The Curse of the Cat People

Amy is six and has no friends. She does not play with the other children at school, she talks alone in the garden, and her father is uneasy about it. One day she finds herself a friend: a beautiful woman who appears in the garden and whom nobody else can see. The woman is Irena, her father's first wife; Amy never knew her and has only seen a picture. The family is afraid of what it means. Robert Wise and Gunther von Fritsch direct, with Val Lewton producing. Simone Simon plays Irena. It was sold as a sequel to Cat People from 1942 and is not a horror film. The studio wanted a horror sequel, Lewton made a film about childhood and had to accept the title; few films in cinema history are as mismatched with their own name. Gunther von Fritsch was dismissed for falling behind schedule and the film passed to Robert Wise; it is his first work as a director. Wise went on to make West Side Story and The Sound of Music. The subject is a lonely child imagining and how the adults respond to it. There is no threat in the film; the fear comes out of the adults' own past. It was made cheaply and runs seventy minutes. Who it is for: viewers who like forties studio cinema and the Val Lewton productions. Who it is not for: there is nothing here for a viewer expecting horror, the pace is slow, and the narrative stays inside a child's view.