The Curse of the Cat People a gentle, but sinister sequel to Cat People

 

Review by Doug Gibson

In 1942 RKO released Cat People, directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Val Lewton. Universal's horror dominance was fading and RKO began to produce the best B horrors. Cat People, while a PG movie, has many adult themes, Cat People's plot went right over the heads of the Hays Commission pseudo moralistic "horny teenagers." It involves a young immigrant, Irena (below) (Simone Simon), a fashion designer, who meets, falls in love with and marries engineer Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). There's a problem unknown to Oliver though. Irena, from Serbia, is descended from a tribe of Cat People. When aroused or angered, she turns into a large homicidal cat. Irena, aware of this, asks Oliver to give her time to initiate lovemaking.

This leads to tension, and Oliver becomes attracted to a co-worker, Alice (Jane Randolph). Irena, angered, becomes withdrawn and stalks Alice. Irena's psychiatrist plans to commit her, but first tries to seduce her. He's killed. Irena eventually commits suicide by allowing a zoo panther to attack her. This is a genuinly frightening film and scored well at the box office.

RKO, eager to have a sequel, released The Curse of the Cat People in 1944. Executives were expecting another frightening film. But Lewton had other ideas. He produced a gentle drama of a young child -- Oliver and Alice's daughter Amy (Ann Carter) -- looking for someone to relieve her loneliness and become her friend. The family lives in Tarrytown, N.Y., away from the city. They're a happy family, but there is that undercurrent of tension. Oliver is very worried about Amy, and frustrated she is introverted and cannot easily make friends.

This is also a  Christmas movie, although it was released in March. Turner Classic Movies usually airs it a few times a year, including in December.

One day, Amy sees an old woman at a second-story window of a nearby house. Other children say a witch lives there. The woman throws Amy a "wishing ring." Later, Amy visits the old woman and she acts out the story of The Headless Horseman to Amy. The old woman, Julia, is a former actress. She is played by Julia Dean. She is kind to Amy but appears to have slight dementia. She lives with her sullen, unloved daughter, Barbara (played by Elizabeth Russell). Barbara begs Julia to acknowledge her but Julia calls her an imposter, claiming her daughter died in childbirth. Eventually, a bitter Barbara, after a visit from Amy, says she will kill the child the next time she sees her.

One night, Amy frightened in her bed remembering The Headless Horseman story, begs the wishing ring to bring her a friend. The spirit of Irena (from Cat People, Oliver's deceased first wife) comes to her. Irena offers her friendship and comforts the child. Simone Simon, as you see above, is pure beauty in the role. She is ethereal. One assumes her spirit has achieved peace and she is now capable of good works.

Tension soon develops, Amy finds pictures of Irena in the house, including one when she is with her dad. She tells Oliver that the woman in the pictures is her friend. No one can see Irena but Amy. Oliver, perhaps not over grief/guilt feelings over Irena's sad fate and worried about Amy's "fantasies," overreacts and lashes out at the child, bringing Amy to tears. 

Irena appears to Amy and tells her she'll need to leave her. She doesn't want to hurt Amy's relationship with her parents. On Christmas Eve, Amy runs out of the house, heartsick Irena has left. She seeks help from Julia. When she gets there, tragedy ensues and Amy faces a threatening Barbara. This occurs as her parents, the family's house servant (Sir Lancelot) and others are searching for her.

This is an extemely good movie. It has wonderful settings, strong slice-of-life scenes that involve school, kids playing, a teacher discussing Amy with her parents, then-popular singer/actor Sir Lancelot singing, home life, Christmas carolers and a Christmas party. There is excellent rapport between leads Smith and Randolph as they maneuver their way through a happy marriage that still has bumps due to Oliver's first marriage and their trauma from Irena's despair and wrath. They are loving parents, concerned for Amy. Ann Carter is an excellent child actor who conveys innocence, loneliness and longing for companionship. Both Dean and Russell provide strong supporting roles.

The film was less successful than Cat People. As mentioned, RKO wanted something more menacing. The suits tinkered some with producer Lewton's script but it still retains its gentle fable-like atmosphere. Lewton wanted to call the film, Amy and Her Friend, but RKO execs said no, wanting Cat People in the title. The film was mostly directed by Robert Wise. Gunter von Fritsch was the original director, but took the film over its planned budget, running more than a week over schedule. 

Contemporary reviews were mixed but The Curse of the Cat People has gained in esteem from critics the past 50 years. It's not uncommon to see it described as a classic. This reviewer agrees.

TALES FROM THE CRYPT Christmas episodes: Tales From The Crypt (1972) and Tales From The Crypt: “And All Through The House” (1989)

 

By Steve Stones

Long before HBO created their Tales From The Crypt TV series in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Amicus Studios (an adjunct of Hammer Studios) in England created a full-length feature film in 1972 based on the William Gaines, Al Feldstein and Johnny Craig E.C. comic books of the 1950s. 

For this article, I will focus on comparing one segment of the full-length feature film with an HBO TV episode in 1989 entitled: “All Through TheHouse.”

Tales From The Crypt (1972)

A group of tourists is taken to a crypt in an old England cemetery. A
tour guide tells them that religious martyrs of Henry VIII are buried
there. Five members of the group get lost and wander into an empty
crypt. The crypt keeper intentionally traps them inside but informs them that he has a purpose. He then asks actress Joan Collins what her plans are after she leaves the crypt.

Next, we see a young and beautiful Collins murdering her husband on Christmas Eve with a fire poker as he is reading the evening newspaper. She wants to collect on his life insurance policy. As she says goodnight to her daughter and quickly tries to clean up the blood on the floor from the murder, she hears on the radio that a killer has escaped from a local sanitarium and may be dressed in a Santa suit to disguise his identity. He is to be considered very dangerous.

Collins hears a knock at the door and realizes it must be the escaped
killer. She attempts to close all the blinds in the house as he peaks
through the windows in a Santa suit. She thinks of calling the police,
but realizes she cannot call them because the corpse of her husband lies on the living room floor. She pushes his body down the basement stairs to try and make it look as if he died of a fall.

Returning upstairs, she sees the door to her daughter’s bedroom open. She discovers her daughter is gone. Suddenly, from behind a curtain downstairs she hears her daughter say “He’s here Mommy! Santa is here!” Sure enough, it is the escaped killer in a Santa suit holding hands with her daughter. Collins runs for the fire poker, but the killer gets to her quickly and chokes her as she grabs for the poker in front of the fireplace.

Tales From The Crypt: “And All Through The House” HBO TV episode (1989)

This episode opens with actress Mary Ellen Trainor reaching for a fire poker in front of a fireplace on Christmas Eve. Her husband asks for the poker so he can stir the fire. “Let me have it!” he says. Trainor whacks him over the head with the poker and says “Merry Christmas you son of a b*tch!”

She quickly sits her murdered husband back up in his chair and removes the poker from his head as her daughter comes down the stairs to say Santa will be there soon. Her daughter refers to the murdered man as Joseph, even though she is not aware he is dead. It’s obvious he is her stepfather.

Trainor escorts her daughter back to her bedroom and opens her window slightly because of the heat in the room. Her daughter asks her “What do you want for Christmas Mommy?” “I already got it sweetheart,” says Trainor.

Trainor calls someone on the phone to say she has killed her husband and that everything, including some money, is now theirs. She then drags her dead husband outside into the cold snow to throw him down a well as a news report on the radio informs listeners that a killer from a local mental ward has escaped in a Santa suit. Just as she is about to throw her husband down the water well, he grabs her. He is not dead yet. Trainor hits him one more time over the head, this time killing him for good.

The escaped killer in a Santa suit surprises her with an axe. She runs back into the house to call the police but realizes her murdered husband is still lying dead on the front lawn.

The phone rings as the killer throws a tire swing through the living
room window and once again attacks Trainor. She hits him in the head with the axe then answers the phone. The voice on the phone warns her of the escaped killer in a Santa suit, and tells her that police will be in her area in twenty minutes. The Santa killer lies unconscious and spread out in the snow on her front yard.

This gives Trainor the plan to make it look as if the Santa killer is
the person who killed her husband. She goes back outside to plunge the axe into the chest of her husband’s corpse a few times as the wind blows her front door shut, locking her out of the house.

To get back into the house, Trainor looks for some keys in her husband’s pocket. She finds them and goes back into the house to call the police to blame the murder of her husband on the Santa killer. The person on the phone tells her to find something to protect herself with, such as a gun.

While trying to find one of Joseph’s guns in an upstairs closet, Trainor accidentally locks herself in the closet. She sees the Santa killer climbing up a ladder to her daughter’s room through the closet window. She kicks open the door and runs to find her daughter in her room. She is not there.

Trainor runs down the stairs to see her daughter standing in the living
room holding hands with the Santa killer. “See, I told you Santa would come Mommy, and he didn’t even need to come down the chimney!” Trainor screams as the Santa says “Naughty or nice?” holding the bloody axe.

Both of these Tales From The Crypt episodes seem to work quite well and have many similarities. However, the 1989 version is better produced. The Santa killer in the 1989 episode is much more convincing as a killer because he appears to be more rough and menacing. The Santa in the 1972 version looks like a regular Santa standing on a street corner ringing a bell.

The 1989 episode also has a more sinister and foreboding feeling to it because the interior scenes inside the house are very dark, unlike the 1972 version where the interiors are well lit. The Joan Collins
character in the 1972 version also never has to go outside or fight with the Santa killer, unlike Trainor’s character in the 1989 version who fights with the Santa out in the cold.

Collins pushes her husband’s corpse down the basement  stairs, whereas Trainor drags her husband out into the snow to throw him into a well. This is the biggest difference of the two episodes.

The 1989 episode is also a real treat because it has the classic opening of the Crypt Keeper introducing the episode in a Santa suit. The crypt keeper in the 1972 version is a middle-aged British man dressed as though he is part of the Jedi council in Star Wars.

Let the Crypt Keeper guide you through your holiday entertainment this Christmas Season boys and ghouls! 

He’ll deck the halls with murder and mayhem!