The Curse of the Cat People
Encyclopedia
The Curse of the Cat People is a 1944 film directed by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise
, and produced by Val Lewton
. This film, which was then-film editor Robert Wise's first 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 no visible cat people, only the ghost of a character established as a cat-person in the previous film. The screenplay was again written by DeWitt Bodeen
.
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, no matter how much Oliver tries to encourage her to make friends and cope with reality. After Amy finds a photo of the deceased 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), whom she suspects to be a "spy" only pretending to be her relative. Oliver, angry at Amy for repeatedly speaking of her new imaginary friend, punishes her. When Irena announces to Amy that she must leave her, she runs out of the house. A snow storm comes up, and Amy seeks shelter in the Farren's house. Barbara, mad and jealous at her mother's preference of Amy over her, intends to strangle the girl. At this moment, Amy sees Irena's features in Barbara and embraces her. Barbara, perplexed by this gesture of affection, spares her life. Oliver arrives at the house and takes Amy home, promising to accept her fantasies.
' The Magnificent Ambersons
(1942), as had already been done with the predecessor Cat People.
Although sharing some of the same cast and characters and marketed as a sequel to 1942's Cat People, this film 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 Amy and Her Friend. 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") which is cited in The Curse of the Cat People.
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 re-editing necessary to accommodate the new scenes.
, for instance, referred to the film's expression of "the poetry and danger of childhood". While Variety
rated The Curse of the Cat People as "highly disappointing", The New York Times'
Bosley Crowther called it "a rare departure from the ordinary run of horror films [which] emerges as an oddly touching study of the working of a sensitive child's mind".
The film's reputation has grown since its initial release. Film historian William K. Everson
found the same sense of beauty at work in The Curse of the Cat People and Jean Cocteau
's La Belle et la Bête. 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.
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
, and produced by Val Lewton
Val Lewton
Val Lewton was an American film producer and screenwriter, best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s.-Early life:...
. This film, which was then-film editor Robert Wise's first 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 no visible cat people, only the ghost of a character established as a cat-person in the previous film. The screenplay was again written by DeWitt Bodeen
DeWitt Bodeen
DeWitt Bodeen was a film screenwriter who today is probably best remembered for writing Cat People .-Life:...
.
Plot
After the death of his wife Irena (Simone Simon
Simone Simon
Simone Thérèse Fernande Simon was a French film actress who began her film career in 1931.-Early life:Born in Béthune, Pas-de-Calais France, she was the daughter of Henri Louis Firmin Champmoynat, a French engineer, airplane pilot in World War II, who died in a concentration camp, and Erma Maria...
), Oliver Reed (Kent Smith
Kent Smith
Kent Smith was an American actor who had a lengthy career in film, theater, and television.Born Frank Kent Smith in New York, New York, Smith made his acting debut on Broadway in 1932 in and, after spending a few years there, moved to Hollywood, California, where he made his film debut in The...
) has married former co-worker Alice Moore (Jane Randolph
Jane Randolph
Jane Randolph, born Jane Roemer , was an American film actress. She was born in Youngstown, Ohio and died in Gstaad, Switzerland....
), and they now have a six-year-old introverted daughter, Amy (Ann Carter
Ann Carter
Ann Carter is a former American child actress, who worked with dozens of film stars, compiling an "unimaginably distinguished résumé" despite an acting career which "lasted only slightly more than a decade." She is best known for her starring role as Amy Reed in the 1944 film Curse of the Cat...
). Amy has trouble at school because she spends too much time daydreaming, no matter how much Oliver tries to encourage her to make friends and cope with reality. After Amy finds a photo of the deceased 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), whom she suspects to be a "spy" only pretending to be her relative. Oliver, angry at Amy for repeatedly speaking of her new imaginary friend, punishes her. When Irena announces to Amy that she must leave her, she runs out of the house. A snow storm comes up, and Amy seeks shelter in the Farren's house. Barbara, mad and jealous at her mother's preference of Amy over her, intends to strangle the girl. At this moment, Amy sees Irena's features in Barbara and embraces her. Barbara, perplexed by this gesture of affection, spares her life. Oliver arrives at the house and takes Amy home, promising to accept her fantasies.
Cast
- Simone SimonSimone SimonSimone Thérèse Fernande Simon was a French film actress who began her film career in 1931.-Early life:Born in Béthune, Pas-de-Calais France, she was the daughter of Henri Louis Firmin Champmoynat, a French engineer, airplane pilot in World War II, who died in a concentration camp, and Erma Maria...
as Irena Reed, Oliver's dead wife - Kent SmithKent SmithKent Smith was an American actor who had a lengthy career in film, theater, and television.Born Frank Kent Smith in New York, New York, Smith made his acting debut on Broadway in 1932 in and, after spending a few years there, moved to Hollywood, California, where he made his film debut in The...
as Oliver Reed - Jane RandolphJane RandolphJane Randolph, born Jane Roemer , was an American film actress. She was born in Youngstown, Ohio and died in Gstaad, Switzerland....
as Alice Reed - Ann CarterAnn CarterAnn Carter is a former American child actress, who worked with dozens of film stars, compiling an "unimaginably distinguished résumé" despite an acting career which "lasted only slightly more than a decade." She is best known for her starring role as Amy Reed in the 1944 film Curse of the Cat...
as Amy Reed - Eve March as Miss Callahan, Amy's teacher
- Julia DeanJulia Dean (actress)Julia Dean was a stage and film actress who began her career in the 1890s.-Biography:Julia Dean was born to Albert Clay Dean and Susan Jane Morton in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1878. She made her Broadway debut December 1, 1902 in The Altars of Friendship. She toured with Joseph Jefferson and James...
as Mrs. Julia Farren - Elizabeth Russell as Barbara Farren
- Erford Gage as Police Captain
- Sir LancelotSir Lancelot (singer)Lancelot Victor Edward Pinard was a calypso singer and actor who used the name Sir Lancelot. Sir Lancelot played a major role in popularizing calypso in North America, and Harry Belafonte has acknowledged him as an inspiration and major influence.-Early life:Pinard was born in Cumuto, Trinidad...
as Edward, Reed's butler/cook
Production
The Curse of the Cat People, which began production at the RKO Gower Street studios in Hollywood on 26 August 1943 and stopped on 4 October of that year, with additional shooting in the week of 21 November, 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, the studio assigned film editor Robert Wise to take over, which earned him his first directorial credit. 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. As was usual with Lewton's films, the tight budget demanded the re-use of sets, here from Orson WellesOrson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
' The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons (film)
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 American drama film written and directed by Orson Welles. His second feature film, it is based on the 1918 novel of the same name by Booth Tarkington and stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins...
(1942), as had already been done with the predecessor Cat People.
Although sharing some of the same cast and characters and marketed as a sequel to 1942's Cat People, this film 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
Val Lewton
Val Lewton was an American film producer and screenwriter, best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s.-Early life:...
's desire to change it to Amy and Her Friend. 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
Headless Horseman
The headless horseman has been a motif of European folklore since at least the Middle ages.The Headless Horseman is a fictional character who appears in a short story called “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” which is in a collection of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon written by Washington Irving...
" (Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow") which is cited in The Curse of the Cat People.
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 re-editing necessary to accommodate the new scenes.
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 JungCarl JungCarl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
admired the book, and in 1931 wrote an introduction to it. - 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 counterpoint with Shepherds Shake Off Your Drowsy Sleep is the traditional French Christmas carol Il Est Né, Le Divin Enfant.
- The painting in the Reed house which is described as Irena's favorite piece of art is "Don Manuel Osorio" by Goya.
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!" 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 AgeeJames Agee
James Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...
, for instance, referred to the film's expression of "the poetry and danger of childhood". While Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
rated The Curse of the Cat People as "highly disappointing", The New York Times'
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Bosley Crowther called it "a rare departure from the ordinary run of horror films [which] emerges as an oddly touching study of the working of a sensitive child's mind".
The film's reputation has grown since its initial release. Film historian William K. Everson
William K. Everson
William Keith "Bill" Everson was an English-American archivist, author, critic, educator, collector and film historian. He often discovered lost films.-Early life and career:...
found the same sense of beauty at work in The Curse of the Cat People and Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
's La Belle et la Bête. Director Joe Dante
Joe Dante
Joseph "Joe" Dante, Jr. is an American film director and producer of films generally with humorous and science fiction content....
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.