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The Curse of the Cat People

The Curse of the Cat People
Curse of the Cat People lobby card.jpg
Lobby card
Directed by Robert Wise
Gunther von Fritsch
Produced by Val Lewton
Written by DeWitt Bodeen
Val Lewton (uncredited)
Starring Simone Simon
Kent Smith
Jane Randolph
Ann Carter
Eve March
Music by Roy Webb
Cinematography Nicholas Musuraca
Edited by J.R. Whittredge
Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures
Release date
  • March 2, 1944 (1944-03-02)
Running time
70 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $212,000

The Curse of the Cat People is a 1944 film directed by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise, and produced by Val Lewton. This film, which was then-film editor Robert Wise's first directing credit, is the sequel to Cat People (1942) and has many of the same characters. However, the movie has a completely different story, and no visible cat people, only the ghost of a character established as a cat-person in the previous film. The screenplay was again written by DeWitt Bodeen.

After the death of his wife Irena (Simone Simon), Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) has married former co-worker Alice Moore (Jane Randolph), and they now have a six-year-old introverted daughter, Amy (Ann Carter). Amy has trouble at school because she spends too much time daydreaming, no matter how much Oliver tries to encourage her to make friends and cope with reality. After Amy finds a photo of the deceased Irena, whose name is never mentioned in the house, Irena appears to her and the two strike up a friendship. At the same time, Amy befriends Julia Farren, an aging actress who is alienated from her own daughter Barbara (Elizabeth Russell), whom she suspects to be a "spy" only pretending to be her relative. Oliver, angry at Amy for repeatedly speaking of her new imaginary friend, punishes her. When Irena announces to Amy that she must leave her, Amy runs out of the house. A snow storm comes up, and Amy seeks shelter in the Farrens' house. Barbara, mad and jealous at her mother's preference for Amy over her, intends to strangle the girl. At this moment, Amy sees Irena's features in Barbara and embraces her. Barbara, perplexed by this gesture of affection, spares her life. Oliver arrives at the house and takes Amy home, promising to accept her fantasies.

The Curse of the Cat People, which began production at the RKO Gower Street studios in Hollywood on 26 August 1943 and stopped on 4 October of that year, with additional shooting in the week of 21 November, marked two directorial debuts. Gunther von Fritsch had only directed short subjects to that time, so the film marked his feature debut, but when he fell behind schedule, having gotten only halfway through the screenplay in the 18 days of filming that had been allocated, the studio assigned film editor Robert Wise to take over, which earned him his first directorial credit. When it wrapped, the film, which had done some location shooting at Malibu Lake, California, was nine days behind schedule, and had cost so much that its budget was raised from $147,000 to $212,000. As was usual with Lewton's films, the tight budget demanded the re-use of sets, here from Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), as had already been done with the predecessor Cat People.


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