This is Halloween: Val Lewton's Cat People and Curse of the Cat People

I return now to discuss the final two Val Lewton films I haven’t covered: Cat People (1942) and Curse of the Cat People (1943). Coincidentally, Cat People is the first of the films he produced on his own.

 

Cat People

Nautical engineer Oliver and fashion designer Irena meet cute at the zoo in New York’s Central Park. A whirlwind romance later and they’re married. This, despite the fact that Irena believes herself to be descended from devil-worshipping Serbs who fled from King John, and will turn into a great cat when her passion is aroused. Oliver’s patience inevitably begins to fray as the marriage remains unconsummated, and he demands Irena see a psychiatrist, who turns out to be a hypnotist and quite an unethical slimeball. Oliver soon begins to grow closer to his assistant Alice, and Irena becomes increasingly jealous. A cat-like shadow begins to prowl about, sheep end up slaughtered, and Alice begins to feel a constant hostile presence.

Many, if not most, of Lewton’s films are permeated with a dreamy atmosphere that shades over into nightmare gradually and irresistibly. Cat People begins the trend of his films being imbued with shadow, a darkness that looms about pools of light. Sometimes the shadow is merely an emptiness beyond the reach of lights; sometimes it comes alive and invades those luminous islands.

Irena becomes drawn to a black panther at the zoo, fascinated by its sleek menace. Is this cat the one that terrorizes the night, or is it Irena? Lewton always leaves the audience unsure if the threats in his films are natural or supernatural.

He was also a master of creating terror from the unseen; Alice finds herself trapped in her building’s swimming pool – but by what? The room is well-lit and no panther is evident, but the play of shadows and the growling and roaring of a great cat surround Alice, and the viewer…only to be dispelled when help arrives in answer to Alice’s screams. Irena appears, smugly polite…was she the panther? Was there a panther at all? Were the sounds Alice heard real, or her imagination? It’s impossible to really know, and that’s what’s unsettling about Lewton’s films.

Much of this film, much of Lewton’s entire oeuvre, deals with belief and the power of the mind to warp our perception and create fear from nothing. The mind can be manipulated, either intentionally, as with the psychiatrist, or unintentionally, as Oliver and Alice begin to feed off Irena’s own belief in her supposed curse, beginning to believe it also. By extension, there is a meta portion of this equation, too, as Lewton’s films also manipulate the minds of the audience, creating fear from what is perceived yet not actually seen. These things would end up becoming foundation stones for future horror films and television shows, becoming second-nature to us in this culture.

This film would also see the advent of the Lewton Bus, 

which by now is so cliché as to have inspired many familiar versions of it. If you aren’t familiar with “it’s just a cat!,” one permutation of the Lewton Bus, then welcome to Earth and take a gander:

See? You've seen it a million times.

Curse of the Cat People

Lewton's idea of a sequel is a strange one, indeed. Oliver, Alice, and Irena return, but there the resemblance to the first film ends. 

Several years have passed since the events of Cat People. Oliver and Alice are married and living in a small town, with six-year-old daughter Amy. Amy is an introverted, daydreaming child, shy and retiring, unable and, apparently, unwilling to make friends. Her parents fret about her living such a solitary life, and her schoolwork suffers. Eventually the girl acquires an imaginary friend, one that looks exactly like her father's first wife, Irena. When she identifies her friend as the woman in a photo with her father, Oliver becomes alarmed and increasingly determined to force Amy to do away with her delusions.

This is a strange movie. It is unlike any of Lewton's other films, determinedly staying with the child's point of view. Again, the mind becomes the source of tension in Lewton's hands. Is she imagining her friend? That seems the obvious conclusion, but then...reality is always fluid in Lewton's universe. There is a "haunted" house, a "magic" ring, a "fairy princess" (for lack of a better term), a strange old woman and her bitter daughter (or is she?), a killer blizzard, and the border between sanity and insanity constantly shifting for a number of characters.

This is about as close to a David Lynch film as Lewton made. The plot here is almost completely irrelevant, simply there to set up a series of strange encounters between Amy and her imaginary friend, obnoxious neighborhood children, weird neighbors, and her parents. Oliver, Amy's father, played with all the charisma of a store mannequin by Kent Smith, is about as close to a villain as the film gets until near the very end. The story, such as it is, has the air of inevitability to it, of fate and destiny, and while it pays off at the end (I guess?), it's still tough to describe without it sounding like nonsense. The ever-present shadows of Lewton films are less pronounced here, but the murk remains in a subdued way, found in the sorrows of childhood.

Both films are now classics, Cat People in particular, but I feel Lewton would really hit his stride in other films. Regardless, both films make for unsettling viewing, bringing the viewer into a dark dimension.

The Leopard Man/The Ghost Ship: A Val Lewton Double-Feature

Val Lewton's films delved into the shadows of the human mind. The line between sanity and insanity is often a blurry one, obscured by the emotions and urges that exist deep within a person. What seizes a person to do strange and terrible things? When does simple fascination turn into obsession? How can responsibility and duty become corrupted into tyranny? Lewton chose to deal with such issues in The Leopard Man and The Ghost Ship.

A sleepy New Mexico town hosts a traveling troupe of entertainers. The jealousy between a flamenco dancer and a singer ends up setting off a chain of events that leads to tragedy, and then to terror, as an escaped panther preys upon the helpless and innocent. Or does it? Sometimes the most obvious solution is not the correct one, and sometimes that solution is not born from logic.

The narrative of this film seemed to meander at first, moving from character to character. It soon became apparent to me that there was more to this randomness of the story than simple unfocused screenwriting. This was the flow of fate, the stream of destiny, or maybe a small tributary of the greater watershed of creation around and through which the lives of all pass, and, eventually, end. A simple act can flow down the stream of fate, touching and engulfing those in its path, a path that changes without rhyme or reason.

Those caught up in the floodwaters have no real connection: a young girl out on an errand and fearful of the dark; a trusting and naive young woman waiting for her swain in a seemingly peaceful cemetery; and the flamenco dancer herself, who diverted a stream of fate with her own thoughtless actions. Such is life, with random events linking strangers for eternity.

I said insanity was a theme of these movies, and that is true here. But it is also the capriciousness of even perfectly sane people that Lewton explores here, their insensitivity to their fellow humans often driving their actions. They may not be purely malicious, but they are cold and focused only on their own momentary whims. Like the small, sharp sound that can set off an avalanche, though, the slights that people perform on other folk can have dire consequences.

There is striking imagery here. Lewton's trademark deep shadows lurk, as always, and, as always, they lie just beyond our reach, but ever at hand. The panther itself is a shadow made ambulatory, poised to pounce. In tandem with the shadows, the silence hovers, an emptiness that puts the viewer on edge as they wait for that emptiness to be filled with something terrifying. I will also note a strange desert procession at the end of the film, a dream-like, somber parade that leads from life to death.

I was startled to see the revealed cause of the terror. The actual answer to the mystery was not that surprising, in itself; it was the nature of the cause. I'm trying to not spoil the ending, because it is worth discovering. I can only say that there are few movies of this vintage that deal with a phenomenon that has become far too terrifyingly common in our time. It's an unsettling end.

An idealistic young merchant marine officer boards a freighter in his first assignment as Third Mate. The captain takes him under his wing, providing lessons on authority and leadership. The captain's calm demeanor and resonant voice project an air of experience and command. Soon, though, the Third Mate begins to suspect the captain's tranquil air hides something far more sinister. But are the young officer's suspicions simply generated by a misunderstanding of what it takes to lead a crew and bear the responsibility of holding the fates of others in one's hands? Could it be the Third Mate's own actions and words that begin yet another chain of events that lead to what seems a fated conclusion, one in which the destinies of several others become entwined in a downward spiral?

This movie is the sleeper of all the Lewton films I've seen. I had never heard of it before, and certainly had never seen it. Afterwards, it preyed upon my mind. What caused the events to unfold the way they did? Had they been poised for years to fall out that way? Or was it a bolt from the blue, striking without warning?

The characters seem fully realized. Each has a history that has shaped them before the narrative of the film. The captain is a beloved figure. Distant he may be, but the loyalty of his friends and his crew is genuine. What of the Third Mate? Are his suspicions warranted, or are they a product of his own lonely background? He seems good-hearted and idealistic, but his life as an orphan may have made it hard for him to trust and accept the words of others. Even the minor characters are three-dimensional - the First Mate is a world-weary man, hiding a pain and emptiness that is never explained, but is assuredly present. The captain's woman friend, and prospective fiancee, is a realist, but she, too, has hidden elements to her, a long-submerged hopeful side that longs to finally be set free. These characters, and all the others, are so finely-drawn and well-acted that they add to the horror of what is to come. These are real people confronted with something that shakes the foundations of their lives.

In this movie, Lewton's ever-present shadows are overshadowed, so to speak, by an air of claustrophobia and isolation. The ship has few places to hide, and this only adds to the creeping madness that underlays the narrative. The cramped quarters heighten the desperation of an unusually brutal, for the time, fight at the end of the film. Inky darkness, flashing knives, and thrashing limbs make this struggle an art piece of violence. It, too, seems to erupt from nowhere, its violence something rarely seen in a Lewton film. The lack of room to move, and the obstacles in the room, make the fight much more gripping than the classic style at the time of roundhouse haymakers and balsa-wood chair-shattering. It is almost literally a knife fight in a closet, and it's all the more terrifying for that.

This movie bears repeated viewings. There seems more subtext than usual, even for a filmmaker like Lewton, whose films in general seem to have an entire subterranean existence beneath the surface narrative.

The Leopard Man and The Ghost Ship seem a good pairing to me. They both show not a hint of the supernatural about them, as opposed to most of Lewton's other films, which usually are ambiguous about the subject. That lack of the paranormal does not hinder the frightening nature of the films. In fact, that lack, that reliance on the purely real, makes these films disconcerting in ways the others aren't.

Bedlam

I continue my look at Val Lewton's macabre movies with Bedlam. In this, it is London of the 1760s. The paramour of a decadent British noble comes to despise his treatment of those less fortunate, particularly those with mental health issues. For her trouble, she finds herself locked up in that most infamous of mental health facilities, Bedlam. With the help of a Quaker friend, she overcomes her fears of those with whom she shares living space. Yet, her survival is threatened by the de facto head of the hospital, played by Boris Karloff.

The film was inspired by Hogarth's A Rake's Progress. This is a series of paintings and engravings that show the descent into madness of a young wastrel, who ultimately ends up in Bedlam itself. It's an interesting group of pictures, and is an early example of sequential art that would lead, ultimately, to graphic novels and even film storyboards.

This film differs quite a bit from the other Lewton films I've discussed. Instead of the specter of death hanging over the narrative, it is madness that seems to lurk around every corner. The inmates of the hospital seem not so much different from the decadent and venal society on the outside. There is even levity, with the usually-sinister Karloff having an air of the buffoon at times here.

Yet Karloff brings a believability to his character that may have been overlooked or overplayed by another actor. His doctor chafes at having to bow and scrape to those who occupy strata of society above his, saving his anger and frustration for his charges, whom he exploits to curry favor with those he considers his betters. Scheming and vengeful, he doesn't hesitate to use his position to gain power over his enemies. In the end, though, he is a petty, scheming man, with no concern for those he is supposed to be helping.

This film does not evoke the kind of dread of death that most of Lewton's films do. Certainly there are shadows, and there is a body count, but in this film they are more set dressing than the main attraction. The corruption of society is pervasive, with the few stalwarts of morality in the film either too pacifistic to lend more than spiritual help (the Quaker), or gone for much of the narrative of the film (the "Devil Wilkes").

Perhaps instead of dread, Lewton meant to evoke a feeling of irony here. The actions - or, more accurately, inactions - of the Quaker, and the reputation of the hoped-for savior Wilkes (seriously, read about him at that link), are almost the quintessence of irony. Further, the microcosm of society that has been assembled in the general population of Bedlam is even more irony - the line between sanity and insanity, as drawn by Lewton in this film, is nebulous at best, and nonexistent in many cases. So it is irony instead of dread, corruption instead of death...but in the end, Lewton is still dealing with death and horror. Here, though, it is the horror of a society where insanity is determined more for the sake of convenience than for any real affliction, where corruption runs so deep that, in the end, even the best in society have a shadow of it in their hearts. That signals the death of a society, and death was always a subject close to Lewton.

Isle of the Dead

Val Lewton's journey through darkness and death continues in Isle of the Dead. This is one of the most unusual settings for a Lewton film: the First Balkan War of 1912-13. The Ottoman Empire was disintegrating in the face of unified attack, the last remnants of the conqueror of and successor to the Eastern Roman Empire tottering on the brink of oblivion. Fittingly, from a historical standpoint, it was falling at the hands of a culture even older than it: Greece. The film begins in the aftermath of a battle.

Greek General Pherides - played by Boris Karloff - stands in judgment of one of his officers. For failing to ensure all his troops were available when needed, the punishment is death by suicide. It matters not that this officer is an old friend; his failure brought danger to the army, and, by extension, Greece itself. For that, Pherides can grant no clemency. The safety of the army and Greece is paramount to Pherides.

An American journalist, embedded with the Greek army, has been interviewing Pherides. They tour the battlefield, taking stock of the grim results of the day's proceedings. Bodies by the cartload are dragged to mass burials to prevent the spread of plague; disease knows no boundaries, takes no sides. Such a threat to his troops and his country cannot be allowed by Pherides.

The walk by the general and the journalist takes them to a strangely serene scene. A small island stands not far from the shore, Greek buildings standing timeless and beautiful so near to such death and destruction. Pherides recalls this is where his wife was interred years ago, and the two decide to visit her grave.

Soon, though, it is obvious that death and destruction has visited this island, too, though in different form. The mausoleum that housed the body of Pherides' wife has been broken into, the coffins smashed open long ago. A brief investigation into the night-clad island reveals a house inhabited by an archeologist, Swiss now but born Greek, and his guests, a British couple, the young woman hired to help the British woman, another Englishman, and an older Greek woman who runs the household. The lone Englishman falls ill, and by morning he's dead. From then on, death looms over all - the plague that Pherides dreaded has taken hold of the island.

Pherides summons his army's doctor, who confirms the plague, and quarantines the island. The old woman suspects the young woman to be the cause of the evil, a vorvolaka, a type of vampire from Greek folklore. Some scoff, but others, including, eventually, Pherides, take her warnings more and more seriously, especially as more and more inhabitants of the house fall prey to the plague.

As with all of Lewton's films, shadows dominate both visually and narratively. There is some remarkable cinematic use of shadow and darkness in many shots, especially in the last third of the film. The depth of the darkness in which some characters are submerged is surprising, given the time period. But beyond the shadows created by the lighting, there are the shadows on the souls of the characters. Ancient superstition creeps back to life in the present, nightmares come literally true, and dark prophecies become self-fulfilling. By the end, the old gods themselves, Hermes and Poseidon, seem to make their presence felt, though that presence is much more sinister than what is found in Bulfinch.

Karloff gives a solid, effective performance. His Pherides is a war-hardened pragmatist, though he slips into superstition as the old woman's whisperings about gods of old and monsters of legend seem to come true as he watches. He is used to being in control - of himself, of his men, of destiny itself, in the form of Greece throwing off its shackles. When confronted by that which he cannot control, he strives even harder to bring order from chaos...though his efforts prove to be in vain. He is a complex character, as many of Karloff's characters are, and Karloff brings a rich texture to him.

The last twenty minutes or so of this movie creeped me out. The use of shadow is so effective that I found myself reaching to turn on lights as the darkness unsettled me. But it's not just the use of shadow and light that makes Lewton's films so powerful. This film, like his others, also makes use of sound in a very deft way. The film is quiet, with characters speaking in low tones or softly, the wind rustling subtly, the dripping of water sounding like a metronome. As horror descends, this quiet causes the viewer to brace for what seems the inevitability of loudness. When that loudness comes, it is stark and tearing, slashing across the sensibilities of the viewer, so that when the quietness returns, it is no comfort.

This is unequivocally a masterwork by Lewton. The storyline is simple on the face of it, but complex with the mixture of characters who all have their own motives, the grim setting, and the ambiguity of what really happened. Lewton's films always leave it up to the viewer to decide if the supernatural was present, or if everything had a rational explanation. In this movie, in particular, this ambiguity lends the ending a certain frisson of horror that lingers long after the movie is over.

The Seventh Victim

Val Lewton produced a number of films in rapid succession during World War Two, which was no small feat. Even more remarkable is the quality of these pictures. Plenty of Poverty Row producers could churn out programmers at a steady clip, but Lewton was one of the rare few producers who could do so and still have the results be well-crafted and artistic. The Seventh Victim is, for me, one of his most memorable. I tend to say that about all of Lewton's films, but really, this one may be his most unique.

Seventeen-year-old Mary learns that the tuition hasn't been paid by her sister for her boarding school, and rather than accept an offer to work off further tuition, she resolves to go to New York to find her elusive sibling. She soon finds herself immersed in a more sinister mystery than she could have imagined.

Mary's sister, Jacqueline, has sold off her cosmetics manufacturing business and disappeared. Mary's search for her sister quickly descends into a shadowy world, literally and figuratively. A private detective decides to help her, but he finds that he's bitten off more than he can chew. Mary finds further assistance from her sister's psychiatrist, her fiance, and a poet, all in New York's Greenwich Village. Ultimately, Mary finds her sister, loses her, then finds her again, and learns that Jacqueline has run afoul of an evil cult. The resolution of this conflict will lead to one of the most downbeat endings in a mainstream Hollywood production of the 1940s.

This movie's ending is one that initially startled me. That's it? I asked myself after my first viewing of it. Did I miss something? It just didn't end like a '40s movie usually did. It's a bleak worldview, but memorable. It's the culmination of a strangely-woven plot, full of symbolism. Lewton's stamp is clearly here, with understated acting, a quiet atmosphere, inky shadows, and characters with dark secrets. The film is short, not much more than an hour, but as with Lewton's other films, it is packed with atmosphere.

The Seventh Victim continues Lewton's string of films that present richly-nuanced characters who seem to have had a life before the film. We viewers dip into their lives for a brief glimpse, with little explained but much shown. We see enough to believe these characters are people with reasons for doing what they do, but mostly we never see what those reasons are. Each character is a cypher, with a backstory we'll never learn but which is clearly present.

I've mentioned the dreamy nature of Lewton's films before. The Seventh Victim is as quietly nightmarish as his other films. Strange symbols, hidden motivations, and death and danger lurking in unexpected corners all combine to infuse the film with an oppressive blanket of inevitability. Perhaps it was the times; World War II was in the throes of its most intense years, the world teetering on the brink of disaster, as this film, and most of Lewton's others, were in production. The world must have seemed to be descending into damnation, not just to Lewton's characters, but to Lewton himself. It must have seemed like an endless nightmare, and this is reflected in films like The Seventh Victim.

I Walked with a Zombie

It's striking how brief this 1943 Val Lewton-produced film is, considering how much content it contains. In 68 minutes, it manages to establish a sense of place, flesh out several characters, and evoke moods of dread and mystery. Somehow it also manages to clip along smartly as it does all this, yet the movie feels as if it moves languidly, like a dream that morphs into a nightmare.

Betsy, a Canadian nurse hired to tend to Mrs. Holland, wife of a wealthy sugar plantation owner, arrives on the Caribbean island of San Sebastian. She is quickly drawn into a strange tale of a love triangle involving Paul Holland, the plantation owner, his half-brother, Wesley Rand, and Holland's wife, Jessica. When Wesley and Jessica attempted to be together, Paul stood in their way. Soon after, Jessica was struck down by a fever that left her in a catatonic state, able to move and respond to simple directions, but unspeaking and, perhaps, unfeeling. As Betsy learns more about the family strife, she also meets the mother of Paul and Wesley, a surprisingly hale, but unsurprisingly intelligent woman who helps tend to the health of the islanders. Betsy finds herself falling for Paul, and decides to help him by bringing his wife back to her senses. This eventually leads her to seek out the services of the island's houngan, or voodoo priest. There, the houngan and the houngan's followers recognize Jessica for what she is - a zombie. From then on, the love triangle is brought to a head, with powerful forces vying for Jessica. On one side is the ancient voodoo religion, on the other modern medicine, but perhaps more powerful is the other force in play: love, between Betsy and Paul, between Wesley and Jessica, and the mother of Paul and Wesley for her sons, manifesting in hatred and a need for revenge.

The film surprises with its direct and, for its time, unflinching look at a culture descended from slaves. When Betsy listens to the story of how slaves were brought to the island, she awkwardly answers that at least they were brought to a beautiful place. The buggy-driver who has also been a de facto tour guide simply agrees, the history of oppression sitting silently between them.

I was also surprised to find, when I listened to a bit of commentary about the film, that San Sebastian is not a real place. The movie creates this place and gives it a life and culture of its own. It's a believable setting, and I'm amazed how strongly established it is in such a short film.

The film has an air of fate and destiny about it, as all of Val Lewton's films do. The voodoo scenes reinforce this, especially as they are shown with seriousness and respect, giving the religion its due as a deeply held faith. I can't claim to know much about voodoo, but the scenes in this film seem to show evidence of the filmmakers making an effort to bring some authenticity to the subject.

Besides Jessica, there is another zombie in the film. Darby Jones should be noted for his looming presence as Carre-Four. His protruding eyes are unblinking and lifeless. Silent, emotionless, and moving with a slow relentlessness, this performance seems to be a forerunner of George Romero's zombies in Night of the Living Dead. But is Carre-Four a true zombie, in the sense that we know the term? Is he, in fact, undead?

That is one of the most intriguing things about Val Lewton's films, the possibility that the supernatural is at work...or not. The supernatural is strongly implied, but is not necessary for the events depicted. This is addressed directly in this film, when Paul and Wesley's mother is revealed to have feet in both the world of voodoo and in the world of science. Do these forces of magic work due to a power beyond our ken, or do they work because we believe they do? Lewton leaves the question open.

 This is a solid, mysterious film. One can see its influence on films that came after, with expressionistic lighting and understated performances. Most of the characters seem lifeless, in a sense, with strong emotions expressed quietly. Most of the characters, too, seem to move in an almost trance-like state, whether arguing or lost in the throes of religious ecstasy. I Walked with a Zombie is a title that is far more exploitative than the film it is hung on, but it now seems integral to it. It is fascinating and unsettling, and is one of the best of Val Lewton's efforts.

The Body Snatcher

Val Lewton's career as a Hollywood producer was dense with classic horror films packed into less than a decade. His films are moody, atmospheric, and infused with an air of gloom. Considered "B" pictures in their day, they've become classics of the horror genre.

The Body Snatcher is a particular treat for the horror fan, as it stars Boris Karloff, with Bela Lugosi in a supporting role. Set in a perpetually overcast Edinburgh in 1831, the story centers on a medical school run by Dr. MacFarlane, a brilliant surgeon. Played by Henry Daniell, MacFarlane is brusque, apparently more used to dealing with the cadavers he dissects than living patients. Dour and impatient, he has set up a scheme where he gets cadavers for his school from a mysterious cabman, Gray, played with impeccable menace by Boris Karloff. How Gray comes by his corpses is of little import to MacFarlane, though the assumption is that Gray is a grave robber. As disrespectful as it is, MacFarlane can at least rationalize that the ends justify the means; he genuinely desires to add to the body, so to speak, of medical knowledge.

The already distasteful situation becomes more complicated as a paralyzed little girl is in need of MacFarlane's expertise. MacFarlane needs to practice a complex spinal surgery that will help the girl. MacFarlane's kind but naive apprentice presses Gray for more cadavers, which sets off a chain of events that make an already dark situation even darker.

This is an unsettling film. Lewton was not afraid to challenge his audience with uncomfortable questions and downbeat endings. Fate and death hang heavy over Lewton's films, and no more so than in this one. MacFarlane's wife, a Highland woman with the gift - or curse - of foresight, sees doom for her husband. Gray's white horse is a portent of death, clopping slowly through the murky night. The shadows never seem to leave, even in the light of day.

Boris Karloff's performance is one of my favorites of his. He looms over the film, his smile an evil rictus, his lined face demonic. Cool, calm, and methodical, he moves slowly and deliberately, an avatar of death, or Death, prowling the streets. He is MacFarlane's conscience, history, and evil nature all in one, forcing the surgeon to confront and embrace his own shadow, driving the plot - both the movie's and MacFarlane's - forward with a profound inevitability. This is Karloff at his best, a true villain, almost supernatural in his ability to evoke dread.

The Body Snatcher is a brief film - 77 minutes - but it is densely packed. It is about death and the dark things that are often necessary for life. It is about where the boundary lies between good and evil, and where the gray area lies between them, and how that gray area changes for the individual depending on circumstances. It is also about the self-destruction that can come when the gray becomes all-consuming, until suddenly it snaps back into focus and one sees they have passed into full shadow.