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Leonora (Barbara Shelley) pays a visit to her uncle (Ernest Milton),
who tells her she will inherit a family curse ... then he is torn apart by
a leopard - in the middle of England no less - and it seems as if he has
expected that. From now on, Leonora seems somehow one with the leopard ... A
few days later, Leonora finds her husband (Jack May) with another woman
(Paddy Webster), and out of nowhere, a leopard appears to tear him apart.
Leonora feels guilty and gives herself up to the police, but besides the
clawmarks clearly caused by a leopard, it's the testimony of - of all
people - the other woman who has been present at the leopard attack that
clears her. Enter psychiatrist Dr Marlowe (Robert Ayres), who vows to
cure Leonora ... but there is a problem: He is Leonora's ex, and she has
never stopped loving him, but now that he's married to Dorothy (Kay
Callard) ... For some reason, Marlowe can't see the obvious problem in
this, and he even encourages Dorothy to make friends with Leonora - which
leads to a point where Leonora tries to lure Dorothy into a trap where she
- or rather the leopard she's mentally linked with - is going to kill
Dorothy. Luckily though, Marlowe has heard there is a leopard in the area
where Leonora and Dorothy are, and he rushes to Dorothy's rescue ... and
runs over and kills the leopard in the process. With the leopard, Leonora
dies ... Quite obviously, this film was more than a little
inspired by Jacques Tourneur's moody masterpiece Cat People from 15
years earlier - but director Alfred Shaughnessy quite simply lacks
Tourneur's talent for subtlety, and instead of relying on moods and hints
to tell his story, he tells it in an as-is sort of way, and in the
process, he gives away large chunks of the story way too soon and fails to
concieve the aura of mystery and unease of the original. Taken on its
own terms, Cat Girl is a solid gothic thriller at least though.
Granted, it's not even close to being a masterpiece, and you will probably
forget it in the blink of an eye, but if you can for circa 70 minutes
bring yourself forget the film this one is based on and instead try to
enjoy some old-fashioned horror, you'll at least not be disappointed -
probably not more, but believe me, there are way worse ways to spend
approximately 70 minutes ...
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