The Curse of the Cat People.

Review #2094: The Curse of the Cat People.

Cast: 

Simone Simon (the ghost of Irena Dubrovna Reed), Kent Smith (Oliver Reed), Jane Randolph (Alice Reed), Ann Carter (Amy Reed), Eve March (Miss Callahan), Julia Dean (Julia Farren), Elizabeth Russell (Barbara Farren), Erford Gage (Police Captain), and Sir Lancelot (Edward) Directed by Robert Wise (#515 - Star Trek: The Motion Picture, #725 - The Day the Earth Stood Still, #921 - The Haunting, #1407 - West Side Story) and Gunther von Fritsch.

Review: 

I'm sure you remember Cat People (1942). That was the film directed by Jacques Tourneur with a script provided by DeWitt Bodeen, with Val Lewton having brought them both in to serve in their roles on the film as producer for RKO. The title may have been a bit more grabbing than the actual surroundings of the plot when it comes to "cat people", but it was worth a watch for those who favor patience in their horror films. Now here we are with a film that is strangely termed as "psychological supernatural thriller film" but let us just erase the doubt and say hey, it's a light horror film. Lewton imported certain aspects of his childhood into suggestion for the story of the film, as evidenced by his upbringing that saw him raised in Port Chester, New York after his family had moved from Russia. Gunther von Fritsch, an Austrian-born director (who had served in the US Army Signal Corps and did training films), was tasked to direct this one, his first (and perhaps only notable) feature film. However, he did not go to a satisfactory pace (i.e. only getting halfway through the script in filming) for what was meant to be a shoot of under three weeks. As such, Robert Wise, previously known as a sound and music editor at the studio after starting work there in the 1930s (which included Citizen Kane (1941), most famously), was brought in to direct the rest of the venture, which also serves as his feature film debut. Wise would direct for RKO until 1949, with two of his productions being under Lewton with Mademoiselle Fifi (1944) and The Body Snatcher (1945). Lewton wanted to call the film "Amy and Her Friend", but RKO (after screening the film) insisted on the cat title to cash in for suck-I mean, customers (a sequence of teenagers chasing a black cat up a tree was edited into the film on their request). 

Even more so than the previous film is one that is a film that is not great in any one field, but this is one that lacks any real particular great moment to really hold their hat for. It is a bait-and-switch in most senses of the world, because it doesn't have much to do with cats or curses, seemingly more interested in the world of seeing the horrors of a kid that may or may not be on the verge of going under the sanity train because of her lack of connection to others around her. Smith, Randolph, and Simon return from the previous film but don't exactly have as much to connect with, as the film really is Carter's to focus on, which goes fine. She handles the material presented to her with curiosity and dignity that you can see from someone meant to endear as a fellow explorer of strangers. Dean and Russell in theory would make for an interesting pair in family drama (a senile woman who may or may not be right about her daughter being who she says), but you only get glimpses. It barely even feels worth it to have Simon there, because she has very little to really do besides saying they are from "great darkness and deep peace". Bottom line, family drama, child with ghost, pick one to spend time further on. You might say the film has its own degree of ambiguity like the earlier film, but you are not seriously going to tell me that I actually am supposed to care to guess if the "ghost" is really present to our lead or not. The original tried the whole "maybe it's in her head, maybe it isn't", but I played along with it being real because the idea of watching a build of things you "see" or "hear" only to have a fake out sounds like the lamest idea imaginable when you are here for the idea of horror. With this film, I'm not playing the game of guessing and I'm not playing the game of trying to see if the film will do something more involving that the middle-ground stuff. It is merely fine, nothing more, one that will either seem moody or average, or...well, pallid. This is the kind of film where you have folks telling a brief rendition of "The Headless Horseman" to go with a climax that involves a kid being confronted with a grumpy woman...and a ghost appears right onto the woman, so the kid gives 'em a hug. I think the ending of the previous film, involving the revelation of one never lying to them, just works better in closing the whole thing rather than the mild warmth here. It is a film all about the fantasies that come with children with wandering imagination more present than what you fear, where a child that you are raising needs positive interaction and lessons from those around them rather than playing into fantasy. 70 minutes is mildly acceptable for those who have the curiosity for a mildly enjoyable film that may or may not stoke even further look into the world of Val Lewton and company.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Next up: Body Snatchers, hell yeah.

Cat People (1942).

Review #1898: Cat People.

Cast: 

Simone Simon (Irena Dubrovna), Kent Smith (Oliver Reed), Tom Conway (Dr. Louis Judd), Jane Randolph (Alice Moore), Jack Holt ('Commodore' C. R. Cooper), Steve Soldi (The Organ Grinder), and Alan Napier ('Doc' Carver) Directed by Jacques Tourneur (#998 - I Walked with a Zombie)

Review: 

Oh yes, there was plenty of horror schlock to go around in the 1930s and 1940s, but one cannot forget about the ones besides the studio fare of the era. In 1942, an era of B-movie horror at RKO Radio Pictures began reaching theaters, with Val Lewton being tasked to do features for the studio; he had been hired after previously serving as story editor on films for David O. Selznick. Granted, they were not the cheapest type of horror film of their time, because even the Poverty Row studios like Producers Releasing Corporation made horror films too, but Lewton's run of producing horror B-movies made a distinct mark on horror cinema. It all started with this film, with Lewton picking both the director (Jacques Tourneur) and writer (DeWitt Bodeen), and each contributed to the script treatment, which had cat-related literature as research, with wither Tourneur or Lewton responsible for the modern setting as opposed to a period piece. One other part of the film crew was Mark Robson, who served as editor before cultivating a career of directing films in his own right. The film, reusing sets from films such as The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), was made for roughly $141,000. The film was a fair success for RKO despite mild reviews, which led to a semi-sequel with The Curse of the Cat People (1944) that saw three of the main four actors from the previous film return while Lewton served as producer and contributed script details (attempts by him to not use that particular title failed), and it happened to be the debut feature for a future famous name in Robert Wise. A remake was done in 1982. Lewton would produce eleven films for RKO from 1942 to 1946 before the death of Charles Koerner (executive vice president who supported Lewton while also being known as the guy who fired Orson Welles from RKO) along with Lewton's ailing health led to him not having employment with RKO. Lewton did produce a few features afterwards, but he died in 1951 at the age of 46. Among the notable horror films that he did were the aforementioned Cat film alongside I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and Isle of the Dead (1945). Tourneur had started his directing career with films in his native France in 1931, but it was these films that rose him into eventual status at RKO in the 1940s before he added freelance work to his output that saw a variety of genres to go with horror, most notably with Night of the Demon (1957).

Eight decades have been kinder to the film, which was a moderate success with audiences while having a decent if not spectacular reaction from others (i.e. not as hyperbolic as Freaks). In fact, the reputation of the film has perhaps been a bit overstated depending on the perspective of who is evaluating it, which either rests on being a sophisticated classic or just a good B-movie. I think it is merely pretty good, not exactly outclassing the creature features such as with Universal of the time but instead going for something a bit different in creativity. At any rate, the power of imagination is what matters most for the output of the RKO run with Lewton and company. Tournier himself described the film as "very poor" (in terms of the script and story progression) and "very childish" while also not being happy with Simon's acting. At any rate, it is the examination of "the Other" that matters most, where it is not only a movie about someone who may or may not be a cat but also a tragedy of how one loses their bearings in mind and with people. Superstitions and legends matter most to those who have the words to back it up, basically, whether that involves panthers or something else. It is a 73-minute movie with the most careful of touches that lives and dies on how you treat the road to seeing if someone is a cat-person or not, one that treats it seriously without veering into ridicule territory (RKO tried to push for more shots of, well, take a guess, but the filmmakers did play it carefully in shooting). Oh sure, you could save yourself the time by peeking to see whether the title is going to be what the title is, but sometimes it is the imagination of where the truth lies that is more useful to consider. With that in mind, Simon is serviceable up to a point: one can see the vulnerabilities present in a withering role like this and give her credit while also thinking that she pulls it off a majority of the time in shaky grace rather than an absolute one. Smith, tasked with being the ordinary fellow in a movie with the most careful of all tensions, does exactly what is required, one with striking causality towards how he treats Simon and Randolph when paired with either that makes for the tension needed. Conway is harder to peg down, mostly because he isn't exactly just the doctor character playing exposition nor one who has as much time to corral against Simon, but his last sequence does show exactly what would hope to see from a moderate actor. One of the most striking things to linger from the film is a moment that lasts for less than a minute: the first jump scare. Imagine if you will, a quiet little scene with growing tension, one that has you curious in your seat, things move carefully, and then bam, a loud noise strikes out of nowhere, with this one being the sound of an incoming bus. The jump scare became more of a thing in the 1970s with slashers, but it's always interesting to see where horror tricks can come from, especially when done right. As a whole, I think it is a pretty good movie, maybe not exactly the kind of movie that is great in any one area, but it would prove just right for a night out with the proper mindset of patience.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Lost Horizon (1973).

Review #1601: Lost Horizon.

Cast: 

Peter Finch (Richard Conway), Liv Ullmann (Catherine), Sally Kellerman (Sally Hughes), George Kennedy (Sam Cornelius), Michael York (George Conway), Olivia Hussey (Maria), Bobby Van (Harry Lovett), James Shigeta (Brother To-Lenn), Charles Boyer (the High Lama), John Gielgud (Chang), and Kent Smith (Bill Fergunson) Directed by Charles Jarrott.

Review: 

"A picture of hope, of faith with a spiritual quality. We all need that with the pressures of the world... Everyone's looking for a place that has peace and security."

Sometimes one does not know where to start and stop in their pursuit of a movie Shangri-La. The 1933 novel by James Hilton (who had eight of his works turned into films), had been adapted into a film previously by Frank Capra in 1937. While it was generally received well at the time, it did not recover its $2 million budget for a few years. Incidentally, the same year that this film was released, the 1937 film was first being restored by the American Film Institute. The funny thing is that there is so many hands here known for better things. We have past and future Academy Award winners with Kennedy, Finch, and Gielgud. We have a B-movie actor-turned-dialogue director-turned producer in Ross Hunter that was known for films like Pillow Talk (1959), Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), and Airport (1970). We have a director in Jarrot that received a fair bit of notice with Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) and Mary, Queen of Scots (1971). Composer Burt Bacharach and Hal David were a classic partnership in contributing songs together. And then...Hunter never produced another theatrical film after this, while Bacharach and David never worked together again. At least writer Larry Kramer (writer for Women in Love (1969)) came out of the affair well, in the sense that the money for doing it helped keep afloat for several years (he would become a playwright the year this film was released along with activism in the gay community alongside AIDS awareness).

An adventure can be tough at 150 minutes, but this is a musical fantasy adventure, which means one is in for incredible pain if it is done terribly. Would you be surprised to hear that this did not prove well with audiences? Bette Midler called it "Lost Her-Reason", and there isn't much in the film to argue against that. For the first thirty (or so) minutes, one is seeing a straight-laced adventure, as it has to set up its trappings and characters with clichés-I mean personality with flaws to inevitably confront later on. In that sense, it probably could have been an interesting adventure film that could have updated itself with finding a place of inner peace with the secrets that lurk within. And then Gielgud shows up, fur costume and all, to help usher them into their strange little utopia, complete with a re-used set (castle) from Camelot (1967). There might be a chance at a scene involving characters having a conversation, whether that involves a thought process over meeting the Lama or just about why it may be futile to think about smuggling gold out of paradise. Of course that can't happen, because it is a musical of the worst kind: one that doesn't know when to shut up. Simply put, the songs aren't too particularly interesting, the music to go alongside it is too sickeningly sweet to go alongside the fact that only three actors actually sung their lines (Kellerman, Shigmata, and Van). Of all the things to make a musical, why would you take an adventure like this and make a musical of it? The funny thing is that this was already tried: In 1956, the book was turned into a musical in Shangri-La (with Hilton credited for co-contribution to the book and lyrics), where it promptly ran for 21 performances on Broadway. The film was the last of a line of musicals that received a roadshow release, done after the boom of films like Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady, and so on (Pete's Dragon (1977) was evidently the last one to have such release).

I hope Finch (noted for films like A Town Like Alice (1956) and Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)) liked what he saw from being the head of a dignified mess. After all, most of his "songs" are through internal monologue, for which he isn't singing them, but that's...better than the others? Worse? It is wooden all the way, but that is technically better than the star-studded clunkers following him. Ullmann (famous for a variety of roles, mostly with director Ingmar Bergman) acts in theory with the idea of sweet charm, dancing her way through dubbed songs with stiffness expected from casting non-musical actors for a musical. Now, now, Kellerman did in fact do her own singing and dancing, but that doesn't exactly leave her with more dignity in a Saturday school special type of acting fit for such a silly character, one that looks like she wants to be anywhere else but here. Kennedy is just as baffling, because one would almost think they should have tried for camp, but yet here we are with strange choices all the way through. York plays the strangest character present in both book and film: the skeptic, which he doesn't do well with in the least, probably because however legitimate his concerns with an obvious utopia are, he can't really do much with actually carrying this to anything worthwhile - besides, he is meant to be the brother of Finch's character, and the age difference between them is 26 years (!) - they might as well have been playing father-and-son. Hussey (most famous from Romeo and Juliet (1968), a film long sought to cover) falls to the wayside in silliness, mostly because one is more curious to see how the effect will go when the secretly elder one will age outside of the mountain...it ultimately reminds me of a peanut, which is pretty amusing. At least Van, a musical actor known for productions like No, No, Nanette and others for two decades, is somewhat right for what is needed in comic relief and singing, although one almost wonders if he would've been better as the lead somehow. Shigeta (who also did his singing like Kellerman and Van as a pioneer for leads for Asian Americans alongside TV and singing) seems sorely lacking, one who needs more to do than to just help shepherd these bread-like personalities through utopia silliness. This was the third-to-last role for Boyer, acting in a chair to some effect for like five minutes in a film that seems to have not updated itself one bit from films of Boyer's era. Gielgud later described his role as an "idiotic walkabout", one that seemed to not let him really act alongside noting his slight shame in taking the film to help in money problems. Being wrapped in a warm fur costume and a dubious script without having to sing and get paid for it? Sure, why not. There are technically highlights, in picking out the silly moments besides the hokum that comes through with such pallid singing, but my favorite is near the end, where Finch and York are travelling slowly away down the mountain, trying to keep up with the guides and they yell at them to slow down...which promptly leads to an avalanche occurring over the guides. The other little nugget comes from when Finch tries to go back in the end, and a brief song happens after he apparently reaches it - I just like to pretend he actually just when snow-blind again. On the whole, there is very little to like from a film that deserves all of its notations of turkey classification in how silly it all proves to be within an intolerable 150 minute run-time, ineffective execution of songs and dance, and its lack of anything meaningful to make a worthwhile adventure in utopia that merits needing more than one adaptation of the original material by Hilton. In short, it sucks.

Happy Thanksgiving. Next Time: Thirsty for more? It's time for Hobgoblins.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 10 stars.