The Curse of the Cat People

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Movie
Original title The Curse of the Cat People
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1944
length 70 minutes
Rod
Director Robert Wise
Gunther von Fritsch
script DeWitt Bodeen
production Val Lewton
music Roy Webb
camera Nicholas Musuraca
cut JR Whittredge
occupation

The Curse of the Cat People is in black and white twisted American feature film from the year 1944 and the continuation of the successful horror film Cat People of 1942. Val Lewton produced the film as part of his horror movie cycle of the 1940s for the studio RKO . Directed by Robert Wise and Gunther von Fritsch , DeWitt Bodeen wrote the screenplay as for the previous film.

Despite the reference to cat people , no cat person appears in The Curse of the Cat People , and thematically as well as staging the film can be assigned less to the category of horror films than to fantasy films or fairy tales .

action

After the death of his wife Irena, engineer Oliver Reed married his colleague Alice. Her six-year-old daughter Amy has difficulties at school, is shunned by the other children and daydreams. Her father encourages her to make friends with the other children and to face reality, but to no avail.

Amy finds a photo of the late Irena that is not spoken about in her home. From then on Irena appears to her and the two become friends. Amy also becomes friends with the eccentric elderly Julia Farren. Julia's grown-up daughter Barbara lives in the same house as her mother, but is treated negatively by her. Julia is convinced that Barbara is not her daughter, but an intruder who pretends to be her.

Amy's father, upset at Amy's insistence on Irena's existence, gives her a beating. When Irena appears to Amy again to say goodbye to her, Amy runs after her into the forest. Because of a falling snowstorm, she seeks refuge in the Farrens' house. Barbara Farren, eaten by jealousy because her mother prefers Amy, wants to strangle the girl. Amy thinks she can see Irena's features in Barbara and hugs her. Barbara, surprised by this gesture of affection, lets go of her. Amy's father arrives and brings her back home. He promises her to accept her fantasies in the future.

background

The Curse of the Cat People was their debut as a feature film director for both directors, Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise. Von Fritsch, who had previously only made short films, overshadowed the original schedule and was replaced by Wise, who until then was film editor and second -Unit -Director had worked, replaced. Shooting began on August 26, 1943 and ended on October 4, with additional shots being shot in the week of November 21. Overall, the schedule was exceeded by 9 days and the budget increased from 147,000 to 212,000 US dollars. Because of the comparatively small budget, studio buildings from other RKO productions (here Orson Welles ' The Shine of the House of Amberson ) were used for this Val Lewton production .

Although Lewton The Curse of the Cat People in Amy and her friend wanted to rename insisted RKO on the former title, it was a sequel to Cat People should identify. The studio also had scenes like the one with two boys chasing a cat re-shot. Despite or because of RKO's advertising campaign that sold The Curse of the Cat People as a horror film, including big cats emblazoned on the posters and headlines such as "The Beast-Woman haunts the night anew" (for example, "The female beast is looking for the night again"), the box office results fell short of expectations.

The Curse of the Cat People brings together some of the regular Lewton actors. Simone Simon , Kent Smith and Jane Randolph previously played the leading roles in Cat People , and Simon subsequently appeared in Lewton's costume film Mademoiselle Fifi . Elizabeth Russell also starred in Cat People (in a different role) and later in Lewton's The Seventh Victim and Bedlam . Sir Lancelot already made a small but striking appearance in I Followed a Zombie and later in The Ghost Ship .

Reviews

While the industry journal Variety rated the film as “deeply disappointing,” Bosley Crowther (who had negatively reviewed cat people ) found words of praise in The New York Times : “A rare exception among the commonly circulating horror films that proves to be an oddly touching study of the thought processes of one sensitive child turns out. "

Over the years, the film's reputation has grown. Film historian William K. Everson discovered "the same kind of beauty" in The Curse of the Cat People as in Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête , Leonard Maltin gave it a "wonderful atmosphere", and Geoff Andrew referred to it in the Time Out Film Guide as "touching, sensitive and lyrical".

DVD release

The Curse of the Cat People was not evaluated in German-speaking countries in the cinema, television or on DVD. In the USA it is available together with Katzenmenschen on a double DVD, which in turn is part of the Val Lewton Horror Collection DVD box (2005, expanded new edition 2008).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b William K. Everson: Classic of Horror Film , Munich 1980.
  2. ^ A b Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide , New York 2007.
  3. ^ The Curse of the Cat People (1944) - Notes. In: Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved October 3, 2019 .
  4. ^ Stuart Galbraith IV .: The Curse of the Cat People (Blu-ray). In: DVDTalk. July 9, 2018, accessed October 3, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Val Lewton The Reality of Terror. In: Filmmuseum.at. Austrian Film Museum , accessed on October 3, 2019 .
  6. ^ Jeff Stafford: The Curse of the Cat People (1944) - Articles. In: Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved October 3, 2019 .
  7. ^ The Curse of the Cat People. In: variety.com . 1944, accessed October 3, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Bosley Crowther : The Screen . In: The New York Times . March 4, 1944 (English, online at nytimes.com [accessed October 3, 2019]): “[a] rare departure from the ordinary run of horror films [which] emerges as an oddly touching study of the working of a sensitive child's mind ”
  9. ↑ "touching, perceptive and lyrical" - Time Out Film Guide, Seventh Edition 1999 , London 1998.