- As silly as its name may sound, Jacques Tourneur's Cat People proves that an implied monster can be just as effective as one that is shown, provided it is surrounded by an appropriately atmospheric film. Leave it to Tourneur, who would later direct the terrific film noir Out of the Past, to create exactly the right atmosphere. The film is draped in shadows, many of which conceal a menacing cat creature that would not be nearly as scary if we could see it. When production budgets aren't large enough to cover believable monster makeup and effects, good horror films find a way to improvise.
- Incidentally, that cat creature may be a Serbian woman named Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon). According to village lore, Irena is descended from a cursed group of people who transform into panthers when they experience love, nevermind how such a trait would ever get passed along. Thus far in life Irena has managed to avoid sexual temptation, but a chance encounter at the zoo with a striking engineer named Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) may prove too much for her to handle. By the way, is it weird that Irena was at the zoo sketching a panther being stabbed by a sword? Regardless, Oliver and Irena soon find themselves hitched, even if Irena is understandably reluctant to consummate the marriage.
- Complicating matters further is Oliver's genial relationship with his colleague Alice (Jane Randolph), who only admits her secret affection for Oliver after he and Irene have gotten married. This leads to the film's best sequence in which an initially sympathetic Irena becomes increasingly jealous of Alice and begins to stalk her. That Irena is following Alice is clear, but the film very effectively conceals whether or not this alleged "cat people" transformation is really taking place. Maybe those shadows just look like a panther because they're being reflected by water in a pool. Perhaps that shrieking sound was actually a city bus braking to a stop. The fact that the latter trick has since become known as the "Lewton bus" (after the film's producer, Val Lewton) tells you how well it works.
- The film eventually commits to the reality of Irena's transformation, but only after her contemptible psychiatrist Dr. Judd (Tom Conway) takes too strong of a personal interest in her condition. Helpful hint: avoid going to a doctor who keeps a sword hidden in his cane. As implausible as it may seem, that sword is also emblematic of the wonderfully bizarre imagery that pervades the film, ranging from Irena's phantasmagoric animated dream sequence to an engineering t-square held in such a way as to suggest a Christian cross. The religious themes and notions of Eastern European "otherness" may be borrowed from Dracula, but you have to give Cat People credit for making old ideas so engaging. By the mid-1940's Hollywood's leading monster movie factory, Universal Pictures, had started cramming as many monsters into each movie as possible with duds like Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, House of Frankenstein, and House of Dracula. With Cat People, RKO set itself apart as the studio whose monsters you would actually want to see, even if you could never get a clear look.
- Teresa Harris and Alan Napier are also in this film.
