Cat Class: THE CAT CREATURE, CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE

Julie Newmar in the old BATMAN TV show--her lithe playful grace, her tender malevolence with her dopey underlings, the black spangly bodysuit and alluring layer of soft youthful baby fat softness around her easy breezy features, her languorous ease in her own alluring body as she climbed up and dismounted the boxes and thrones in her treasure room cat lair--even as a seven or eight year old I could feel my still-slumbering hormones stir within me like a sleepy behemoth. I loved cats as a result, for they held her magic. Bast, the ancient Egyptian cat goddess, was invoked around playground pentagrams. Was she the boy equivalent of a Pretty pony, or Shaun Cassidy or National Velvet? Our pop culture so often raises us, teaches us as if the fire itself is the old sage with the beard and propensity for myth-telling. We stare, lost, into his magic fire and the opposite sex appears to us first as an animal spirit. Shirtless wolf boys, slinky cat girls. America sits on our bed, fidgets in its after-work tie, and says "this has been a good talk," then runs from the room confident the 'sex talk' has been passably completed. The TV smiles, rolls its eye and returns to regular cat channel.


Alas, Cat Woman fell down a well (see Kitty Kali from Acidemic Mediated). Other ladies took the role, each just fine in their way. None the same; what cat can compare, but genres change, actresses are replaced, boys become old men, graven images are smashed by heretics' hacking hammers, the beat goes on, and cats come back. As Boris says in THE BLACK CAT (1934), "Cats do not die." So can we deny that the crazy old lady with the ton of cats has a holy and unique power?

Lately two film ambled forth and struck my gong in this department. Timeless, strange, evocative, ephemeral, and short. What can we do but cherish them, and never try to put them in little cardboard boxes? You heard me, Ollie, in CAT PEOPLE (1942). That's NOT appropriate.


The story of a strange necklace stolen off of a mummy and the curse that follows it (everyone who handles the piece gets mauled to death by Bast, a mummy cat god), THE CAT CREATURE is solid as far as 70s TV horror movies go--and there were a lot of them. If you were a kid, now you may find you love them, despite their weird shallow depth slow-amble cop show vibe, their general avoidance of anything like sex or gore, low budget and clear reliance on commercial breaks for pacing which makes their video and digital versions seem strangely incomplete, as if 'the good parts' are missing. But for those of us of the right age or adventurous in spirit they provide a kind of comfort food opiate quality. And when done right, as by Curtis Harrington, they're great sources for bits of classic Hollywood, a way to keep fading B-list characters visible, and evoke the bygone classics while following cop show beats and to provide just enough scares and suspense to keep you from changing the channel at the next commercial but not enough to give you a panic attack, rob you of your very-70s faith in humanity, or even bum you out. They trade on ambiguity, which is something that Curtis Harrington, whose NIGHT TIDE revealed him early on as the go-to master of B-list horror poetics for the post-war generation, ably fuses into the dream like proceedings. Harrington is a true fan of the genre, not just his worthy of lionizing for rescuing OLD DARK HOUSE from the edge of the abyss but here, salvaging the gloriously sinister Gale Sondergaard and getting her to really flash her evil smile as she dishes out tarot fortunes (guess what card is drawn for the nosy archaeologist?). He also brings in Keye Luke (hurrah!), John Carradine (of course); lesser-known but strangely familiar B-character actors like Milton Pearson (he played the escaped lunatic in THE HIDDEN HAND) and John Abbott (THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST). As if the pedigree wasn't tony enough, CAT PEOPLE's Kent Smith kicks it off as an appraiser archiving the collection of a recently murdered Egyptologist. Smith is soon murdered himself; the investigating detective Marco (Stuart Whitman) follows the trail of a missing cat amulet and the trail leads to Sondergaard's new age bookstore of Mephistophelean relish and coded lesbian vibery by Sondergaard


Harrington deftly uses that mellow 70s TV rhythm to parcel out the ambiguous details in the intimate relationship that develops between archaeologist named Roger Edmonds (David Heddison) who Marco enlists to help him ID the medallion, and shy cute newcomer 'Rena' (Meredith Baxter), the new hire at Gayle Sondergaard's occult bookstore (jammed with great skulls, Satanic tapestries and assorted items much darker than most - not a drop of New Age healing). Roger and Marco make the scene at the downtown pawn shops and flops in search of the amulet and/or perp Luke. I know this is hard to believe, lieutenant, but the murders seem to have been done by a cat. And then Roger brings up the subject of Bast-- the cat goddess worshipped by human sacrifice making ancient Egyptians--who was then locked away for all eternity because of her blood-drinking and evil.

Suspiria-prfiguring exterior shot

I confess I liked the teaming of Heddison and Whitman, each with a voice deeper than the other's, and manly gravitas long vanished, sadly, from our post-MTV generations. I also found myself drawn to Baxter's shy new store worker --there is a profound sadness to this character that makes her almost like Amy in CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE grown up and out on her own for the first time, history all set to repeat itself.


One of Harrington's great skills is in using the commercial break to muddle the "did they or didn't they" fade-out into an actual supernatural asset. The issue of sex with a cat creature (or mermaid) or having to hold still while being afraid of a small house cat actually kills you, pales in importance next to the emotional involvement, so that one coffee by the shore can evolve into a devotion beyond death through a hazy reincarnation style memory - that feeling of "I feel like we go way way way back" spread along the axis of THE MUMMY and SHE and the endless slog of epochs, all without any clear sense of 'how far' things  have gotten, base-wise. We don't know how far around the bases he got since hooking up with her, and neither-one suspects--does he. Their romance sheathed as it is almost in paternal warmth vs. sexual heat is very 70s--in well-laid LA especially--since once it's had with some regularity, sex becomes just a facet of a relationship, that plus censorship of prime time, it's just a thing that may have happened --as it should be. In this way, these stay fairy tale abstract and perfect for children, who desperately want to have a girlfriend or boyfriend but who neither know about nor want to know nor should have to know about sex yet. Now I sound old, but even the dirtiest of old men are soon washed clean by time's scavenging sponge.

Dig some of Harrington's 'uncanny' extras - the lesbians at the Sorcerer's shop, and the weird old waiter at the hippie-ish restaruant, "Maybelle" at the hotel

What's so haunting is that eventually she turns into a monster being devoured by stray cats, sort of - a scene that was clearly difficult to pull off (a hard day those cats put in - god only knows how their wrangler got them to all attack that poor stunt man) and looks like one of those guys in INVADERS FROM MARS if he fell in the mud and was wearing a big clay cat head (the bandages are all very loose). It's odd as its twice the size of little Meredith and adds a whole extra level of frisson. Roger has been hooking up with this monster? Either way, it's still sad - we feel for this poor creature, trapped in darkness for thousands of lonely years- I would have liked this better if Roger was at least tempted by her offer of immortality, but the cops are closing in by then anyway, and so there's more than a hint of the kiss-off in both VERTIGO and MALTESE FALCON.



Robert Bloch wrote the script; there's a solid Leonard Rosenman score (some meowing violins, pensive percussion, slow sustains and yowling gongs). I even dig the creepy credits with the jagged horror font and the chanting. And at a brisk 75 minutes of so it's over quite promptly, leaving me, at least, wanting more, from the horror movie font to the hand-painted Egyptian 'artifacts' Harrington ensures every frame is a-drip with classic horror fan / 70s childhood manna (it's streaming through Shudder).

Just as CAT CREATURE's low-key success hinges on hazy classic B-movie nostalgia, CURSE's success hinges on the Lewton cinematic language, that low-key visual poetry and gift with extended dialogue-free scenes of young girls making their way through a strange night landscapes, the quiet and sudden rush of trains, zombies, busses or (here) snow tires, the way a strange eerie hush falls over things. What do we remember about I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE? The whistle of the cane stalks in the dry wind. What in LEOPARD MAN? The blood under the door. CAT PEOPLE, the shadows in the pool room, and so on. Each is, in its way, a transient event, ephemeral; the supernatural is always ready to dissolve in the salty brine of rational overhead lighting. Often the story itself is rather inconsequential compared to the marvelous little 'touches' of cinematic observation.

Famously, Lewton was given his lurid titles and had to make films to match and luckily for us he made sure to honor them even while doing his own thing. For CURSE he bucks the RKO brass-mandate of the title to eke out a weird but quietly beguiling fable that moves through THE SECRET GARDEN and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER-style mytho-poeticism- it's a film with may more women than men, but no shrill gadflies as in THE WOMEN but low-key confident professionals like Nancy Davis in the Lewton-esque SHADOW ON THE WALL. Though it's often avoided in principle by classic horror fans (there's no actual cat people, too many kids), there's much more to this than the casual viewer of the first 10 minutes will suspect. The story is unique among sequels in that is very faithful to its predecessor as far as cast and continuation, rather than repeat the same formula, as RKO no doubt hoped (but Irina's virginity in the previous film made a literal child impossible, so they had to improvise).

Irina dreams in CAT PEOPLE (1942)

Kent Smith as Ollie- the amiable square ship builder, whose pawing drove his late wife--the coded lesbian/feline Serbian Irina (Simone Simon) to murder--has remarried Alice (Jane Randolph), the girl who Irina chased into the pool in the first film. We fans of the first film certainly didn't begrudge Ollie  and Alice this belated happiness. Sir Lancelot (the calypso singer from the previous year's I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE) is there as the housekeeper/cook and they only have one child. Clearly they're affluent in this upscale Sleepy Hollow bucolic idyll --their normal happy life includes bridge games with the neighbors and drinks and songs with the carolers and the compassion is clear in Lewton's and screenwriter Dewitt Bodeen's treatment of their romantic evolution. But Amy, their psychic and inward daughter Amy (Ann Carter), doesn't quite fit Ollie's uber-generic idea of what kids should be. Irina's ghost shows up to help Amy in her loneliness, as a kind of psychic apology (since Ollie's irrational fury towards Amy's flights of imagination are due to Irina's 'madness')-- in other words, Ollie has become Irina's shadow rather than vice versa. In a way he becomes the villain of the piece - he spanks Amy for sayings she has an imaginary friend, which is kind of horrible, punishing her for imagination, since he considers it Irina's imagination that she was a cat. We cheer her running off into the night, utterly abandoned as even her imaginary friend decides to leave her (since she broke the cardinal rule and mentioned her existence to dogmatic Ollie).


We kids could relate, maybe we didn't have a dad who punished us for imagining things, but it felt like that; we related to Amy's desolation the same way we related to Irina's frigidity in CAT PEOPLE. Whether or not she was coded closet queer (the lesbian 'sister' greeting of Elizabeth Russell at the cozy restaurant - though as kids in the 80s that kind of stuff escaped us), her dislike of being touched (pawed, mauled) made her cinematically self-aware. She knew that the only thing keeping her human was the safety of the camera, our gaze, director Jacques Tourneur's simple but elegant daytime shots of her apartment, the restaurant, and the zoo. When darkness comes and the camera is elsewhere or off-- the demons take possession; the animated cats dance in her head. We kids knew this from being brave all day in the sun with our parents around, and then huddling in bed at night, aware of every little sound --without our parents to name and diffuse them, they took on monstrous life. Imagination is--in the land of children and Lewton--not merely some Spielbergian whimsy, but also a place of unfathomable danger and dread. Irina's fear of sex was like our fear of the dark, each tapping a vein of mythic alchemical change of the body; since we don't understand it, sex becomes an important part of a marriage due to its subtextual absence (it's the thing we don't see - at least in older movies).

The Women (reflecting the wartime shortage of men by having a strong mostly female cast where everyone, even Amy, is more or less a mature adult (not a gossipy snipe ala THE WOMEN). As in SHADOW ON THE WALL, the world of children is one where women carry absolute authority. Amy's teacher, Ms. Callahan (Eve March), even corrects Ollie's intolerant behavior; Ollie sends Amy upstairs; Ms. Callahan sends Ollie, but far more maturely.

Either way Amy, the evidence of Ollie finally getting laid, is dreamy and otherworldly- ignoring her friends to chase butterflies (the sort of thing that clearly inspired PAN'S LABYRINTH); mailing her birthday invitations to magic trees and calling Irina (Simone Simon) into being. By day we're treated to an array of exterior shots as Amy goes chasing butterflies and walking past the gloomy old 'haunted house.' Amy's not afraid, an old lady in the window throws her a magic ring wrapped in a kerchief and soon Amy finds herself swept into the drama inside the crumbling Gothic mansion --a kind of GREAT EXPECTATIONS setting with her being swept into a maternal drama between super-creepy Elizabeth Russell (the 'sister' in the first film), whose elderly mom, who an old stage actress (Julia Dean) refuses to recognize as her own. The maternal triangle, the elder lady lavishing affection on young Amy while her older ignored flesh and blood watches in envy, is almost exactly like MARNIE and one is compelled to realize the rarity of it since these are the only two instances (though it shows up on a more sexual note in, say, Von Sternberg's Dietrich films). On the other hand, why is this weird daughter hanging around, taking care of her mom and not, seemingly, having any
sort of a life of her own?



It doesn't matter as it's all seen through the eyes of a child, who's sensitive. Ann Carter is a very unique actress, with something of Veronica Lake's blonde otherworldliness (she even plays Lake's daughter in the last scene of I MARRIED A WITCH). Hers is a heightened cinematic reality, its edges trimmed for B-movie simplification (sketches rather than murals) any fantasy or paranoid hallucination is just as real and vivid as the reality itself - but that doesn't mean it's real any more than its not.  One of the scarier parts of the film is just an old lady telling the tale of the Headless Horseman, but it's the way it's filmed, Dean's commitment to the role, the wide-eyed way she stares into the camera while delivering the oration (and in we hear, through Amy's mind presumably, the thunder of approaching hoofbeats), the nervous fretting of Lancelot who's come to fetch her home, all create a uniquely weird and original mood that won't be duplicated again until the big climax.


Though there's no immanent threat, and it's the afternoon, and Edward (Sir Lancelot) is right there, the mood--one imaginative woman to another--lingers in the mind. Sir Lancelot's discomfort can't compete with that kind of wild imaginative prowess, so fear it (for Lewton fans it's an ironic counterpoint since the last time we saw Lancelot in a Lewton film he was slowly advancing towards Frances Dee in I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (below, 2nd down), singing a creepy ballad about the 'trouble' at the plantation, staring into the camera in the same way. Now, a year later, he's shifting with the same unease he generated in Dee (and he's sort of playing the Dee role here, a caregiver to a blonde with far-away eyes).

Don't stare into the camera, lest the camera stare back

Directed with some of Tourneur's visual poetry by Robert Wise, once we leave the daytime shots for the surreal studio snowdrifts and spooky mansion with its rattling shudders and snow tracking into the foyer, the film finally lets go of its central theme of imagination to focus on something like Christian transmutation. We come away wondering if Amy's found a new friend, a babysitter, maybe, or at lest a friendly neighbor, in the form of the formerly murderous Elizabeth Russell and dad comes around at last at which point Irina can safely disappear. THE END flashes in an ominous touch, just as it does in Curtis Harrington's CAT CREATURE, with the feeling the film is still going on, even after the house lights come up but the cats do not die, anymore than darkness.

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