Now then behind our last door we mentioned how in the 1930s Universal Studios has been the kings of the horror film, a crown they firmly held onto once they unleashed the first sequels to their classic horrors establishing franchises for the likes of Dracula and Frankenstein. And into the 1940s, Universal continued to rule the roost by adding successful horror franchises for the Mummy, the Invisible Man, and newly created horror icon, the Wolf Man.
However, also in the 1940s, they were to gain a significant rival at last in the shape of a B movie unit set up at RKO. Seeing the huge success of the second wave of Universal horror, RKO tasked Ukrainian American writer and producer Val Lewton to come up with a horror picture to rival The Wolf Man. Now Lewton was a highly erudite man and a gifted writer, and knew he could come up with something far better than merely ripping off The Wolf Man. And so with director Jacques Tourneur he created the classic chiller Cat People, a masterpiece of atmosphere and shadows telling the tale of Irena, played by Simone Simon, a woman who believes she bears an ancient curse which will transform her into a big cat at certain times.
This highly influential movie was a smash hit on its release in 1942, and soon Lewton was making more horrors for RKO, following up Cat People with voodoo chiller I Walked With a Zombie, shapeshifting serial killer flick The Leopard Man, satanic noir The Seventh Victim and sea-going psychological horror Ghost Ship. However as Universal had successfully resurrected poor old Larry Talbot in 1943 for the hugely successful Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, the bosses at RKO wanted a sequel for their own home-grown horrors, and hence demanded that Lewton’s next picture be The Curse of the Cat People.
Now doing the same old thing time and time again was very much not in Lewton’s style, and hence he decided to take the movie in a very different direction, and in doing so created one of the most fascinating movies in the canon of RKO chillers.
The plot runs as follows, after the events of the first movie, Irena’s beau Oliver (played by Kent Smith) is now happily married to fellow survivor of Cat People, Alice (played by Jane Randolph) and they now have a young daughter Amy, played by Ann Carter. Now Amy is a somewhat dreamy child, often lost in her own world and has had trouble making friends after the family have settled in a quaint little house in Tarrytown, New York. She wishes for a friend, and seemingly like magic, a mystery lady appears to her, a lady who is the very image of the dead Irena…
Now Curse of the Cat People is not quite the sequel RKO wanted, and indeed not the movie they tried to sell it as. For, instead of another taut chiller involving shapeshifting, here we have a beautifully eerie and magical ghost story, and very much a tale of the power of imagination and the mysteries of childhood. And while it perplexed audiences at the time who had been sold a killer cat flick, it has been recognised as a much under-rated classic.
It has been said it is Lewton’s most personal film, very much drawing on his own childhood where he escaped into stories and dreams. However it is also a movie about stories, and very much a celebration of spooky tales. And Lewton knew very well that the ideal times for a ghost story. Hence Curse of the Cat People begins in the autumn, with early scenes explicitly referencing Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow - and indeed note that the town where the Headless Horseman terrorised Ichabod Crane was said to be just outside Tarrytown, New York. But Hallowe’en isn't the only time for ghost stories, as Lewton well knew, and so as the tale of Amy and her increasingly influential spectral friend unfolds the film moves from autumn into winter, with the story reaching full pace as Christmas comes, bringing some marvellous spooky scenes frosted with snow and icicles.
Curse of the Cat People is a wonderful little movie, and is perhaps nowhere near as well-known as it should be because it is a sequel to a recognised classic chiller. And indeed if it wasn’t saddled with the baggage of being a sequel, this is a movie that perhaps would have become a Christmas favourite, for it is both wonderfully eerie and magical. And as the movie’s narrative leads us into the festive period, and into a Yuletide wonderland full of snow and childhood magic, both light and dark. And while it doesn’t deliver the tense dread of its parent Cat People, there are lots of wonderfully eerie moments in this movie, and all in all, it’s a perfect blend of festive fare and ghost stories.
However there would be darker festive frights coming the very next year…
