There are also many memorable scenes, such as the reaction of animals to Irena — like a kitten Oliver buys her, then all the animals at the pet shop when they return it. They get a canary, but it dies of fright when Irena sticks her hand in the cage, as if a cat's paw, and the look of sadistic glee on her face is priceless, as is the change to depression when she realizes what she has done. She then tosses the dead bird to the panther at the zoo, which is not far from her apartment. There she listens to the big cats howl at night. This makes one wonder how a foreign sketch artist could afford to live in such luxurious digs, as her Manhattan apartment is huge, and in one of the priciest areas in town.
Another well wrought scene, and also famous is when, at her wedding reception at a local eatery, a nameless cat-woman, (Elizabeth Russell) approaches Irena and addresses her, in Simon's dubbed vocals, as 'my sister,' in Serbian. Another great scene is Irena's nightmare with cartoon panthers and Dr. Judd as King John.
But, there are some bad scenes and dialogue that prevent the film from outright greatness, even if it can still be called a great horror film. Yet the film's import, in its time and genre, is indisputable, and that difference, and recognition of it, is important. The dialogue, by screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen, veers between B film cheese and real depth, yet contains many great lines and moments, such as Oliver's claim that Irena's perfume is "warm and living." Alice also gets a number of great lines, that suggest double entendre is her native tongue, and display her duplicity and sexual skills in snaring the man she loves. The exchanges between Dr. Judd and Irena are also quite strong, and realistic of some of the Freudian nonsense of the era. Lewton, a man who wrote poetry and pulp novels, reputedly spiced up some of the dialogue, and was noted for having dissed David O. Selznick's (his former boss) love of the film Gone With The Wind as being trash.
Cat People is aided by the fact that it runs a brisk 72 minutes, and this is because Tourneur wisely employs many ellipses of scenes that we can figure out, such as Oliver's and Irena's courtship, long before such a technique became fashionable in European art films, and shots to establish the definity of the connection of Irena to the panther. Cinematographer Musuraca and the film's typically upbeat 1940s score, by Roy Webb, also make the film memorable, the former in its superb embodiment of film noir, and the latter in its ironic undercutting of what is seen.
Article comments