THE LEOPARD MAN: Blu-ray (RKO, 1943) Shout! Factory

In 1942, RKO sent enfant terrible, Orson Welles packing. After the departure of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers from the studio backlot in 1939, Welles had been management's best hope to bring RKO out of its fallow period of creation. Indeed, Welles' delivered on the promise with two masterpieces: Citizen Kane (1940) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1941) - the first, prematurely jerked from syndication to appease William Randolph Hearst; the second, taken away from Welles even before a viable 'rough cut' was properly assembled; recut/re-edited and re-shot without Welles' permission or partaking. Zero for two in the 'hit' department - Welles, who only two years earlier was welcomed as the new messiah, was now ostensibly Hollywood’s biggest pariah that RKO expunged from their history without compunction.  In Welles’ wake, the cash-strapped studio still needed a rain maker and so, it turned another corner, choosing 'showmanship' over 'genius' in the embodiment of Val Lewton. Just a year earlier, Lewton was a lowly story editor working for David O. Selznick. Some may recall Lewton infamously telling his boss how Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind was a 'ponderous piece of trash' that no film-maker of even remotely good taste would tackle with any hope of achieving success.

To suggest Lewton was discontented working for Selznick is an understatement. Stymied is more like it. Arguably, Lewton never found total contentment in working for others. Quite often, such is the case with real/reel genius - impatient to show itself, but regarding those who do not share in its visions as underlings of the most disproportionately unfair and unworthy sort. Only now, RKO was offering Lewton precisely what he craved - blind authority to make movies his way...alas, with one caveat. RKO gave Lewton an impossible spate of pre-tested titles and ordered him to draw his inspiration from a franchise of cheaply made B-budget horror movies; surefire box office at minimal expense and, with the expectation Lewton would deliver the kind of thrills that had put Hollywood's Transylvania - Universal Studios - on the map and, more importantly, in the black. Lewton had other ideas. And thus, with Cat People (1942), Val Lewton officially entered the annals of Hollywood lore as the irrefutable ‘sultan of shudders'; a moniker he would hold onto for barely 5 years and 9 movies.

While movies are generally the domain of their directors, in Lewton's case, it was the producer's credit that counted. Nevertheless, he was working with exceptional directorial talent – in this case, Jacques Tourneur. The Leopard Man (1943) is not exactly top-tier Val Lewton or Jacques Tourneur. Apart from one horrifying moment, involving a teenage girl stalked by a gruesome killer (almost entirely unseen by the camera - a Lewton trademark for mounting dread), The Leopard Man is told mostly under a false pretext, the audience presumably meant to bear witness to a metamorphosis from man into beast.  After all, Cat People had Simone Simon transform into a ferocious feline...so. Actually, Dynamite – the leopard in this movie also played Simone’s alter-ego in that aforementioned classic. That’s our Val – waste not/want not! But no, The Leopard Man was not about such a conversion, nor even particularly interested with the man who owns the slinky black cat - sideshow peddler,  Charlie How-Come (Abner Biberman); but rather myopically focused on a shameless promoter, Jerry Manning (Dennis O'Keefe) who borrows the frisky kitty for a publicity stunt gone wrong when gal-pal, Kiki Walker (Jean Brooks) struts into the fashionable Spanish club with the cat on a leash, for sheer shock value; also, to upstage the luscious flamenco dancer, Clo-Clo (Margo) and her chattering castanets.  

Alas, Clo-Clo has other ideas, frightening the pussy-cat with her clickity-clack. The cat bolts, scratching the hand of a nearby waiter. Shortly thereafter it is suspected in several gruesome killings in the area; the first, Teresa (Margaret Landry); a green girl, forced by her Wagnerian mamasita, Señora Delgado (Kate Drain Lawson) to fetch a bag of cornmeal from the market by night. Honestly, couldn't the grocery shopping have waited until morning? Journeying on foot to the outskirts of town, under a train trestle and then, back again, the ill-fated Consuelo meets with her untimely end; terrorized and begging for Delgado to unlock the front door before we hear a sudden dull thud, and then, see a thin trickle of blood slowly seeping from under the jam. Lewton was such a master at scaring the hell out of his audience with such depictions of death conceived off-camera - a device later coined 'the bus' - thanks to a similar instance of night stalking in Cat People actually involving a real bus. But in The Leopard Man, Tourneur and Lewton play 'the bus' card once too often; the second time, involving mourner, Consuelo Contreras (Tula Parma), trapped inside a gated cemetery after hours, promised a rescue by a disembodied voice on the other side of the wall, only to meet with the similar fate of being mauled to death before any real help can arrive.

The usually slick and stylish Jerry is haunted by his participation in these crimes. After all, if not for his little stunt, the leopard would never have escaped. That is, until Jerry begins to suspect the big cat is neither wild nor lusting after human blood. Indeed, Charlie explains how he could feed the leopard from his bare hands without incident; also, have the cat sleep in his bed on occasion. Still, without his livelihood, Charlie expects Jerry to pay him $250 for his loss. Meanwhile, Clo-Clo meets with a terrible fate (bus #3). Now, Jerry proposes to Police Chief Roblos (Ben Bard) and town physician/coroner, Dr. Gailbraith (James Bell) that the real attacker may be stalking its prey on two, rather than four feet. While Roblos refuses to entertain the notion, Gailbraith believes Jerry's powers of deduction may be lurching too close to the truth, and, for good reason. Gailbraith is, in fact, the serial killer the police are after, using the leopard, local superstition and a candle-lit processional as his cover. Believing Jerry has perfectly nailed Gailbraith as the killer, especially after the leopard's carcass is discovered shot in the desert, Kiki and Jerry stage a coup to flush out Gailbraith. After a brief struggle, Gailbraith breaks free, runs through the candle-lit processional, but is taken into custody by Jerry and Roblos.

The ending of The Leopard Man does not particularly satisfy; the mangled psychoanalysis behind Gailbraith motive - bloodlust spurred by witnessing the first leopard attack - is fairly weak.  Dennis O'Keefe cuts a dashing enough figure as our leading man, and, he and the remote, but elegant, Jean Brooks have solid chemistry as the aloof couple, piecing together the clues. But O'Keefe's crime-solver takes too long to get motivated, while Brooks' vamp slinks into sadness rather than sainthood before the final reel. There is no well-defined 'hero' here. In Cat People, our empathy was not only with Simone Simon's ill-fated cat woman, because she was helpless to harness the dark and transformative power that plagued her existence, but also Kent Smith, as her long-suffering, though otherwise devoted husband. The motive for the murders in Cat People - jealousy and sexual arousal - served to fuel our basic understanding of who would be next. By comparison, there appears to be no motive for the murders in The Leopard Man; Gailbraith, an otherwise seemingly mild-mannered man, never before stirred to act out on an impulse, suddenly, and rather inexplicably, drawn to the sadistic mutilation of women, simply because 'they are'.  Granted, real-life serial killers have stalked victims for less. But in the movies at least, the audience needs a ‘reel’ reason for such atrocities. In absence of any solid logic to explain everything away, Lewton and Tourneur have decided any old reason will do. It doesn't, and The Leopard Man is second-tier among Lewton's notable works from this period because of this shortfall.

The Leopard Man arrives on Blu-ray via Shout! Factory's alliance with Warner Home Video, the custodians of the RKO/Lewton library. Aside: Lewton's Isle of the Dead (1945) ought to have preceded this release, but was inexplicably canceled by Shout! after already being put up for pre-order. I do sincerely hope this does not mean we will not be seeing either it, or other Lewton films coming down the pike in the near future, because two of Lewton's best offerings - I Walked with a Zombie and The 7th Victim (both made and released in 1943) - remain MIA on Blu-ray and, on DVD, are represented in a woeful unacceptable quality (or lack thereof). So, fingers crossed, because Warner and Shout! have gone back for a full-on remastering effort here and the results are mostly solid. There is really no comparing the tired old DVD release of The Leopard Man – which was an atrocity – and this new 4K scan, derived from original nitrate elements, print masters, and, only when necessary, second generation dupe negatives. The difference is distinctly noted from scene to scene, and occasionally, shot to shot, with fluctuating contrast, image density and grain structure from refined to leaning on the heavy/thick side.  Overall, this B&W transfer accurately represents Robert De Grasse's cinematography. The audio is 1.0 DTS mono and adequate; Roy Webb's sparse underscore and main title thundering across the screen; dialogue, always clear and at an adequate listening level. Extras are limited to two audio commentaries; the first, by film maker, William Friedkin, a holdover from Warner's own DVD release; the latter, by Constantine Nasr, expressly recorded for this Blu-ray edition. Overall, Nasr’s is the more comprehensive offering, while Friedkin sticks to his impressions on the movie’s lasting appeal. There is also a theatrical trailer. Bottom line: The Leopard Man is second-tier Val Lewton, which is still pretty good. Please Shout! - more A-list Lewton in the near future: starting with I Walked with a Zombie and The 7th Victim. Bottom line: a highly recommended upgrade.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

2