Some of the producer’s attraction to the strange subject may have been personal. Friends and associates confirmed that Lewton himself had a phobia of cats, and, like Irena, disliked being touched. His wife recalled that he was “very unhappy about cats,” and a catfight heard at night outside their house could leave him “nervous and frightened.” She speculated that his discomfort “stemmed from an old folktale he remembered from Russia,” where he was born in 1904. RKO’s executive vice president of production, Charles Koerner, had already audience-tested the title Cat People, without a story or description, before he assigned it to Lewton for development.

Lewton’s follow-ups at RKO included I Walked with a Zombie (1943), The Leopard Man (1943), and The Seventh Victim (1943). In 1944 he produced The Curse of the Cat People, a very loose sequel starring Simone Simon, with Kent Smith and Jane Randolph as the now married couple from the earlier film whose young daughter discovers an imaginary friend in the shape of Irena’s ghost. In 1945 Lewton produced two excellent pictures with Boris Karloff, The Body Snatcher and Isle of the Dead. Lewton’s 1946 film Bedlam, also with Karloff, was his final picture for RKO. He produced three nongenre films for Paramount, MGM, and Universal before his tragic early death in 1951, at the age of 46.

Judd makes his move and seals his fate.

If you enjoyed Cat People (1942), you might also like:

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT

KINO LORBER, 2014

Vampirism has been successfully employed as a metaphor for drug addiction in a number of films, but here the vampire functions as the perfect costar for dealers and users alike, ruthlessly unpleasant characters absolutely made for each other—some from the drug underground, and one from the supernatural underworld. A Persian-language film set in the fictional Iranian town Bad City, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was shot on a black-and-white microbudget on location in Kern County, California. The noirish visuals bring to mind the camerawork of Val Lewton as the stealthy succubus (Sheila Vand) commands the film with her methodical nocturnal prowling. The manner in which the vampire stalks her prey—from the opposite side of the street, mirroring her intended victim’s every step and move—is one of the creepiest things you’ll ever see. And be forewarned: while there’s plenty of Lewton-like understatement in those velvety shadows, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night doesn’t shrink from explicit violence if it helps nail a scene. A tip: if a vampire in a black chador ever starts seducing you, please avoid putting a finger in her mouth.

Sheila Vand as the Girl in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night