The Leopard Man

After the success of Cat People, Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur reteamed in 1943 for another film featuring a jungle cat. In fact, the same black leopard was used in this film as the previous one. However, there is no suggestion of a human-feline hybrid in The Leopard Man.

Set in a small New Mexico town, Dennis O'Keefe stars as a theatrical agent. His client and girlfriend, Jean Brooks, is being upstaged by a Spanish dancer (Margo) in her nightclub act. In order to give her some publicity, he rents a leopard from the local "Leopard Man," a Native American, and has Brooks start her act by bringing it on stage on a leash. Margo, not to be outdone, scares the cat with her castanets, and it breaks free.

A young girl is killed by the cat, and a hunt is mounted for it, as Brooks and O'Keefe feel guilty. Then another woman is killed after being locked in a cemetery. She appears to have been mauled by a leopard, but O'Keefe thinks it may be a man who is trying to make it look like a leopard.

The film, shot on an extremely low budget, looks great, and as usual for Lewton, the effects of shadows and shot manipulation are superb. However, the story is a little limp, as there is really only one suspect. As with all of Lewton's films, the killing is done off screen, so the effect is strongest in the imagination, running counter to today's theory of fully-displayed gore.