Retro Grading: Curse of the Cat People (1944)

Left to right: Simone Simon and Ann Carter

Welcome to Retro Grading: a sporadic column that looks at forgotten cinema released before 2000. The main objective of this column will be to highlight films that time hasn't treated as well as the classics. But these are all classics in their own way and while all of the subjects won't be gems, they are all small flickering signs of ingenuity that in some ways rival their competitors. Retro Grading will attempt to highlight these films and hopefully fill your Netflix queue with alternative programming. 

There is a lot of weight to being a horror sequel that is respected, especially when you're not really a horror movie. This was the main issue surrounding director Robert Wise's debut Curse of the Cat People, which RKO Studios produced as a sequel to the highly popular Cat People. Jacques Tourneur's film about a woman who turned into a cat was a brilliant take on body horror and still has some fans, including Roger Ebert, who listed it as one of his Great Movies. It still holds up as one of the great early horror films.

Like numerous efforts before, RKO tried to capitalize on this success with a sequel. The basic formula for an RKO film was that they had to be short, cheap, and sweet. They churned out movies at an excessive rate and it was luck if one stuck. Cat People made $8 million on a $134,000 budget. Might as well try and do it again, and thus Curse of the Cat People was born into a world that was doomed to reject it as quickly as it was conceived. 

The film was doomed even by the studio, as RKO decided to use taglines such as "The Black Menace Creeps Again" and "A tender tale of terror." While it is true that the film does feature original cat person Irena (Simone Simon) and returning character Oliver (Kent Smith), it didn't really deal with curses nor cats. Besides a few vague signs of imagery, the title is just as misleading as the marketing. Variety wrote it off as "highly disappointing" and who could blame them? A follow-up to an iconic horror film that was poorly marketed was doomed to receive this reputation.

It went from the hands of Gunther von Fritsch, who fell behind the tight schedule of only 18 days allotted, to Robert Wise. Filmed on sets used in Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons, this has all of the trimming of a doomed sequel, especially as the story is actually about Amy (Ann Carter), a young misfit who seeks solace in her imaginary friend: the ghost of Irena. It evolves into a touching story of a little girl who discovers the joy of imagination and sort of comes of age. In many ways, it is a predecessor to director Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures and reflects a sentimentality that is oddly fitting. Still, there is no doubt that the resulting product came as a surprise.

Yes, it has a lot of the familiar trimmings of later TV shows like Lassie and Leave it Beaver in which the characters almost seem too polished to have problems. However, what makes the story work is the believable performance by Ann Carter, who leads the film into magnificent scenery and a world of awe. We believe that she doesn't get along with others and we believe that she desperately wants a friend. Who hasn't tried to have an imaginary friend only to have someone decree it? This may be a sequel in name only, but if approached more as a spin-off in which Irena does a good deed, then the story begins to make more sense.

This isn't necessarily as engaging as Cat People, but it does present a fascinatingly original story of adolescence that is common. Amy can't get along with people and therefore, she needs to solve her problem. With the help of Irena, things work out, even if her parents think she is crazy. This feels like a radical concept for a story, especially as it is all about how imagination is not the best thing in the world. The power of movies and subjective narration will make you believe that imaginary friends and wild moments are enough to make you feel youthful. In that regards, the film is a large success. Even at 70 minutes, it hits all of the beats nicely and never outstays its welcome. 

As the years went on and the dreadful marketing separated from it, it became more respected. Director Joe Dante admired its "disturbingly Disneyesque fairy tale qualities" and it has been used in college psychology classes. It may never be as accepted as Cat People, but the film's sentimentality is an element that has influenced generations to come. Sadly, because of its lack of popularity, there's very little about the film available online. It can be watched on Youtube for $1.99. It is also available in a DVD collection with Cat People.

If Curse of the Cat People should serve as any success, it is that it launched director Robert Wise into his career. This is considered his debut and afterwards went on to make iconic films such as Sound of Music and West Side Story. His style isn't quite formed here, though that could largely be due to the simple fact that RKO ran movies on limited production budgets and shooting schedules. Remember: short, cheap, and sweet. 

However, Wise is such an important filmmaker in American culture that sometimes it is just interesting to see where he started. Like most people, he got his start in the cheap horror genre and moved up from there. He wasn't quite an auteur, but by making one of the best inessential sequels of all time, he made his mark and began his career. This was a story about characters and not the scares that Cat People brought. It was more of a traditional narrative, save for the supernatural ghost element, and I feel one that influenced the world's exploration of films about imagination.
Even if the film doesn't capture the zeitgeist anytime soon, Curse of the Cat People is one of those clever sequels that prove that poor marketing isn't the end of a story. It is just derailing from the potential it will have to be a sleeper hit. It wasn't necessarily a success and killed the Cat People franchise, but who wanted a Cat People franchise anyways? Paul Schrader tried to bring it back in 1982 and wasn't as successful. Be glad that this film maintained its modesty and began the career of one of America's greatest directors