Midnight Movie of the Week #196 - Cat People

Jacques Tourneur's Cat People, perhaps the artistic high point of horror during the 1940s, is one of the most difficult horror films to explain to modern audiences. Part of that's probably because it's mostly a parable about the dangers of the past and a metaphor for repressed sexuality and a bunch of other smart stuff like that, and also probably because we never actually see people who look like cats. This was, after all, just one year after The Wolf Man showed us a man who looked like a wolf - so it would make sense to expect people who look like cats.

What do we get, if not people who look like cats? We get the fascinating Simone Simon as Irena, a Serbian woman living in New York City who becomes convinced that she's a member of a family who turns into panthers when they're sexually aroused. I suppose that's not really hard to explain, but it's a little bit hard to believe. It's not far off from the gypsy culture of The Wolf Man - which keeps popping up in my mind due to its close proximity to this release - but the differences in style between Cat People producer Val Lewton and the folks behind Universals' monster movies are pretty significant.

As I've already mentioned, the obvious difference is Lewton and Tourneur's choice to go with an implied monster over an actual monster. It's the right choice for this movie for multiple reasons. For starters, I can't picture one scenario in which you use makeup or prosthetics to make Simone Simon look like a cat and don't end up with an audience that thinks the film is a huge joke. But, more obvious than that, there's an air of mystery added to the film by the choice to keep things ambiguous.

Much of this is sold by Simon, who portrays Irena as an icy character, but not one who is sufficiently vicious or evil. She's a confused character - moreso when she interacts with the men in her life than usual -who certainly earns our sympathy as she moves through the film. Even as she grows more unstable later in the film - thanks to a juicy (by 1942 standards) love triangle with her husband and one of his co-workers - we still feel a strong sense of pity for the character, because the filmmakers do such a good job of making us feel like she is doomed by her past.

The film builds to a couple of tense sequences - most notably the swimming pool showdown with her husband's lover, which is probably the best use of a swimming pool in a horror movie's final act prior to C.H.U.D. II - that do a fantastic job of making us feel uneasy without any specific visual of Irena's cat form. Future low-budget horror movies owe a lot to Lewton, as Cat People and his other productions set the standard for building tension with minimal resources. Ironically, all of those scares where cats jump out of dark areas at victims are ancestors of Cat People, where Lewton surprises viewers with the screeching brakes of a bus just when we think we're going to get a cat.

There are a surprising number of people who don't back Lewton's approach to horror these days - for example, the great John Carpenter has famously chided his films as being full of "nothing" - but I think there's still something fascinating about the balance between drama and horror in his productions. Cat People could probably work as a drama about a confused woman and her romantic struggles, and the addition of this shapeshifting aspect of her persona still only barely makes the film a horror tale at times. But the way the director and producer sell her affliction - and the way they let it take over the film in the final act - set up Cat People as one of the more intriguing horror films of its era, and make it a great piece of counterprogramming to the monster movies of its day.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #4 - The Wolf Man

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness Number 35 - The Legend of Hell House  Number 34 - Poltergeist  Number 33 - The Abominable Dr. Phibes  Number 32 - The Phantom of the Opera  Number 31 - The House of the Devil   Number 30 - Evil Dead II  Number 29 - Dead of Night  Number 28 - Carnival of Souls  Number 27 - Nosferatu  Number 26 - Candyman  Number 25 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre  Number 24 - Horror of Dracula  Number 23 - The Wicker Man  Number 22 - Suspiria  Number 21 - The Omen  Number 20 - Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told  Number 19 - Rosemary's Baby  Number 18 - The Devil Rides Out  Number 17 - The Blob  Number 16 - Gremlins  Number 15 - Targets  Number 14 - Fright Night   Number 13 - Frankenstein  Number 12 - Alien  Number 11 - The Shining  Number 10 - An American Werewolf in London  Number 9 - The Thing  Number 8 - Dawn of the Dead  Number 7 - The Evil Dead  Number 6 - Night of the Living Dead  Number 5 - The Innocents

The Wolf Man

(1941, Dir. by George Waggner.)

Why It's Here:

Most people don't list The Wolf Man at the top of the list when it comes to Universal's "classic" monster movies.  I disagree with most people. I think I get too caught up in the tragic drama aspect of this film, because I really buy in to the whole father/son/tortured family thing that we get from Claude Rains and Lon Chaney, Jr. here. And Rick Pierce's magical makeup effects, transforming the lovable Chaney into a wonderfully creepy monster, are a thing of nightmares.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

I don't know much about Maria Ouspenskaya, but I want to give her great grandchildren a hug some day.  The actress who plays the gypsy fortune teller that explains the curse of the werewolf has pretty much the best delivery of an ominous warning in the history of cinema.  It feels so darn real, and sends chills down my spine.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

Speaking of Claude Rains and things that aren't at the forefront of the Universal Monsters discussion, let's talk about The Invisible Man.  It has the annoying comic relief of Una O'Conner, which is a problem, but it also has Rains eating up the scenery while occupying none of it.  These two movies are often lost in the shuffle when it comes to Universal Monsters, but both have a lot of drama and some fantastic special effects.

What It Means To Me:

There's not a scare to be found in The Wolf Man today, but it's the story behind this man-turned-wolf tale that represents everything I love about horror movies.  Some belittle the film and think I have it rated about a billion spots higher than it should be, but it's like comfort food to me.  I love the actors and the script and the effects, and that ending is just one of the all-time best "hammer your point home" moments ever. I'll never tire of The Wolf Man.

The Mike's Top 50 Horror Movies Countdown: #29 - Dead of Night

Previously on the Countdown: Number 50 - Happy Birthday to Me  Number 49 - Prince of Darkness  Number 48 - House on Haunted Hill  Number 47 - The Monster Squad  Number 46 - Hellraiser  Number 45 - The Fog  Number 44 - Creature From the Black Lagoon  Number 43 - Zombie  Number 42 - Tales from the Crypt  Number 41 - Bubba Ho-Tep  Number 40 - Phantom of the Paradise  Number 39 - Dog Soldiers Number 38 - Pontypool  Number 37 - Dark Water  Number 36 - Army of Darkness Number 35 - The Legend of Hell House  Number 34 - Poltergeist  Number 33 - The Abominable Dr. Phibes  Number 32 - The Phantom of the Opera  Number 31 - The House of the Devil  Number 30 - Evil Dead II

Dead of Night

(1945, Dir. by Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer.)

Why It's Here:

Revolutionizing the horror anthology long before even The Twilight Zone, Ealing Studios' production of Dead of Night might as well be something that is told around a campfire. In a way, it is - thanks to a perfectly drawn wrap-around tale that bridges the gaps between three tales of terror (and one goofy ghost story that provides a late film bit of comic relief).  The film's reliance on the age old desire to tell "scary" stories keeps it from feeling out of date - the same principle that helps things like The Twilight Zone and those awesome Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark books we loved as kids - even if it is more than 65 years old.

The Moment That Changes Everything:

I adore Dead of Night as a whole, and have for a long time. But, if we're being completely honest I don't know if the film would have gotten that far if it weren't for the wonderful Ventriloquist's Dummy segment near the end of the film. Again, this is an age-old horror standard - dolls = scariness - but thanks to some wonderful direction and a great Michael Redgrave performance, it meets our fearful expectations and then some.

It Makes a Great Double Feature With:

It's impossible to find something of its era that's quite like it and quite good, so let's just jump all the way forward to the 2007 horror anthology Trick 'r Treat. Creepshow is most likely a better anthology horror flick, but Trick 'r Treat's central theme of old legends and spook stories coming together is more in tune with Dead of Night's personality.

What It Means To Me:

When i start comparing something to The Twilight Zone and the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark books, that's a big deal. Dead of Night gets a special place in my heart because it's completely interested in tapping into fears of the unknown, something that surprisingly few horror tales do anymore. It's not a monster film, it doesn't need blood and gore to make a point - it just wants to make our skin crawl a bit. It meets that goal whenever I watch it.

Midnight Movie of the Week #126 - The Leopard Man

I had to look up the name of those little clicky clacky musical things that you put on your fingers to make noise in musical settings to write this post.  I used to play with those little things when I was in the high school band - I don't think I ever used them for real musical purposes, but I did use them like a boss - but I never knew their name.  Anyway, they're called castanets (here's what Wikipedia says about them), and they play a crucial role in Jacques Tourneur and Val Lewton's wicked little film The Leopard Man.

Imagine yourself at one of those slightly sleazy, slightly exotic, completely captivating naturally beautiful places of the 1940s.  There's a not-quite-Rita-Hayworth dancer named Clo-Clo performing, but she's interrupted by a rival named Kiki who walks onto the show floor with a friggin' leopard.  Clo-Clo, not one to be upstaged, takes her vicious little castanets - which can definitely deserve a place among the most grating musical instruments under the wrong circumstances - and snaps them in the face of the leopard, who promptly dashes from the premises and escapes into the small New Mexico town.

If you've seen The Leopard Man, you don't need to imagine the setting event that I just described. If you haven't, you might think it's a pretty ridiculous set up for a horror tale.  Two showgirls are feuding and bring castanets and a leopard into the fray? Even Elizabeth Berkley wouldn't stoop that low! But, if you know anything about Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur, you know that this type of event isn't played with even a tongue in cheek.  This leopard is serious business, and they don't offer any hint that we should think otherwise. The whole incident is played as a straight forward shock to all characters involved - including the waiter who flashes a freshly clawed hand to the camera - which means we aren't surprised the first time we see a character's blood spill as their life is ended.  Oh, you didn't think blood spilled in films of 1943? Don't tell Lewton that.

Like many horror films that would follow - even in slasher films released more than 40-50 years later - the first victim in the film is a young woman who we barely get the chance to meet. We know her name is Teresa, and later investigation shows that she's portrayed by a 20 year old actress named Margaret Landry who must have just been trying to make a name for herself.  She gets to walk alone, she gets to gasp in fear, and she gets to scream and beg and plead for her life...and that's it.  She has to be one of the first actresses to achieve this "honor" in a horror film.  Looking back, her work stands up to all the screaming first blood victims we'd meet in horror's bloody age.

With plenty of moments that would later become slasher traditions - from an opening voyeuristic camera outside the showgirls' dressing rooms to a police officer discussing traits of a "man who kills for pleasure" - The Leopard Man has an interesting place in the mind of the horror historian.  There are no more than three kills in the film and a few lulls in the proceedings, but Tourneur shows his skill for building tension repeatedly.  This was the third film the director made for Lewton - following the far more famous Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie - but Tourneur's skill for storytelling might be at its best here.

It's easy to miss some of the effortless cuts between characters and storylines at work in The Leopard Man.  This is a film that runs a mere 66 minutes, and a part of me wants to argue that the plot really doesn't take off until around the 50 minute mark.  But a closer inspection shows just how well Tourneur bounces from character to character and involves us in their everyday lives.  For example, Clo-Clo seems like our main character in the opening 10 minutes, but the camera simply moves off of her to Teresa as they pass on the street and goes on with her story from there, bouncing back to other characters when necessary.  Director William Friedkin does a commentary of the film on its DVD, and hypothesizes that Quentin Tarantino may have been influenced by Tourneur's skill for intertwining character paths when he made Pulp Fiction.  Friedkin's assessment seems to be a reach at face value, but I can see his point if I really pay close attention to the story's twists.

The Leopard Man is a fascinating piece of horror history when it's dissected, as there are clear parallels to be drawn to modern cinema favorites.  But it's also a great example of the early Hollywood murder mystery and a dark shocker with a surprisingly morbid ending.  There are plenty of ways a viewer can absorb The Leopard Man - maybe you just want to admire the "acting" of Dynamite, the actor/leopard who also starred in Cat People - which should make it a fun viewing for any lover of classic horror cinema.

Midnight Top Five - The "Have a Little Faith in the Teenagers" Edition

If you've ever watched a horror movie, you've probably been told that teenagers are pretty much worthless at life.  It's true to an extent - if teenagehood was Mass Effect, you could say I took the paragon path all the way and I was still a stupid idiot 97% of the time - but people who are jump to conclusions often miss the good parts of what's going on in these mostly undeveloped human people.

But horror movies are more wrong than most people when it comes to teenagers.  They show the worst parts of teen behavior, and often punish the kids for it harshly.  Look, I get it. It was a message to change their ways and it lost its meaning and now it just happens, sort of like how people used to say the pledge of allegiance in school because they meant it and now they just do it because they're told to and they're trained to and they don't even think about the words they're saying.

But I'm feeling hopeful tonight.  I feel like taking the world by the ears and shaking at and shouting "Hey! There have to be good teenagers out there or there wouldn't be people who grew up to be good people!"  I'm not sure if my shouting would be entirely true, but I'm trying to have faith here.  Heck, I'm so faithful that I might even set this post to some soulful Joe Cocker.

Yeah, I went there.  Now lets take a look at five reminders that teenagers aren't always the downfall of society, and can in fact be really friggin' awesome beacons of hope for the future and stuff.

Charlotte "Charlie" Newton

Played by Teresa Wright in Shadow of a Doubt

(1943, Dir. by Alfred Hitchcock.)

Charlie wasn't always the picture of virtue - that whole romance with the like 40 year old cop was really weird! - but she's perhaps the earliest perfect example of a teenage character who is given power over her world in a dark world.  We're not talking Nancy Drew here, we're talking about a normal girl in a normal town with a normal family who worships her seemingly normal Uncle who just might be an abnormal killer of rich widows.

Teresa Wright did all kinds of great things with this character.  To start, there's an incredible streak of altruism that runs through the character, who really fits into the film's pre-World War II setting as an ambitious and driven young woman.  She seems to just believe so much in the world around her, including her suspicious uncle, and her hope for the world is pretty contagious.  But when things start to turn in the final scenes of the film and Charlie begins to take a stand - that's when the character really blossoms.  She shows an ability to grow and adapt, and sets the tone for hundreds of female teenage characters who would follow her in genre cinema.

Steven Andrews, Jane Martin, Mooch and the Boys

Played by Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, James Bonnet, Robert Fields, Anthony Franke in The Blob

(1958, Dir. by Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.)

I've wasted so many words on The Blob - this one's my favorite collection of them - but I never get old of the ridiculously wonderful '50s teenagers of The Blob. And yes, I'll get it out of the way right now - they're not actually teenagers. The actors are older than that. I know.

As the teenagers mobilize in the name of what's right - and what might actually save humanity - I think my favorite thing about the group is the dopey Mooch.  With his creepy hair and his red sweater, James Bonnet's character is the personification of the wholesome values The Blob wants us to see in these characters.  Along for the ride and always willing to jump into the fight with a CO2 fire extinguisher, these kids represent their era perfectly and always make me smile.

Dennis Guilder

Played by John Stockwell in Christine

(1983, Dir. by John Carpenter.)

The most fascinating thing about John Carpenter's adaptation of Stephen King's killer car novel, to me, has always been the central relationship between the two lead teenage male characters.  On one hand, you have Arnie Cunningham, played by Keith Gordon, a bullied nerd who seems to have little going for him on the popularity side of things.  On the other hand, we have Dennis, a football star who seemingly could be really popular - yet he hangs out with Arnie and turns down the advances of a young Kelly Preston.

Let me repeat that - he turns down the advances of a YOUNG KELLY PRESTON.

Though I still question his willingness to not have a fling with a young Kelly Preston, I adore how Dennis' character moves through the story.  As Arnie's mind becomes corrupted by that red demon on wheels, Dennis becomes the voice of reason.  He's a shockingly grounded young man for a high school star athlete, but the realization that characters like that exist shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone.  Dennis represents the good side of the teenage jock scene, and he does so quite well.

Nancy Thompson

Played by Heather Langenkamp in A Nightmare on Elm Street

(1984, Dir. by Wes Craven.)

This one really doesn't need many words.  I'm notoriously hard on A Nightmare on Elm Street because I hate the ending so much, but I will never deny the possibility that Nancy Thompson is the prototype for teenage heroines in horror.  If there's one thing Wes Craven can do well on a consistent basis (and it literally might be the only thing he can do consistently!) - the man can make a heroine who is smart and who is strong and who won't back down when it's time to stand up for herself.  And it all pretty much began with Nancy Thompson. 

Kirby Reed

Played by Hayden Panettiere in Scream 4

(2011, Dir. by Wes Craven.)

Speaking of Craven, we come to the Scream series - where female characters have varied from one end of the spectrum to another like a squirrel who takes antidepressants every other week. (Don't think about that last analogy for too long, it will break your brain.)

But when we get to Scream 4, we meet the female character who pretty much made every horror fan in the world fistpump with pride.  She's Kirby Reed, and she's played with surprising panache by Heroes alumni Hayden Panettiere.  I'm pretty sure no one expected this from the young girl, but she makes female horror nerd look fun, playing off her straight laced friends and the nerdy male cinephiles equally well.  She's the smart, normal, socially adjusted image that a lot of horror fans wish people saw more often - which is a big part of why so many horror fans loved her.

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There are probably a lot more wonderful teenagers in horror I've left out here, but this isn't a Midnight Top A Lot list.  It's a Top Five.  So please, Midnight Warriors, hit up the comments! Tell me who I missed, tell me who you love, tell me you love me - whatever you want to tell me.  (Maybe not the love me thing. It might get weird.)

In the meantime, have faith.  Because someday, the good teenagers are gonna be the old people who think there aren't any good teenagers, while we all watch from our retirement castles on Mars and laugh.  It'll be awesome.  (Or, we'll all turn into Crazy Ralph.  Which isn't bad either.)

The Universal Horror Experience - The Wolf Man

(Note from The Mike: Y'all love Universal's Monster flicks, right?  Well, The Mike does.  And it seems like it's about time to do something about it.  So welcome to a new feature at FMWL - The Universal Horror Experience.  Now I know that most of these films have been talked to death, so I hope to do something fresher than just saying "OMG YOU GUYS, these movies are like important".  In said feature, I hope to discuss my experience with these monsters, to review some of the sequels I've yet to see, and to talk about some films that follow up on Universal's original scarers.  For example, we're gonna start the Universal Horror Experience with....)

My love affair with Universal's monsters started with them existing as more of an idea than an actual entity.   I first really learned about them by reading those orange backed books about the monsters at the library - if you grew up in the '80s, you probably know those books. I read front to back about Dracula, Frankenstein, King Kong, Godzilla, etc....but for some reason I don't remember caring much about the Wolf Man.  Frankenstein's monster was always the big brute, Dracula's always been the suave devil....but then there was The Wolf Man, who I always kind of wrote off as a side character in my youth. (Except I knew that he had gnards.  Thanks, The Monster Squad.)

But when I started to get into the movies during my teen years, The Wolf Man quickly jumped out at me as a favorite.  Where Frankenstein and Dracula were paring down their source materials to film lengths, The Wolf Man was taking something that hadn't been done too often - though Werewolf of London did precede it by six years - and using it to create a third icon to keep the money flowing in for Universal Studios.  In doing so, many of the things we've come to believe about werewolves - like their struggles with silver and humanoid appearance - were unleashed upon audiences for the first time.  I don't mean to slight The Mummy, The Invisible Man, or The Creature from the Black Lagoon (who was still 15 years away from existence) when I say The Wolf Man is above them as a top dog in the horror 'verse - but it's since become a special favorite to me.

The Wolf Man won me in part through its monster, but there was a whole lot more going on in the film.  Lon Chaney Jr. stars as both the furry beast and the seemingly harmless - aside from a bit of peeping - Larry Talbot, who returns home to his father after the tragic death of his brother in a hunting accident.  The Talbots are obviously a big deal in the small town they inhabit, which makes Larry a high profile individual - particularly when he's caught up in a love triangle with a local girl (the fetching Evelyn Ankers) and the accidental murder of a gypsy named Bela (aptly played by Bela Lugosi).  Larry is wounded badly by the beast that Bela appears to be, and we all know what that means these days.  (If you don't, check out An American Werewolf in London - which cites the film as a reference on screen - and get back to me.  Or, y'know, just watch the movie.)

Chaney's performance is certainly raw by Hollywood standards, but the younger Mister Chaney would make a career out of harnessing that off-kilter persona.  Though Chaney got his first big break two years earlier as Lennie in the first film adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (opposite a young Burgess Meredith), the mixture of his size and stature with his ability to play meek and scared - plus a dose of his famous father's legacy - made Chaney a favorite with Universal after his initial turn as The Wolf Man.  Chaney would go on to portray Frankenstein's monster, The Mummy, and the Son of Dracula in following Universal horrors.  Though those roles would establish him as a horror 'verse fixture, but his original turn as Larry Talbot catches Chaney at his most human - at least until his swan song performance in former MMOTW Spider Baby.

The problem with Chaney, according to many horror fans, is that he most certainly is not an iconic presence like Karloff and Lugosi before him.  I won't argue that point, but I think he gets a lot of help in making The Wolf Man work.  The supporting cast includes Lugosi and Ankers but also big names Claude Rains and Ralph Bellamy, and each actor works well within Curt Siodmak's tragic script.  The biggest assist in creating the legend of The Wolf Man probably goes to makeup specialist Jack Pierce, who designed the look of the beast and supervised the exhausting process of creating the film's transformation from man to wolf.  

With this convergence of talents supporting the star, The Wolf Man jumps off the screen as a tale of horror with a Shakespearean bit of tragedy and more human drama than many horrors of its era.  While the film adaptations of Frankenstein and Dracula can be mistaken for one-man shows thanks to their iconic leads, the superior cast and script behind The Wolf Man push it to the top of my go-to list of classic horrors.  I'm glad I shook the near-sightedness of little The Mike, because he remembered The Wolf Man primarily as the thing that scared Stephanie Tanner that one time on Full House.