Cat People (1942)
Average Rating: 8.1/10
Reviews Counted: 36
Fresh: 33 | Rotten: 3
Influential noir director Jacques Tourneau infused this sexy, moody horror film with some sly commentary about the psychology and the taboos of desire.
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 5
Fresh: 4 | Rotten: 1
Influential noir director Jacques Tourneau infused this sexy, moody horror film with some sly commentary about the psychology and the taboos of desire.
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Movie Info
Handed the exploitive title Cat People, RKO producer Val Lewton opted for a thinking man's thriller--a psychological mood piece, more reliant on suspense and suggestion than overt "scare stuff". Simone Simon plays an enigmatic young fashion artist who is curiously affected by the panther cage at the central park zoo. She falls in love with handsome Kent Smith, but loses him to Jane Randolph. After a chance confrontation with a bizarre stranger at a restaurant, Simon becomes obsessed with the
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Cast
-
Simone Simon
Irena Dubrovna -
Kent Smith
Oliver Reed -
Tom Conway
Dr. Louis Judd -
Jane Randolph
Alice Moore -
Jack Holt
Commodore -
Alan Napier
Carver -
Elizabeth Dunne
Miss Plunkett -
Elizabeth Russell
The Cat Woman -
Henrietta Burnside
Woman -
Alec Craig
Zookeeper -
Eddie Dew
Street Cop -
Dot Farley
Mrs. Agnew -
George Ford
Whistling Cop -
Bud Geary
Mounted Cop -
Theresa Harris
Minnie -
Charles Jordan
Bus Driver -
Donald Kerr
Taxi Driver -
Connie Leon
Woman -
Murdock MacQuarrie
Sheep Caretaker -
Leda Nicova
Patient -
Mary Halsey
Blondie
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All Critics (36) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (34) | Rotten (3) | DVD (3)
This is a weird drama of thrill-chill caliber.
Top CriticCat People wasn't frightening like a slasher movie, using shocks and gore, but frightening in an eerie, mysterious way that was hard to define; the screen harbored unseen threats.
More a film about unreasoning fear than the supernatural, this work demonstrates what a filmmaker can accomplish when he substitutes taste and intelligence for special effects.
First in the wondrous series of B movies in which Val Lewton elaborated his principle of horrors imagined rather than seen, with a superbly judged performance from Simon.
Ladies who have such temptations -- in straight horror pictures, at least -- should exercise their digits a bit more freely than does Simone Simon in this film.
[Demonstrates] the enduring power of imagined horror in everyday-life situations.
The scariest American horror movie of the 1940s.
Tourneur splendidly visualizes immigrant dislocation and marital anxiety as spiritual states suspended between planes of light and shadow
Based on a deceptively simple story, this understated but scary horror film benefits from the collaboration of producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur and the touching performance from Simone Simon
Unpleasant film argues we should be afraid of people who are different.
In its complexity, it functions as a sharp, canny blueprint for the rest of Lewton's pictures.
Magnificent.
ts techniques would be adopted by noir, its themes are aped by horror films and thrillers today.
A thinking man's supernatural thriller.
What works the best, though, is the compelling sense of conviction -- something missing from most 1940s horror films.
Female sexuality is a rich source of a certain kind of horror - the kind of horror that plays upon the anxieties that prudish bourgeois men have about their wives' sex lives.
The way it messes with your head -- and Jacques Tourneur's deft ability behind the camera -- make it quite the '40s standout.
Lewton would insist upon creating suspense and chills through subtlety, imagination, creepy effects, ominous music, and odd camera angles.
It's what you don't see in a Val Lewton production rather than what you do see that makes it frightening.
Beautiful and strange film, a timeless classic.
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Foreign Titles
- Cat People (1942) (DE)
- Cat People (1942) (UK)
Cat People was filmed on a very low budget and this lead to great economic measures at the time. Director Jacques Tourneur makes great use out of his "lack" of available lighting, creating dark alleyways and spooky office buildings that have been closed up for the night. And let's not forget the pool scene, as Alice hears the growl of a jungle cat reverberate off the walls of the pool, but can see only shadows reflecting off the water. And what is the underlying message here? Is it about the dangers of sex or the dangers of abstinance? A woman who can't fulfill her wifely duties isn't really a wife at all, or a man who can't control his passions will find them blowing up in his face. It's a bit of weird 1940s fetish-ism.