Val Lewton: Horror movies a distraction from war (1942)

Director Jacques Tourneur, left, and Simone Simon on the set of  CAT PEOPLE.

Get Set For Horror Pictures;
RKO Is Going To Turn 'Em Out
Big Spring Herald, Oct. 9, 1942

By ROBBIN COONS
HOLLYWOOD—Mr. Val Lewton, gentleman with a sense of humor, has the horrors.


They were wished on him by Mr. Charles Koerner, a gentleman with a cense of- business and movie titles, and Mr. Lewton is having a wonderful time. Mr. Koerner is the latest in the long line of production chiefs at
RKO. Mr. Koerner, a showman with an eye for. a showman's dollar, is out to do a job of moneymaking for the movie lot where, bearing out the old saying, nothing has been permanent except change.

Mr. Koerner picked on.Val Lewton, who used to be story editor for David O. Selznick, to make some money via the horrors. That made Val Lewton a producer. "A producer," as the Great Selinick told Val, "is the only one in pictures who has any fun."

Charlie Koerner thought people were in the mood for horror picture now. Charlie Koerner thought up some titles: "The Cat People," "Seventh Victim," "The Leopard Man," "I Walked With a Zombie.'

All Val Lewton has to do is turn out pictures to fit the titles. He has finished one. "The Cat People" is all  about a lovely girl (Simone Simon) who goes through life expecting momentarily to turn into a cat, because
her mother did. And—what do you know?—she does. She's going along peaceful as you please, minding her knitting, but the minute love (Kent Smith) hits her, she can't be sure any more, because that's when cat people turn into cats. So it's a fine, spooky how-do-you-do before the non-cat girl (Jane Randolph) lands her non-cat man.

This, of course, is based on an old Serbian legend—concocted by Val Lewton and writer DeWitt Boodeen.
Horror has led Vel Lewton and Bodeen into a picnic of research. They've been reading hundreds of books on the occult, the mysterious, the satanical—and they've learned things. Val can rattle off dozens of odd items about cats, but we'll save those for cat-lovers and another day.

He, too, seriously, is sold on horror, and here's why: "People are worried. There's a war, and whether they know it or not, they're scared. It's a very real fright—and a horror picture can be the antidote. They can sit in a theatre and look at a story that's fantastic, with no connection to reality whatever, and shudder and groan,
and tremble just as if it were real."

Horror scenes are taken for granted. Like, the 2 a.m. when the black leopard got loose on the sound stage. Setting? Dark and shadowy, an old beach scene on one side, the "Cat People" set on the other, and the leopard wandering around loose, escaped from his keeper. Death and fury stalking, and the set crowded with extras.

"That was horror," says Val Lewton. "You know how they took it? Calmly. People said, "The cat's loose—look out' and went on with their gin rummy.!"