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The Leopard Man
The last, almost-great Lewton-Tourneur pairing
1943
Review: October 7, 2005
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Starring: Margo, Dennis O'Keefe, Jean Brooks, James Bell
Good idea. this film is very atmospheric.
THE SETUP:
Couple accidentally set a leopard free during a botched showbiz stunt. Then it goes on a killing spree-or does it?
DISCUSSION:
This is the third and final pairing of producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur, which resulted in the classics Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. All of them are extremely fine psychological stories with wonderful cinematography and superbly creepy sustained atmospheres of lingering menace and mystery. As a story, this one is the least successful, though it does contain sequences that are rank with the best of any of their movies [and early horror in general].
The opening scene sets the tone of jealousy among women in a nightclub show. Clo-Clo plays the castanets, while Kiki bangs on the wall for her to shut up, while a cigarette girl complains that Kiki became a star while she didn't. Kiki's boyfriend comes in with a leopard, which he has borrowed from a circus guy for Kiki to use to upstage Clo-Clo, whom she has an ongoing rivalry with. She brings the cat out during Clo-Clo's Spanish dancing act, and successfully diverts all the attention onto herself. But Clo-Clo uses her castanets to enrage the cat, and it escapes.
As Clo-Clo walks home, she passes a fortuneteller, and draws an ace of spades, which [I guess] means that she is marked for death. She also passes a young girl, and we then move over to the girl's perspective, and follow her story. She is sent out into the night to buy corn meal for their tortillas [this takes place in New Mexico]. Her protests that the leopard is out there are not heeded by her mother, and she is sent out and the door locked after her. What follows is justly considered one of the best horror sequences ever, and I wouldn't dream of spoiling even a second of it for you. It may be difficult for viewers accustomed to Nightmare on Elm Street-type horror fare to slow down to the level required for sequences like this to really be terrifying, but trust me, it can be done! And when you can, these sequences are thrilling and terrifying, but also very thematically rich, and linger on your mind much more than even the most shocking kill in modern horror movies.
You will also have noticed the interesting [especially for such an early film] structure of leaving our main characters and taking off with these other characters, and you'll be surprised at how very well-drawn each of these other characters are. I got so wrapped up in the story of the girl sent out into the night that I really forgot about Kiki and Clo-Clo, and it was a little jarring when they came back. Kiki's boyfriend Jerry starts to feel twinges of guilt [he was the one who borrowed the leopard for the dumb stunt that resulted in its getting loose]. Then, though another transition based on a woman who crosses paths with Clo-Clo, we meet another woman/victim.
This woman in Consuelo, who is woken up by her entire household on her birthday in a scene. that will seem a bit odd to modern audiences. Turns out she has a secret boyfriend that wants her to meet him in the cemetery that afternoon. She goes, but he isn't there, and while she's pining for him, she is locked in the cemetery at night. Her sense of mounting panic is handled well, and this is another unforgettable scene, though not [to my mind] as utterly brilliant as the first.
So it goes on, with Kiki and Jerry starting to feel guilty for their part in releasing the leopard, and Jerry beginning to suspect that it's a man doing the killings. There's a very odd section where the owner of the cat [circus guy] comes to believe-with VERY little convincing-that HE is the killer and he's blacking out and doing it unconsciously. At about 3/4ths and at the end there are some bizarrely inappropriate love scenes, and after about 45 minutes is when the entire thing just comes flying apart.
That's about when you realize that whatever overarching idea that they're going for, it just isn't working, and a lot of these separate elements are NOT going to be gathered masterfully into a complete and menacing subtext, but just remain separate strands. I kept looking for some kind of hidden meaning subtext that is much darker than anything they could outright say, as there was in Curse of the Cat People or I Walked With a Zombie, and while there were hints, as I said, it just never came together. Even Lewton and Tourneur considered this one a misfire.
Nevertheless, the amazing showcases definitely make it worth watching, and at just over an hour it never wears out its welcome. In fact, these films are rather amazing for how much, in terms of depth of character and subtext, they manage to pack into to such a short time. If you haven't seen Cat People or I Walked with a Zombie, watch those first, but if you have, this is a great when you need a shot of that special Lewton/Tourneur magic.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
Yes, but only after you've seen Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie.
RELATED MOVIES:
CAT PEOPLE is the first Lewton/Tourneur film, and is a justified classic. There was a very lurid and loose remake by Paul Schrader, which I loved, though it is a totally different-AHEM-Animal.
CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE is the sequel, not directed by Lewton, but every bit as atmospheric and telling a touching psychological tale of a girl's young childhood. I LOVE this movie.
I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE is the second Lewton/Tourneur film, and tells a story of a woman turned into a living statue by her husband. Also creepy, wonderful, and mysterious, I LOVE this movie, too.
THE VAL LEWTON HORROR COLLECTION is a DVD boxed set that includes all of the movies mentioned above and six more! Buy that shit!
