Like I Walked with a Zombie, Suspiria, and many more, you need to accept Cat People on its own terms. Not everyone, especially younger people, will find it scary. I myself have never found it heavy on scares but it has an originality and a vision which is unique.
Even the opening is original. Oliver is a naïve, but trusting, good-hearted American man. Someone who has always believed in “things working out okay.” On a bright Sunday afternoon, in the midst of everyday life, he meets a lady by chance in Central Park Zoo. She is sketching a black panther. Her name is Irena and she is from an older, superstitious culture, from the mountains of Serbia.
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Bright sunlight, an ordinary New York Sunday; Oliver and Irena meet by chance
They are attracted to each other right way. Their differences bring them together at first. Irena loves Oliver’s kind heart and trust; he loves her mysterious background. Both have faith (especially Oliver) that their love, and living in twentieth century America can destroy any past superstitions, past supernatural beliefs.
Because from the beginning, Irena has told Oliver about her dark past, and he has never pulled away. Centuries ago, Serbia was conquered by the Mamelukes, who introduced worship of Satan before they were driven out by King John. King John killed most of the Satan-worshippers but a few escaped, fleeing into the mountains. Irena believes she is a descendant of those few.
Oliver hears Irena’s history
Those survivors have carried a curse ever since; sexual desire or any intense emotions will turn them into panthers .
Oliver listens patiently, respectfully. Again and again you see his good heart. When he tells his friend Alice that he is getting married, Alice asks if she knows the woman. Oliver says she doesn’t, but “I know you’ll like her.”
But in these unique circumstances, his goodness is almost a flaw. He is finding out that true love does not guarantee “…and they lived happily ever after…” And he does not know where to go with that contradiction. At their wedding dinner, Irena is radiant, all smiles, completely at ease among Oliver’s friends. (No one Irena
knows is there.) Then a strange woman leaving the restaurant
suddenly stops, seems to recognize Irena, stares at her, calls her
“my sister” in Serbian.
Everyone does their best to reassure Irena but
she is never the same. When she and Oliver get out of the
cab later, snow falls hard, a sign of things to come. Irena
begs Oliver for time. The dialogue is not explicit, but you
know exactly what she means. The next scene makes it
painfully clear. The newly-married couple in two different
rooms, pressing against the same closed door, from opposite
directions.
Weeks pass. Life is both ironic and sad. Oliver and Irena live in New York, arguably the most modern city on Earth. But their life together has been sealed off from this century, as though they exist on an isolated island in the Dark Ages.
Oliver believes his faith and good heart can
make anything right. There is no questioning Irena’s love. But
without a doubt she believes she is cursed. That the moment
she and Oliver become intimate she will become a panther, and do
what a panther instinctively does…kill anyone violating its space.
She looks for outside signs of hope, but finds none.
They decide to buy a canary. When the couple enters the pet shop, every bird in the store reacts violently. The lady in the store is one of those folksy, eccentric, big-city characters. But if you slice away her earthy mannerisms and listen closely to her words, her message is clear: Animals can pick up on certain people–those having something wrong with them.
Oliver and Irena finally try something rare at the time—psychiatry. Oliver gets the name of a man with a good reputation, Dr. Judd.
Dr. Judd has so many contradictions that someone could write a term paper about him. Personally I feel his character is not written well; it may be the weakest part of the screenplay.
At first he is professional and hopeful. He hypnotizes Irena; you see a strange shot of her, the center of her face in glaring light, while everything else is darkness. Abruptly he opens the curtains; all is bright. He seems professional, but sympathetic enough.
Irena returns home, encouraged and cheerful. But she finds Alice, Oliver’s co-worker, with him. Oliver reveals that it was Alice who recommended Dr. Judd. Unwisely, he tells Irena that Alice has heard “everything” from him (Oliver).
Irena understands what he means; she is hurt, angry; feeling betrayed. She returns to the zoo, to the panther’s cage. (She has never stopped visiting the same panther.)
Irena returns home, full of regret. She tells Oliver she never wants to be angry with him. Then subtly, she intimates that he would be in danger if she ever got really angry. But Oliver misses most of what she means.
Things are changing too fast for Irena. Clearly Alice has become a threat. Oliver is Irena’s only path out of a reality overshadowed by her curse. Without him, she is totally alone.
You can look at Alice in many different ways. To me, she is just about what she seems—a truly good-hearted individual who wants the best for everyone, even if she must save the marriage of the man she loves. She is one of only a few women who can survive in a male environment. Everyone respects her, with good reason.
Many people (perhaps more than we think) have suffered through a relationship where self-doubt eventually overwhelms them. The one they love begins to feel those same doubts about them. It is downhill from there. Before long, they may actually turn into a stalker; no one can reason with them; they are in emotional free-fall. If something doesn’t bring them to their senses they may do something they regret.
Irena is headed straight down that path. Her jealousy, unfounded or not, is beginning to push Oliver toward Alice, who reveals that she has always loved him. Irena is feeling that her only choice is violence.
Gradually, subtly, you can feel Cat People changing into a horror movie. Twice, Alice is followed, stalked by something she never
sees, once in a Central Park transverse, once in a swimming
pool. These are memorable scenes.
Alice
Many critics have tried to find the symbolism in Irena’s fear; is she traumatized by some past trauma, is she a repressed lesbian, can everything she has told Oliver be literally true…
But from one point of view, it is almost irrelevant. Like Leon the title character in Curse of the Werewolf, you see crystal-clear the baggage someone is carrying, baggage almost sure to doom
their search for love. They may find someone gentle, someone
forgiving, to love and to love them, but eventually, their lover
sees them as they are. Then they become once again the beast they were before. In tears perhaps, (like the werewolf in Curse) but still, drawn to anger, perhaps violence.
Cat People, like all of Val Lewton’s RKO productions is much stronger on atmosphere and suspense than on pure terror. Lewton had very little respect for the Universal horror films of the 1930’s and early 1940’s (for example, Werewolf of London, The Wolf Man.) But the screenplays he got, and often re-wrote, were usually high-quality.
DeWitt Bodeen’s script defines his characters beautifully, their great hopes, disappointments, and sorrow. I keep coming back to that first time Oliver describes Irena to Alice, “I know you’ll like her,” and the way things turn out.
Or so many lines Irena speaks. When Oliver talks about finding a psychiatrist, the hopefulness in her voice, on her face when she tells him, “Yes, the best one…”
The 1940’s were beginning; the world was changing fast. American soldiers were about to pour into Europe to fight Hitler’s Nazi forces.
Like Oliver, they were about to learn some hard lessons about life.