It came! I sat down late last night to watch 15 minutes of The Cat People, Val Lewton's most famous movie, and of course I watched it all. It is spooky and fun, but I liked The Body Snatchers much more.
In Cat People, a simple-minded ship designer (he is so mellow he almost seems impaired) marries a woman from Serbia who comes from a mysterious village that worshiped false gods. She is really sweet - until she gets jealous or you try to kiss her. Then she turns into a panther and will try to kill you.
Anyway, this was 1942, before CGI, etc. In the grand tradition of noir, lights and shadows are used to great effect to imply / hide / set the mood. It's a lot of fun. Really - nobody believed that she was telling the truth about the cat business! She showed them.
The sequel, Curse of the Cat People, is not scary at all. It's actually a sweet movie with many of the characters from the original.
Cat People was remade in 1982 with Nastassja Kinski. Is this the movie that ended her career? I don't want to watch it to find out.
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