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Bookmark this pageCat People (1942)
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
First in the wondrous series of B movies in which Val Lewton elaborated his principle of horrors imagined rather than seen, with a superbly judged performance from Simon as the young wife ambivalently haunted by sexual frigidity and by a fear that she is metamorphosing into a panther. With its chilling set pieces directed to perfection by Tourneur, it knocks Paul Schrader's remake for six, not least because of the care subtly taken to imbue its cat people (Simon, Russell) with feline mannerisms. Its sober psychological basis is barely shaken by the studio's insistence on introducing, as a stock horror movie ploy, a shot of a black panther during one crucial scene.Author: TM
Cast & crew
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Producer: Val Lewton
Cast: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Tom Conway, Jane Randolph, Elizabeth Russell, Jack Holt, Alan Napier full cast
Genre(s): Horror
Rated: PG
Duration: 73 mins
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