Oliver is bizarrely good-natured and understanding. He declares that he's led a carefree life, then he confides to a female co-worker, Alice Moore (Jane Randolph), that Irena has problems. She passive/aggressively suggests that Irena go see a psychiatrist friend of theirs, Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway), whom she knows is a sexual predator. The doctor dismisses her superstitions, yet has the hots for the sexy Irena, and tries to manipulate her, and the others. Alice and Oliver fall in love, as the sexless marriage of the Reeds deteriorates, and Conway intimates that Irena should be hospitalized, so that Oliver can annul their marriage, and he can have her all for himself.
Despite rejecting Oliver's love, when Irena grows wise to Alice's feelings, she stalks her three times, in the film's most memorable scenes. The first time is at night, in Central Park, and the sounds of high heels clicking, and shadows on the wall, and in the trees, is unnerving. Alice escapes when a bus pulls up, with a hissing sound. This is memorable, because she's looking to the left, the bus comes from the right. Its hiss sounds like a big cat's, which is what it would be in the hands of a lesser director than Tourneur, and which has, indeed, been copied hundreds of times since. The technique has become so popular that any time a film, in any genre, raises expectations, then dissipates with a subversion, the technique is called 'a bus.'
We then see a dead lamb at the zoo and cat prints that morph into high heels. One might wonder if Irena's clothes morph into a cat, as well. When she gets home, she freezes Oliver out of her room, and takes a bath, to cleanse herself of guilt, and possibly lamb's blood. The second stalking takes place in a pool, where Irena follows Alice at night, and where Alice's robe ends up ripped.
The final stalking is the least effective, dramatically and visually, for Irena stalks both Alice and Oliver at their office, and is warded off with a slide rule that looks like a crucifix, and Oliver's pleas to God. We also get to actually see a panther, which, given its relatively small size, decreases the fear factor, and makes the film a definitive supernatural thriller, whereas the earlier suggestiveness left the film open to being all in the minds of its characters. This manifestation of the supernatural element was forced upon Tourneur and Lewton by studio heads.
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