Rating: C
Dir: Alfred Shaughnessy
Star: Barbara Shelley, Robert Ayres, Kay Callard, Jack May
This is proof that mockbusters were not invented by The Asylum. Coming out almost fifteen years after Cat People, it can hardly be accused of being a quick cash-in, at the very least. The similarities are undeniable, however. Leonora Johnson (Shelley) gets a summons from her uncle to his remote country estate. She’s supposed to go alone, but brings her husband, Richard (May), and a couple of friends for moral support. While this displeases her uncle, he reveals she’s the next in line for the family curse. This has her being possessed by the spirit of a leopard, which comes out, in a violent fashion, when her passions are inflamed
And that’s a lot. Because at her uncle’s, she meets old flame Brian Marlowe (Ayres), who is now a psychiatrist. He is married to Dorothy (Callard), but it’s okay, because Richard is cheating on Leonora anyway, with her friend. Well, until their tryst gets interrupted by a leopard attack. This is not normal for rural England, to put it mildly. Leonora, having initially dismissed her uncle’s talk of a family curse, begins to think there might be something to it. Brian, on the other hand, thinks her belief is nonsense, and just the symptom of a mental disorder. Despite his scepticism, reports of a roaming leopard persist, and the relationship between Leonora and Dorothy grows steadily chillier. The mental state of the former woman is also deteriorating. I mean, she starts smoking… (top).
The best thing about this, by quite some way, is Shelley. Though she’d appeared in some minor roles before (such as 1953 Hammer production, Mantrap), this was her first after returning from a four-year spell working in Italy. She would deservedly go on to become one of the most prominent British “scream queens” of the sixties, including appearances in The Gorgon and Quatermass and the Pit. Here, she grounds the film and gives it an emotional heart, in a way Simone Simon could not manage. In every other way though, this isn’t as good. Part of the problem is, it can’t decide if the leopard is Leonora, a physical manifestation of her emotions, or what. I still didn’t know after the movie ended.
It seems the writer, Lou Rusoff, the director, and co-producers American International Pictures, all had different ideas for the film. Shaughnessy wanted to take a psychological approach, but AIP’s Samuel Z. Arkoff reportedly said, “Where is the cat monster?” on seeing an initial cut, and had a cat mask made in three days to splice into the US print. Rusoff, meanwhile, didn’t care, so long as he got paid for his script. The results suggest he might have had the most reasonable approach. The awkward nature of the US/UK co-production (with Anglo-Amalgamated, who did a lot of the early Carry On films, hence Peter Rogers’ name in the end credits) shows up in things like Ayres’ American accent. My advice? Pick a side of the Atlantic and stick with it.