Cat People (1942) on Netflix
NR19421h 13mHorrorMysteryRomance
Irena Dubrovna, a Serbian illustrator in Manhattan, meets marine engineer Oliver Reed at the zoo. She believes an ancient curse will turn her into a panther if she is aroused.
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- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.2/1029,015 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes91%
Trailer
Plot summary
Irena Dubrovna, a Serbian fashion illustrator living in Manhattan, sketches a captive black panther at the Central Park Zoo and is approached by Oliver Reed, a marine engineer. At her apartment she shows him a statue of King John of Serbia and tells him the legend that the king had her village's people killed after they turned to witchcraft. When a kitten hisses at her and the animals in a pet shop panic near her, she tells Oliver she is descended from those cat people and that physical love will turn her into a panther. Oliver marries her anyway. She will not consummate the marriage, and Oliver persuades her to consult a psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Judd, while confiding in his assistant, Alice Moore.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Cat People (1942)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Three days into shooting, executive producer Lew Ostrow saw the daily rushes and told Lewton to fire director Jacques Tourneur; Lewton went to Koerner, who watched the raw footage the next day and approved of Tourneur's work.
- Editor Mark Robson said he put the loud sound of a bus's air brakes over the scene of Alice walking alone through a park at night, a jump scare that "knocked viewers out of their seats" and became known as "the bus", used in every film.
- Simone Simon clashed with her co-stars and with director Jacques Tourneur on set; her co-star Randolph recalled Simon upstaging her until Tourneur "bawled her out, in French", and that Simon once poured coffee on one of Randolph's costumes to halt production for the day.
- Lewton decided to base the film on Algernon Blackwood's 1906 story "Ancient Sorceries", about a French town of devil-worshipping cat people, but changed his mind at the last minute and moved the story to contemporary New York as a love triangle.
- Jane Randolph, a young actress who had just begun her film career, was cast as Alice Moore, but Lewton had wanted Jennifer Jones for the part and was prevented from casting her by Selznick, who had other plans for Jones.
- Kent Smith, who played Oliver Reed opposite Simone Simon, allegedly got the part after the producer Lewton spotted him cycling across the studio lot.
- Part of the film's score grew out of a tune Simone Simon was heard singing at RKO, "doo-doo-baby-doo"; Lewton took her to see the composer Webb, who developed it into the score.
- Films from Jungle Woman (1944) and The Catman of Paris (1946) to Cult of the Cobra (1955) and Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957) borrowed Cat People's plot or character elements, often a woman who fears she has inherited the tendency to turn into a monster, or copied its shadowy visual style.
