Oct 041944
 
two reels

Amy (Ann Carter), the daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed (Kent Smith, Jane Randolph), is a lonely and overly imaginative child.  With no friends, she wishes for one, and Irena, the ghost of Oliver’s first wife, appears.  Amy also meets an old, pleasant, but mentally unstable neighbor (Julia Dean), who is cared for by a daughter (Elizabeth Russell) she doesn’t acknowledge.  Oliver is worried about Amy’s “flights of fancy” and tries, with little success, to force her to accept reality.

Not a sequel to Cat People, or even a horror film, Curse of the Cat People is a slight fantasy about a child and her imaginary friend, which happens to repeat actors (and character names) from the earlier film.  There is no were-cat, no frights, and practically no plot.  Amy has no friends.  For a while, she sees an imaginary one that looks like Irena, and then she stops.  That’s it.  About a third of the film is spent on a subplot about an aging neighbor, building up to a climax that doesn’t come.

With all of the special, family moments, a better title might have been Curse of That Darn Cat as it feels like one of the 1960s, Disney films, although with some atmospheric, shadowy shots, and a few fake “scares” thrown in.  In one, the servant (yes, a middle class white guy has a black servant) reaches for a door handle and finds it…(dramatic music)…locked.  So then, out of nowhere, comes a hand which…(dramatic music)…unlocks the door.  Wow, that was worth building tension.  Any possibility of taking this as a ghost story is killed when Irena shows up in a sparkly princess gown.

So, not horror, not a sequel, and lacking a plot.  It could survive the first two, but the third is a problem.  Curse of the Cat People is generally considered to be a psychological examination of lonely and troubled children, but then it really needs to say something deeper than “daddies should be friends with their children,” which ends up being the theme.  Your tolerance for the film will be based on how much you like watching “cute kids” playing.

But everything isn’t a bust because this is a Val Lewton picture, and he did have a singular style.  The cinematography is excellent: sharp, with layers of shades beyond normal.  And a scene that splits between the parents and their friends belting out a Christmas tune in the kitchen, while Irena stands in the snow-covered yard, singing in a much more melodic fashion, is  beautiful.  But style isn’t enough.

Simone Simon didn’t think much of the film, nor did the rest of the cast who signed on due to a sense of obligation.  In this case, I’m not going to argue with the stars.

Val Lewton produced a series of genre films for RKO including I Walked with a Zombie.