Cat People (1982 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Cat People is a 1942 horror film which tells the story of a young Serbian woman, Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) who is haunted by the myth of the cat people of her village. Kent Smith portrayed her husband Oliver Reed, Tom Conway played psychiatrist Dr. Louis Judd and Jane Randolph was Alice, Oliver's colleague.
The movie was produced by Val Lewton. The writing is credited to DeWitt Bodeen, but Tourneur, Roy Webb, Lewton and his secretary all contributed to the script. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur, and the cinematographer was Tourneur's sometime collaborator Nicholas Musuraca. It was followed by a sequel, The Curse of the Cat People, in 1944.
A remake using the same title was made in 1982. The later Cat People was directed by Paul Schrader and starred Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell, and John Heard.
In 1993, Cat People was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".