"Curse of the Cat People" *** (out of ****) After the huge success of "The Cat People" the studio heads at RKO had to follow-up on that film. You almost wish they wouldn't have. Why were they so motivated by greed and why did Val Lewton agree?
"The Curse of the Cat People" continues the themes of the original "Cat People", the fear of the "other". The need to conform. In this film Oliver (Kent Smith) and Alice (Jane Randolph) have married. If you remember in the first film they were co-workers who fell in love. They now have a child, Amy (Ann Carter).
Amy is a bit of a loner. She likes to daydream and play games by herself. She has an active imagination. In one scene she chases after a butterfly, which she says is her friend. This causes a scandal at home. Oliver demands that Amy stop having such a vivid imagination. She should make a greater effort to be like the other children. "The Curse of the Cat People" is really a film which argues against a child's imagination. Better to be like everyone else and bland like Oliver.
One day Amy goes to a supposed "haunted house". An old woman lives there, Mrs. Farren (Julia Dean) and her daughter, Barbara (Elizabeth Russell). Mrs. Farren was an actress for the stage. In another attempt to condemn creativity the woman is presented as strange and evil. A sub-plot involving the woman and her daughter is very interesting. The woman constantly says Barbara is not her daughter, her daughter died when she was six. But Barbara insist that she is. It is never explained why Mrs. Farren thinks her daughter died. That storyline could have made its own film. Maybe they should have made that story instead of this one.
At the house Mrs. Farren gives Amy a ring, a wishing ring. Amy then wishes for a friend. The friend turns out to be Irena (Simone Simon). But Irena must keep it a secret from her parents.
"The Curse of the Cat People" is not a horror film. It is more of a fantasy movie. There is nothing scary about it at all. In fairness though the film has a poetic lyrical quality to it. The film is nothing like "The Cat People" but is better to compare it to "I Walked with a Zombie".
This film was directed by Gunther von Fritsch who was later replaced by Robert Wise. Fritsch was going over budget and was behind schedule so Lewton brought in Wise who had directed one other film, "Mademoiselle Fifi", which was also produced by Lewton.
But Wise would become a very famous director. He directed two "best picture" Oscar winners; "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music". But he also did other films in the horror genre like the original "The Haunting".
Wise is no Jacques Tourneur. Wise doesn't use shadows and lighting the way Tourneur did. Of course the atmosphere in this film is different. Tourneur was making more of a horror film, Wise isn't. "The Curse of the Cat People" is a more gentle, sweet film. In "The Cat People" there was a fear of whether or not Irena was really a "cat person". Here there is no real sense of danger.
SPOILER WARNING:
At the end of the first film it is revealed Irena was one of the cat people. Finally Oliver and Alice believed her story when it was too late. Irena dies at the end of the film first.
END SPOILER
The only danger in the film is presented as Amy imagination and the presence of Irena. Photos are still kept of Irena, as Alice thinks Oliver should throw out the photos. But in this film Oliver and Alice talk about Irena being insane, despite what we know from the first film. This fear though is what drives Oliver. He doesn't want Amy to turn out like Irena.
"The Curse of the Cat People" is a good movie but not for the reasons you'd expect. It is not a horror film. I have no idea why it is classified as such. But it is a good movie dealing with the power of imagination. A movie which tells us it is okay to be different and be your own person. That is why the movie works for me.
One interesting note is, during one scene it is Christmas time. A group of carolers come to Amy's house. When Amy looks outside she sees Irena, who is singing Christmas songs in French. That's all fine and dandy but in "The Cat People" it was said Irena is Serbian. Why would a Serbian be singing a song in French?
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