Many comments applaud (though a few dislike) "Cat People" as a masterpiece of terror. It is deftly conceived by Val Lewton. It is brilliantly directed by Jacques Tourneur, and marvelously filmed by the great Nicholas Musuraco. It is hardly worth repeating all that. I agree with the praise. Yet, in a way, that praise, "masterpiece of terror," downgrades the achievement, relegates it to a clever specimen of a minor genre of mass entertainment, the "horror film." Sometimes also a word is added to its description. It's not a classic but a cult classic - as if to say only a certain group of obsessed persons insist on appreciating it. (I hate when that word is applied to qualify, essentially to denigrate, films or novels that stand on their own merit and speak sincerely to anybody who cares to watch or read.) All right. Let's say it: "horror film," a minor genre of entertainment. It is possible to take that genre as a vehicle and elevate it to higher levels. Detective fiction, for example, is a minor genre of literature. Shakespeare never wrote a detective story. But Charles Dickens did ("Bleak House"). And Wilkie Collins did ("The Moonstone"). They raised it to a higher purpose. Now, I am not comparing "Cat People" to Charles Dickens. I am comparing the achievement. "Cat People" takes a minor genre and elevates it. That makes it a classic. No qualifying adjectives apply.
The "horror," the scariness, is not the essence of the film. Take away entirely the supernatural element, ailuranthropy - it's a word - the werecat plot device. Omit the paranormal. What emerges? It is a gripping drama: a woman, an immigrant, a "stranger in a strange land;" she finds herself adrift in an alien society; she clings to remnants and fears of her faraway culture; a smooth-talking native courts her; at first he is kindly; then he abandons her; he replaces her with one of his own type; she is devastated; she seeks revenge. Is she, really, transformable into a spectral feline predator? We almost never see the werecat on screen anyway. Take it away. It's in her mind. Fantasy becomes her reality. She is scorned and mistreated. She strikes at those who have hurt her. She stalks her rival, terrorizes her, rips apart her robe as a calling card. An unctuous, libidinous psychiatrist tries to use her troubled mind as a means, to get at her body. She kills him. Cut out the supernatural overlay. Forget all that. The essence remains. "Cat People" paints a haunting psychological portrait. It is the story of a woman tormented. It plays out in her mind, through her illusions, as well as in her body, through her acts. Hitchcock could have done it, though not - of that I am sure - as well as it is done here.
It wouldn't work without the contribution of great acting. Sometimes an actor or an actress credited below the star steals a film. Despite Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, I always think, Walter Catlett steals "Bringing Up Baby." Mercedes McCambridge stole "Johnny Guitar" right out from under Joan Crawford. Is it permitted to say that a top-billed performer stole her own film? Simone Simon certainly did. Irena's vulnerability and her pain come through devastatingly. Take the scene in the museum. She is abandoned, dismissed, coldly and cruelly, by her husband and his girlfriend: "you look at the pretty pictures; we'll go off together to appreciate the art that we love." Or take the scene where she tries for the last time to be a wife. He walks in, without even noticing the table she has set with flowers: "I want a divorce." She's lost in real life and lost in her fantasies. I try to imagine who else might have played the role of Irena - Gale Sondergaard perhaps - and how it would have come out. Nobody, I think, could have done it better than Simone Simon did. She had a troubled career in American films, and, unfortunately, that interrupted her career in French cinema. Mention her name in France, as I have, to an average film buff. You'll get most likely a blank stare. She deserves much more recognition.
A word about the black panther. There is one striking reference in literature to such a creature. It appears in a novel also tinged with the occult and supernatural, Eugene Sue's "Le Juif Errant" (The Wandering Jew). That black panther, who eventually kills its evil master, is named "La Mort" (Death). It's too bad the zookeeper in "Cat People" didn't give us the name of his big cat.
The "horror," the scariness, is not the essence of the film. Take away entirely the supernatural element, ailuranthropy - it's a word - the werecat plot device. Omit the paranormal. What emerges? It is a gripping drama: a woman, an immigrant, a "stranger in a strange land;" she finds herself adrift in an alien society; she clings to remnants and fears of her faraway culture; a smooth-talking native courts her; at first he is kindly; then he abandons her; he replaces her with one of his own type; she is devastated; she seeks revenge. Is she, really, transformable into a spectral feline predator? We almost never see the werecat on screen anyway. Take it away. It's in her mind. Fantasy becomes her reality. She is scorned and mistreated. She strikes at those who have hurt her. She stalks her rival, terrorizes her, rips apart her robe as a calling card. An unctuous, libidinous psychiatrist tries to use her troubled mind as a means, to get at her body. She kills him. Cut out the supernatural overlay. Forget all that. The essence remains. "Cat People" paints a haunting psychological portrait. It is the story of a woman tormented. It plays out in her mind, through her illusions, as well as in her body, through her acts. Hitchcock could have done it, though not - of that I am sure - as well as it is done here.
It wouldn't work without the contribution of great acting. Sometimes an actor or an actress credited below the star steals a film. Despite Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, I always think, Walter Catlett steals "Bringing Up Baby." Mercedes McCambridge stole "Johnny Guitar" right out from under Joan Crawford. Is it permitted to say that a top-billed performer stole her own film? Simone Simon certainly did. Irena's vulnerability and her pain come through devastatingly. Take the scene in the museum. She is abandoned, dismissed, coldly and cruelly, by her husband and his girlfriend: "you look at the pretty pictures; we'll go off together to appreciate the art that we love." Or take the scene where she tries for the last time to be a wife. He walks in, without even noticing the table she has set with flowers: "I want a divorce." She's lost in real life and lost in her fantasies. I try to imagine who else might have played the role of Irena - Gale Sondergaard perhaps - and how it would have come out. Nobody, I think, could have done it better than Simone Simon did. She had a troubled career in American films, and, unfortunately, that interrupted her career in French cinema. Mention her name in France, as I have, to an average film buff. You'll get most likely a blank stare. She deserves much more recognition.
A word about the black panther. There is one striking reference in literature to such a creature. It appears in a novel also tinged with the occult and supernatural, Eugene Sue's "Le Juif Errant" (The Wandering Jew). That black panther, who eventually kills its evil master, is named "La Mort" (Death). It's too bad the zookeeper in "Cat People" didn't give us the name of his big cat.