Cat People (1942)

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Movie
German title Cat people
Original title Cat People
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1942
length 73 minutes
Age rating FSK 12 (video / DVD)
Rod
Director Jacques Tourneur
script DeWitt Bodeen
production Val Lewton
music Roy Webb
camera Nicholas Musuraca
cut Mark Robson
occupation

Cat People (Original Title: Cat People ) is an in black and white twisted American feature film directed by Jacques Tourneur . Val Lewton produced the film, which is now one of the most important of the horror genre , in 1942 for the RKO studio . DeWitt Bodeen wrote the original screenplay based on Lewton's 1930 short story The Bagheeta .

The film tells the story of a young woman who is convinced that she will turn into a big cat if she gives free rein to her feelings.

action

Irena Dubrovna, originally from Serbia , works in the fashion industry in New York City . During drawing exercises in the zoo, she met the American engineer Oliver Reed. Irena tells him about a legend from her homeland, according to which her ancestors practiced witchcraft. The two fall in love and soon get married. At the wedding party Irena is addressed by an unknown woman as "moja sestra" (Slavic "my sister"). The marriage is not a lucky star: Irena is convinced that she will turn into a big cat as soon as she lets her emotions run free, and she refuses any caresses or sexual advances.

Since Oliver considers his wife's fears to be mere superstitions, he seeks help from the psychiatrist Dr. Judd. However, he falls in love with Irena and does not achieve any results with his therapy, which his patient breaks off after a short time. Since Irena is unable to shed her fears, she threatens to lose her husband. Oliver's colleague Alice admits that she has loved him for a long time, even after his marriage. Oliver falls in love with Alice and demands a divorce from Irena.

Jealousy overwhelms Irena, and soon the signs mount up that she is really turning into a big cat. Alice feels pursued by a cat-like creature twice. Together with Dr. Judd want to meet Alice and Oliver Irena for a clarifying conversation in their apartment. When Irena does not appear as agreed, Alice and Oliver go back to their office, where they are threatened by a big cat. The two manage to escape. When Irena finally shows up at her apartment, Dr. Judd on her and tries to approach her. She turns into a big cat and kills the psychiatrist, but is injured by him with a dagger. Irena drags herself bleeding to the zoo and frees a panther from its cage, which is run over by a car while trying to escape. Oliver and Alice also arrive at the zoo and find Irena lying dead in front of the enclosure.

background

The film premiered in New York City on December 6, 1942, with a nationwide release date of December 25, 1942. The producers initially thought the film had failed, but made a profit of about $ 4 at a cost of $ 140,000 in production Million US dollars. The production company RKO then had other, comparable films made. The sequel to Katzenmenschen , The Curse of the Cat People, followed in 1944 .

Cat People formed the prelude to the now legendary nine-part RKO horror cycle by producer Val Lewton. Director Jacques Tourneur made two more contributions to the series , Ich followed ein Zombie (1943) and The Leopard Man (1943). Catmen also united tourneur and cameraman Nicholas Musuraca for the first time . Their later collaboration on RKO's Out of the Past (1947) again proved to be groundbreaking for a genre, in this case film noir .

In Germany ran Cat People not in cinemas, but was first on July 3, 1974 German television broadcast. In 1999 the film was released on video in Germany , later on DVD .

In 1982 the thematically related, but content-wise remake Katzenmenschen by director Paul Schrader appeared , in which Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell played the leading roles.

Reviews

The reviews of the premiere were mixed. The cinema industry journal Variety described cat people as "weird drama", while Bosley Crowther of The New York Times dismissed the film as "lengthy".

In retrospect, the reviewers praised cat people in unison . William K. Everson dedicated a whole chapter in his book Classics of Horror Films to the film and its successor The Curse of the Cat People . In Time Out magazine, Paul Taylor emphasized Lewton's principle of hinting at the horror instead of playing it off, and praised Tourneurs perfect staging of the locations as well as Simon's performance.

In Germany, too, the film was - retrospectively - certified as a classic. The magazine Cinema praises: “Without effect-seeking tricks [...] Jacques Tourneur creates tension at a high level. Playing subtly with light and shadow, the director tackles a topic that was taboo in his time: the suffering from repressed sexuality. Conclusion: Elegant horror on a sparkling topic. ”The lexicon of international films judges a little more cautiously :“ As a horror story, Tourneurs film is atmospherically dense and full of macabre originality. The analysis of a fearful dream, however, fails because the imaginary and the realistic mix too superficially. "

In 1993 Cat People was listed on the National Film Registry as "Culturally, Historically, or Aesthetically Significant" . The New York Museum of Modern Art also added a copy of the film to its collection.

literature

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cat People on imdb.com
  2. ↑ Chris Fujiwara: Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall , Baltimore 2001.
  3. ^ Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward. Film noir. New York 1979.
  4. ↑ James Naremore. More than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1998.
  5. ↑ a b Cat People in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  6. ↑ Cat People ( Memento of the original dated February 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Variety, January 1, 1943, accessed November 21, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.variety.com
  7. ^ Bosley Crowther : Cat People in The New York Times, December 7, 1942.
  8. ^ William K. Everson: Klassiker des Horrorfilms , Munich 1980.
  9. ^ Time Out Film Guide, Seventh Edition 1999 , London 1998.
  10. ↑ Katzenmenschen on Cinema.de, accessed on November 21, 2011.