Cat People (DVD)
Curse Of The Cat People,Double Feature
APPROX. 0 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 0 - MPA RATING: VAR
" It's what you don't see in a Val Lewton production rather than what you do see that makes it frightening.
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RKO assembled almost the same cast from the first picture, including Simone Simon, and again DeWitt Booden wrote the screenplay. This time, however, Gunther von Fritsch came in to direct, but when he fell behind schedule and couldn't seem to get the movie back on track, Lewton replaced him with Robert Wise ("The Day the Earth Stood Still," "West Side Story," "The Sound of Music"). It was Wise's first directorial job, and years later he would make "The Haunting" (1963) as a tribute to Lewton.
So, in this one while only two years of real time had elapsed since "Cat People," we find about seven years having past since the end of the previous story. Irena has died, Oliver has married Alice, they have a six-year-old child, Amy (Ann Carter), and they now live in Tarrytown, New York, close to Washington Irving's celebrated Sleepy Hollow.
As the movie opens, Oliver is fretting over his daughter's unusual behavior. Ann doesn't seem to act like other children. She's a dreamer, with a vivid imagination. At an old house nearby, an elderly woman, Mrs. Julia Farren (Julia Dean), gives Ann a ring, upon which the child makes a wish for a new friend. She gets her wish, but nobody except she can see or hear the new friend. The new friend is Irena, Oliver's deceased wife.
OK, that in itself is more than a little spooky, except that when Irena appears, very late in the movie I might add, she's wearing a goofy-looking fairy-princess gown that rather diminishes her credibility as a real spirit and reinforces the notion that maybe little Ann is really dreaming all this stuff up. Other things in the film strengthen the idea that the whole thing is a surreal dream: The mother's name is "Alice," and Ann often dresses like Alice from Lewis Carroll's "Wonderland." The eccentric old lady, a former actress, is a bit like Carroll's mad Duchess, and the second time Mrs. Farren and Ann meet, they have a tea party.
Several major conflicts develop: (1) Ann's world of mental fantasies vs. supernatural spirits; (2) Mrs. Farren's weird stories of headless horsemen vs. her belief that her own daughter, Barbara (Elizabeth Russell), who lives with her, is an imposter. Indeed, the younger Farren does look pretty creepy. And (3) the parents' disbelief in their daughter's stories of angelic guardians.
Is it all the work of a child's hyperactive imagination? Or could the powers of the unearthly be at work? Far more so that in "Cat People," those are questions the viewer must decide. "Curse of the Cat People" is a bizarre film, and you'll either love it or hate it; there's little middle ground.
In her later years, Simone Simon admitted she never liked the movie, saying that the filmmakers had only wanted her in the picture for her name. She says in the audio commentary that the cast got back together to do the sequel "as a duty," an obligation they owed to Lewton. I have always found the movie a little too coy and precious to be entirely effective as a fable or a chiller, but there's no doubting that those lingering Lewton touches continue to cast long shadows. "The Curse of the Cat People" has its magic moments, which make it a worthwhile companion to its more illustrious predecessor.
Video:
Both film prints are very clean, well preserved, and most probably touched up in their standard-screen, 1.33:1 DVD transfers. They show hardly a sign of age and only the merest touch of grain on a few occasions. "Cat People" seemed to me a tad bit stronger in its black-and-white contrasts, "The Curse of the Cat People" appearing a bit more faded and a hair less vivid and sharp. Then again, it may have simply been a figment of my own imagination.
Audio:
Warner Bros. have preserved the film's 1.0 monaural sound, which comes up as well as we have a right to expect in these older movies. Needless to say, there is very little in the way of frequency range, but the dynamic impact is adequate and the midrange is clear and polished. One can hear a slight background noise in quieter passages, but it's nothing that most people will notice.
Extras:
The primary bonus item on the disc is a commentary on both movies by film historian Greg Mank, interspersed with interview excerpts from actress Simone Simon (who, by the way, passed away in 2005 at age ninety-three). Mank is quite knowledgeable and has clearly researched his subject matter well. Among other things, he dutifully points out all the cat references in the first film and fills us in with a good deal of background on the stars, the filmmakers, and the movie's themes. The commentaries pass an enjoyable and informative few hours. In addition, the disc contains twenty-one scene selections for each film, but no chapter insert, and a theatrical trailer for each film.
English is only spoken language WB provide, but there are English, French, and Spanish subtitles.
The Val Lewton Horror Collection:
To commemorate the importance of Val Lewton to the world of horror movies, Warner Bros. have brought together nine of his most-famous films as double features on single discs, with "The 7th Victim" paired up with the excellent, fifty-three-minute, six-chapter documentary "Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy."
The other discs include "Cat People" and "The Curse of the Cat People," reviewed here; "The Leopard Man" and "The Ghost Ship"; "I Walked With a Zombie" and "The Body Snatcher"; and "Isle of the Dead" and "Bedlam," all of them available separately or in a big, five-disc box set, "The Val Lewton Horror Collection."
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