Cat People

BFI Film Classics

by Kim Newman

This work is the author's insight into the 1943 film Cat People. Made by the team Val Lewton and Jaques Tourner, the film is legendary for its eliptical style--its emphasis on the terrors of what's not seen. Part gothic fantasy, part psychosexual drama, it's the dream of metamorphosis.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published November 26, 1999

About the author

Note: This author also writes under the pseudonym of Jack Yeovil.
An expert on horror and sci-fi cinema (his books of film criticism include Nightmare Movies and Millennium Movies), Kim Newman's novels draw promiscuously on the tropes of horror, sci-fi and fantasy. He is complexly and irreverently referential; the Dracula sequence--Anno Dracula, The Bloody Red Baron and Dracula,Cha Cha Cha--not only portrays an alternate world in which the Count conquers Victorian Britain for a while, is the mastermind behind Germany's air aces in World War One and survives into a jetset 1950s of paparazzi and La Dolce Vita, but does so with endless throwaway references that range from Kipling to James Bond, from Edgar Allen Poe to Patricia Highsmith.
In horror novels such as Bad Dreams and Jago, reality turns out to be endlessly subverted by the powerfully malign. His pseudonymous novels, as Jack Yeovil, play elegant games with genre cliche--perhaps the best of these is the sword-and-sorcery novel Drachenfels which takes the prescribed formulae of the games company to whose bible it was written and make them over entirely into a Kim Newman novel.
Life's Lottery, his most mainstream novel, consists of multiple choice fragments which enable readers to choose the hero's fate and take him into horror, crime and sf storylines or into mundane reality.

Reviews

[Michael Fierce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cat People (1942), is directed by Jacques Tourneur & produced by the great Val Lewton ~ famous for making excellent horror/fantasy films with tons of style, amazing black & white cinematography, great set locations, with quality music, perfect casts of mostly unknowns, and low budgets that pushed beyond their limits, all set in the 1940's.

Cat People is one of the best of them.

This BFI Film Classics insight of the film contains a lot of info that will enchant any obsessive fan in need of more Cat People .

Like moi.

The movie itself starred the cat-like Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Tom Conway, and a memorable brief appearance by the cat-woman, Elizabeth Russell.

  
     
 Irena Dubrovna, a beautiful and 
 mysterious Serbian-born fashion 
 artist living in New York City,
 falls in love with and marries 
 average-Joe American Oliver Reed. 
 Their marriage suffers though, as 
 Irena believes that she suffers 
 from an ancient curse- whenever 
 emotionally aroused, she will turn
 into a panther and kill. Oliver 
 thinks that is absurd and childish, 
 so he sends her to psychiatrist 
 Dr. Judd to cure her. Easier said 
 than done...
  

The film is intelligent, cohesively literate and pleasantly atmospheric, with striking black & white cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca.

Cinematically, its an understated horror-fantasy, powered by subtlety, dream-like imagery, and suggestive sexual energy.

The book is a lightweight scene-by-scene analysis, providing interesting info any fan would want to know, inc. chapters on lighting, symbolism, the inspiration behind the movie, what films it influenced, as well as a good little log on the Director's credits.

It also contains movie stills and posters.

Now, I just wish they'd make a book on the sequel, The Curse of the Cat People.

And hope more books are published on Cat People .

MRROW!

*I do not own the book pictured at the top. I own the book in the top left hand corner of my review.

**I own the postcard of The Curse of the Cat People, the last image shown.

***All images in my review ARE NOT in the book.

[Chris Giles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent breakdown of the flick's structure, themes and place within the horror genre. Newman's writing is as fine as his mustache. Well worth a look for Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur fans.

[Jeff Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Cat People’ – a BFI Fim Classic?? You better believe it…

There is magic in this film, and a legacy that will live forever. Val Newton and Jacques Tourneur may not be household names, but their influence over cinema cannot be denied; Hitchcock paid homage to them in some of his most famous films, they are all over the early work of John Carpenter and Robert Wise cut his teeth with them, before turning their techniques up to 11 in ‘The Haunting’.

Cat People is film that sticks around long after you first watch it, because it does something different with the horror genre (and make no mistake, this is a horror film). It works the audience on a psychological and emotional level – there is no need for make-up, costumes and fangs…just suggestion, plotting and some very clever filmmaking. This book, by the highly respected journalist Kim Newman, goes through the film in close detail, showing what is happening on the surface, beneath the surface and where the legacy of this films influence is being built. It’s insightful, well researched and written with a true passion and respect for the film, and once again is a welcome addition to my collection of BFI books.

I especially appreciated his closing comment: “I would happily watch it again this evening, which may well be the highest praise I can give any film.”

Oh, and the legacy I mentioned – whenever tension is built in a film, only to be released by the ‘ordinary’ and make the audience jump, it’s called a ‘bus’ moment, and it comes from this film.

You’re welcome…

[Mary L · Rating 3 out of 5]

This year I’ve tried to be more intentional about the movies I consume—I don’t want to exclusively watch the bullshit that algorithms and streaming services push. In being more intentional about the movies I watch, I’ve started to become re-obsessed with movies, triggered by my viewings of Transit (2018) and The Seventh Victim (1943).

My delight with The Seventh Victim led me to Val Lewton’s first film, Cat People (1942), directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring French actress Simone Simon.

Kim Newman’s book Cat People summarizes the film Cat People beat by beat, tells its origin story, and offers some material for further analysis. Although I could do without Newman’s sarcastic tone, insistence that Cat People is not a silly name for a film by comparing it to sillier film names of the 40s (it’s still a silly name, and that’s okay), and take that reading Cat People as a lesbian film is “too reductive” (why is a queer reading “too reductive” but a heteronormative one not?), I love the film too much to not be taken with any information that furthers my understanding of the film.

Go watch Cat People!

[Quinn Slobodian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit more of a simple scene-by-scene recount than other in this series (cf. Rushdie on The Wizard of Oz), there were still things revealed--the influence of Lewton films on Hitchcock, his ideas on lighting, how the film distinguished itself from the "werewolf-up-a-tree" genre of Universal--that made it well worthwhile.

[R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moja Sestra...

Kim Newman takes you behind the scenes of Cat People.