8mm Forum: CAT PEOPLE (1942) Super 8mm Sound 600 feet

This is topic CAT PEOPLE (1942) Super 8mm Sound 600 feet in forum 8mm Print Reviews at 8mm Forum.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000391

Posted by Brian Paul Cook (Member # 1946) on May 04, 2010, 03:58 AM:

I wish I could say what company put together this really excellent condensation of the 1942 Val Lewton RKO classic CAT PEOPLE, but there is no clue on the film and the box that it came in was blank. Whoever they were, they did a remarkable job of making scene choices for inclusion in this version, and then smoothly linking them together in an almost seamless edit. It opens with Simone Simon's wedding party and the appearance of the stunningly bizarre Elizabeth Russell who recognizes Simon as one of her own kind...a cat person, calling her "Sister?" I mention this because it is representative of the kind of care and expertise that went into this little 30 minute cutdown. This scene could have easily been overlooked and discarded,deemed too 'subtle' to move the film along briskly. Instead they saw it for what it was... a tip-off to the cast and the audience of the strange proceedings that would follow. Each and every scene selected for this version captures the moodiness, classiness, and subtlety of the feature. When it ended I was hard pressed to clearly recall the missing footage. The picture and sound quality are also very good, making this an excellent choice for addition to anyone's collection.

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 04, 2010, 10:17 AM:

Brian,

Thanks for the review! I believe this was a Mountain Films release. Could you let us know what scenes are included in the digest? Thanks!

Doug

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on May 04, 2010, 11:10 PM:

I seem to recall hearing from someone who worked for Select Film Library way back in the late 70s that MOUNTAIN acquired the negs to several RKO titles via a distribution partnership from NOSTALGIA MERCHANT which decided to focusing their energies exclusively on videotape products. I know I've seen "Top Hat", "Flying Down To Rio", "King Kong", "Mighty Joe Young" and "The Thing" all in Mountain boxes on Ebay.

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on May 04, 2010, 11:26 PM:

About 1984, I obtained a new print of this from Portland Films in London on polyester stock (2 x 400') - they must have acquired some of the Mountain masters. I presume they also obtained rights to RKO titles unreleased by Mountain, as they released THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE full length.

Posted by Brian Paul Cook (Member # 1946) on May 05, 2010, 12:36 AM:

Doug asked me to write more about what scenes are included in the digest. This was (for me at least) difficult to do without describing the scenes and revealing the content. So I apologize for it's lengthiness. Here is the uncondensed version of that elaboration:
Scene 1.Opening wedding banquet featuring Jack Holt and Alan Napier among others offering various comments about Irena's troubled marriage. This scene establishes most of the film's characters including Oliver, her husband, and Alice, Oliver's beautiful assistant. Then the 'cat woman' makes her appearance and upsets Irena by calling her "sister?"Irena becomes very upset and the festivities break up.
2. Dropped off in front of Oliver's (Kent Smith), Irena pleads with Oliver to give her time to work through her morbid feelings of evil, and her inability to consumate the marriage.
3. Irena visits the black leopard in the zoo where the animal keeper tells her that the Bible says that he is the worst beast of all... "like unto a leopard, but not a leopard".
4. Irena is painting in her studio and humming the tune the zoo keeper was humming. She becomes obsessed with the small bird in a cage which hangs over her desk. She not so playfully opens the cage and begins to torment the bird until he drops dead. Or maybe he is just sleeping. The moody and mournful CAT PEOPLE theme comes up here on the soundtrack as she places the body of the bird in a small box and takes it to the leopard in the zoo.
5. She confesses to Oliver that she was driven to take the bird to the leopard, she couldn't stop herself. Oliver is now convinced that his betrothed has a serious problem and needs professional help. Oddly, Irena agrees if it's the best help they can find.
6. Cut to Tom Conway as Dr. Judd having a session with Irena who is sprawled out on the traditional psychiatrists couch. In this scene Dr. Judd repeats to Irena what she has told him and thereby tells the viewer exactly what has led up to Irena's condition and why she believes that if aroused she will turn into a wild animal... a giant cat.
7. Irena returns home to find Alice lounging with Oliver and discovers that Oliver has told Alice about Irena's secrets and her seeing Dr. Judd. She is, needless to say, angry at both of them, but obviously more disturbed by Alice. She asks her to leave.

8. Irena travels to the zoo again and finds the key left in the leopard's cage door. When she returns it to the zoo keeper, she turns to find Dr. Judd has followed her. He intimates that she has a desire for death, and that maybe the leopard is her instrument of death. She dismisses Dr. Judd, refuses to see him again, and tells him her soul is damaged and not her mind, making it impossible for him to help her.
9. Meanwhile at the YMCA? swimming pool, Alice is taking an after hours swim in a very dark pool. When a leopard growls and dark shapes appear on the walls of the pool house she screams until the attendants appear and Irena in human form appears on the side of the pool, explaining she is looking for Oliver. When she leaves, Alice discovers that her bathrobe has been torn to shreds.
10. In the only disconnected cut in the entire digest, Oliver, Alice, and Dr. Judd are waiting for Irena to return home, apparently to give here a good talking to. Having grown tired of waiting, they leave and split up. Oliver and Alice go back to his architectural office to work. This place is also very dark, and becomes suddenly darker complete with the shadows of a beast on the walls and the threat of death at the jaws of a wild animal when Oliver grabs a T-Square (drawing instrument) and uses it like a cross, commanding Irena to leave them. Immediately she disappears. When they carefully exit the building, they smell Irena's perfume in the lobby. While they go for a quick drink, Dr. Judd plans to put the moves on Irena when she returns.
11. Oliver and Alice try to call Dr. Judd to warn him of the now quite possessed Irena and he hangs up on them.
12. They rush over, but not before Judd kisses Irena and she becomes a leopard. The shadows on the wall suggest she has become a beast and is going to kill Dr. Judd. He manages to stab her several times with his cane/sword before he dies.
13. Oliver and Alice arrive to find the body and evidence that Irena has been mortally wounded. They surmise that she has returned to the zoo and go after her.
14. The wounded Irena opens the leopard's cage door and stands in front of the opening. The panther springs out of the cage, killing Irena on the way, making his escape but is run down by a police car. Oliver and Alice find Irena's body and the CAT PEOPLE theme comes up under an on-screen quote from an old proverb about death and beasts. Oliver and Alice walk off into the fog,bringing to a close this amazingly complex and carefully layered editing of the feature—a really great digest version by any standard.

Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 05, 2010, 09:36 AM:

Brian,

Excellent job! I feel as if I've just watched the digest. Val Lewton did an amazing job at RKO with very small budgets. We're lucky that a number of his films are available on 8mm, including Bedlam, The Ghost Ship, Isle of the Dead and as Adrian stated, the sequel to this film. Classic also put out a trailer reel of his films a few years back.

Doug

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on May 05, 2010, 10:03 AM:

I love this digest because you have the whole film very well edited. Beware however, as because this was a Mountain release the quality can be quite variable. I had to buy 4 copies of this before I got one with crisp clear sound. I wish they had released this title full length instead of the awful "Curse of the Cat People" but that's life.

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on May 05, 2010, 03:30 PM:

Paul - I have to disgree with regard to 'Curse of the Cat People', which I consider a classic, unique film. I have a 16mm print that I showed to a film society and it went down very well.

Posted by Panayotis A. Carayannis (Member # 1220) on May 05, 2010, 04:56 PM:

As good as these condensed versions are,they are nothing like the complete feature.Much rarer, as they were issued in limited (?) numbers, are the full length editions of THE CAT PEOPLE,CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE,THE GHOST SHIP and THE BODY SNATCHER. I am not sure if BEDLAM was issued complete and am almost certain that ISLE OF THE DEAD wasn,t. Please correct me if i am wrong.

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on May 06, 2010, 09:39 AM:

Hi Adrian,
I suppose I dislike "Curse of the Cat People" because it is not a horror film and has very little to do with the original. No panther's here, just a story told from a young girls point of view. If it hadn't been exploitative and had "Cat People" in the title I might have appreciated it more. It certainly is very low on thrills. Panayotis, "The Ghost Ship" is an excellent film which was only ever available on the home cinema guages because of a legal dispute. C and C Films bought the RKO library for TV but found that they were not allowed to show it and somehow when Mountain bought the 8mm rights they got the film. It was years before the legal problems were resolved, so us home collectors were very lucky to have prints of this excellent film. I have not seen full length prints of "Bedlam" or "Isle of the Dead", and I would dearly love to have a Super 8 print of "I walked with a Zombie".

Posted by Panayotis A. Carayannis (Member # 1220) on May 06, 2010, 03:52 PM:

Paul, I know,as I am the happy owner of all four of the features. The quality of none is perfect.Mostly they are hard to focus. Thankfully,as they are all around the 70 minute running time,they were released complete in 4x400. And that is my frustration with the english companies (Mountain, Walton, Powell, early Derann etc), to find out what features are complete and what not! Others of similar length, like SON OF KONG and THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE were chopped by two or three minutes. Still others,(KING KONG,MACBETH, THE LAST COMMAND,RUN OF THE ARROW etc) were issued complete at first and then in 4x400 versions, most commonly found today. And still others, longer ones, like A TALE OF TWO CITIES and A STOLEN LIFE were issued in 6x400 reels, but the reels held only 15 minutes of film,making up a running time of approx.90 minutes!
So, if you are a completitionist, be careful!

Posted by Guy Tessier (Member # 2029) on May 28, 2010, 08:06 AM:

In response to Panyotis - I have a print of "The Body Snatcher" which doesn't appear to be a C&C print (unless altered) It has the RKO logo at the beginning and the title sequence doesn't have the frozen and altered main title screen. It comes in a box marked de Maio films. It has good contrast, brightness and (mono) sound.

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on May 29, 2010, 02:07 AM:

I think that the only RKO feature released on super 8 with the C&C title was "The Ghost Ship" as there were no RKO releases of this title because of the legal ruling against the producer of plagiarising the original writers. I don't think C&C films ever got to show this title on TV, and it was years before it could be legally shown publicly. Many C&C rebranded titles turn up on 16mm (King Kong, The Hound of the Baskervilles etc; etc;). They tend to be bargains as they are not theatrical density prints.

Posted by Panayotis A. Carayannis (Member # 1220) on May 29, 2010, 01:20 PM:

In addition to the GHOST SHIP, my CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE,which is in its original Heritage boxes, is also a C&C print. THE CAT PEOPLE , complete with the RKO logo,comes from a british print,as it is preceded by the BBFC card. THE BODY SNATCHER,has on all the leaders,badly scratched, a name like "Bob Shackler",which I believe is the name of the 8 mm company owner,but I can't remember which one. I am sure that DeMaio was only a distributor. Its owner was Carl DeMaio.

Posted by John Skujins (Member # 1515) on June 06, 2010, 02:23 PM:

Some screenshots are still up from an auction I was watching:

http://cgi.ebay.com/CAT-PEOPLE-600-Super-8-Sound-digest-Val-Lewton_W0QQitemZ170461158992QQcategoryZ63821QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp2773.m8QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DMW%26itu%3DUCC%26otn%3D15 %26po%3DLCA%26ps%3D63

UBB.classic^TM 6.3.1.2