CAT PEOPLE (1942)
Simone Simon plays the queer-coded character Irena in the 1942 classic horror film Cat People, which features a script penned by gay screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen.
CAT PEOPLE
1942. USA.
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Writer: DeWitt Bodeen
Producer: Val Lewton
Starring: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, and Tom Conway
CAT PEOPLE is probably best known today for being one of producer Val Lewton’s pioneering horror films, which created effective suspense on small budgets. One of the lesser-discussed aspects of the film is that it’s a queer-coded classic, created during a time in Hollywood films when LGBT characters were censored from the silver screen and generally only depicted through subtext.
In the film, Irena is a Serbian woman living in America and working as a fashion illustrator. She becomes attached to a man that she meets at the zoo, her first friend in America, and soon the two wed. She explains to him that she believes herself to be cursed; she worries that if she gives in to her desires she will literally morph into a panther and kill her husband.
At her wedding she is almost outed publicly by a woman who senses their similarities, she approaches her and calls her “sister” - think of it as “gaydar” for cat people. Irena then becomes more worried and paranoid, telling her husband she cannot act as a wife would because there is something ‘evil’ inside her. Something this woman recognized. So, they sleep in separate bedrooms and she avoids intimate situations with her new husband at all costs. Eventually, her husband sends her to a psychiatrist to cure her of her “strange beliefs” and “corrupt passions.”
But, like any human, we can only fight our true nature for so long and soon Irena gives into her desires and – well, with this being a film from the 1940s, you can probably guess how that turns out for her.
CAT PEOPLE is streaming on Prime (Canada) and BBC iPlayer (UK) – it’s also available for rent/purchase on Amazon, YouTube & AppleTV – and streaming for free on the Internet Archive.
