The Curse of the Cat People is a 1944 film directed by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise, and produced by Cat People producer Val Lewton. The screenplay was written by DeWitt Bodeen and the original music score was composed by Roy Webb. The film was marketed with the tagline "The black menace creeps again!"
This film, which was film editor Robert Wise's second directing credit, is the sequel to Cat People (1942) and has many of the same characters; however the movie has a completely different story, and perhaps most important, no cat people. Its focus is on childhood fantasy more than the psychological suspense of the previous film.
Plot
After the death of his wife Irena (Simone Simon), Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) has married former co-worker Alice Moore (Jane Randolph) and they now have a six-year-old introverted daughter, Amy (Ann Carter). Amy has trouble at school because she spends too much time daydreaming, and Oliver tries to encourage her to make friends. After Amy finds a photo of deceased cat-woman Irena, whose name is never mentioned in the house, Irena appears to her and the two strike up a friendship. At the same time, Amy befriends Julia Farren, an aging actress who is alienated from her own daughter Barbara (Elizabeth Russell, who also appeared as a sinister cat woman in the previous movie - perhaps the same character).
Reed and his family have left New York City, and now live in Tarrytown, New York. The legend of the Headless Horseman plays into the sense of foreboding in the plot.
Cast
Simone Simon as Irena Dubrovna Reed
Cast notes:
Production
The Curse of the Cat People, which began production at the RKO Gower Street studios in Hollywood[2] on 26 August 1943 and stopped on 4 October of that year, with additional shooting in the week of 21 November,[3] marked two directorial debuts. Gunther von Fritsch had only directed short subjects to that time, so the film marked his feature debut, but when he fell behind schedule, having gotten only halfway through the screenplay in the 18 days of filming that had been allocated,[4] the studio assigned film editor Robert Wise to take over, which earned him his first directorial credit.[5] When it wrapped, the film, which had done some location shooting at Malibu Lake, California, was nine days behind schedule, and had cost so much that its budget was raised from $147,000 to $212,000.[5] As was usual with Lewton's films, the tight budget forced the production staff to be inventive; in this case sets from Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) were re-used, a not infrequent occurrence with RKO's second-line films.[6]
Although sharing some of the same cast and characters and marketed as a sequel to 1942's Cat People, this film really has little relationship to the earlier one. RKO studio executives wanted to cash in on the success of the first film, and insisted on keeping the title, despite producer Val Lewton's desire to change it to Anna and Her Friend.[5] Lewton had put a lot of himself into the film, integrating into the story autobiographical details from his childhood, such as the party invitations that are "mailed" by putting them into a hollow tree. Lewton grew up not far from Tarrytown, where the story is set, and was fond of ghost stories such as "The Headless Horseman" (Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow").[4]
Studio executives were disappointed when Lewton screened his final cut for them, and insisted on some additional scenes, such as the one of the boys chasing a black cat, being filmed and inserted into the picture. At the same time, some details which were crucial to the plot were lost in the rediting necessary to accommodate the new scenes.[4]
"Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zunica" by
Goya, c.1792
Production notes
- Amy's teacher mentions a book, The Inner World of Childhood, which is an actual book written by American psychologist Frances Wikes and published in 1927. Psychology pioneer Carl Jung admired the book, and in 1931 wrote an introduction to it.[6]
- Irena's lullaby, a musical motif in the score of both this film and Cat People, is an adaptation of the French lullaby Do, do, l'enfant do. The carol Irena sings in counterpart with Shepherds Shake Off Your Drowsy Sleep is the traditional French Christmas carol Il Est Ne, Le Divin Enfant.[7]
- The painting in the Reed house which is described as Irena's favorite piece of art is "Don Manuel Osorio" by Goya.[6]
Reception
Probably because RKO insisted on marketing the movie as if it were a horror film – taglines used to sell it included "The Black Menace Creeps Again!", "Strange, Forbidding, Thrilling", "A tender tale of terror!"[8] and "The Beast Woman Stalks the Night Anew" – it did not do well at the box office, although it did receive some praise from critics at the time. James Agee, for instance, referred to the film's expression of "the poetry and danger of childhood".[4]
The film's reputation has grown since its initial release. Director Joe Dante said that the film's "disturbingly Disneyesque fairy tale qualities have perplexed horror fans for decades," and the film has been utilized in college psychology courses.[4]
Notes
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The films of Robert Wise |
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A Storm in Summer (2000)
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Val Lewton, film producer and screenwriter |
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