragedy rather than triumph. Many unsettling questions remain, both in terms of the ambiguity of what we have seen and the morality of the characters. Fortunately, the film’s bold approach did not hinder its box office success, leading to several more acclaimed Lewton productions in the 1940s, including Robert Wise’s unusual fairytale-like sequel Curse of the Cat People in 1944. The film also spawned a far more explicit remake in 1982 courtesy of the director Paul Schrader, which is perhaps best remembered today for David Bowie’s theme song. However, 80 years on, the original remains unique: stylish, eerie, and moving, forever inviting receptive viewers to return once again to the beguiling solitude of its friendly darkness.
