The Curse of the Cat People

Val Lewton knew how to keep moviegoers guessing--he made a sequel to Cat People in 1944, but it has no cat people. In fact, it has only one shot of a cat, but that was added weeks after production stopped because someone noticed there were no cats.

Instead he made an entirely different type of film that may have disappointed the horror fan, but it's very intriguing. It's more of a dark fantasy, with a ghost, a dark old house, and a mad but kindly old woman. I think it stuck with me more than Cat People did.

The same characters return. Kent Smith is Oliver Reed, now married to Alice (Jane Randolph). They have a young daughter, Amy, (Ann Carter, in an eerily dead-on performance), who is a dreamer and loner. Smith is worried that Amy is going to be consumed by her overactive imagination, which he believed happened to his first wife, Irena, and her cat people delusion (which of course was real).

Amy, longing for friends, makes one with a dotty old woman, a former actress. She dotes on Amy, but ignores her own daughter, insisting that her actual daughter died at the age of six. This naturally gives the daughter a sour disposition and a resentment of Amy.

But the real spookiness gets started when a ring given to Amy by the old lady turns out to have magic powers. She makes a wish for a friend, and gets one--the ghost of Irena (Simone Simon), who appears to her in the garden, dressed like a princess. When Smith finds out about this, he's naturally perturbed and doesn't believe her.

For a film from 1944, this film is remarkably adept at exploring the fantasies and dangers of childhood. I can't say enough about Carter, who was only seven when she made this film, but perfectly captures the kind of kid who would rather chase a butterfly than play with other children.

The film was co-directed by Gunther V. Fritsch and Robert Wise, yes the Robert Wise, who took over when Fritsch ran behind schedule. It was Wise's first directorial credit in what would a long, distinguished career.