CAT PEOPLE

Cat People (1943, Val Lewton, Producer)     

PITCH: The Hays Office Punishes Sex with Death     

STORY: Simone Simon portrays a bride who fears coitus with her husband will turn her into a panther that kills him.     

HOOK: B&W shadows, leaves rustling for no reason, a woman trapped swimming alone in an indoor pool at night. Male distrust of females.     

SPANKY: Like, someone is going to be afraid of cats. Give me a break! Forget women and get yourself a dog. To me the murder in the zoo at night was nothing compared to the terror of the pet shop scene.       

BARK, BARK  (2 BARKS out of 4)     

JOHN: The medium as psychoanalytic dream. A catnip classic. Movies never got better than this and when the studio finally gave Lewton money to make an “A” picture and more than six days to do it in, he went all birdseed.      

GO, GO, GO, GO  (4 GOs out of 4)     

KEEPER: “What does one tell one’s husband?” responds the slimy psychoanalyst, Dr. Judd, to his patient’s question, “One tells him absolutely nothing.”