Horror Express: The Catman of Paris (Lesley Selander, 1946)

Forming one half of a rare horror double feature knocked out by western and serial specialists Republic Pictures in the mid 1940s, ‘The Catman of Paris’ was presumably born out of an attempt to capitalise on whatever pre-release publicity might have accompanied Universal’s woeful ‘She-Wolf of London’ (released one month later), cross-referenced with the widespread success enjoyed by Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur’s ‘Cat People’ just a few years earlier, and perhaps also a lingering memory of Guy Endore’s 1933 novel ‘Werewolf of Paris’.

Despite the attention-grabbing title and poster though, to be honest I was resigned to the fact that this would probably be pretty dull fare… so was pleasantly surprised when, for the first reel at least, it turned out to be absolutely bonkers.

For a start, the top hat and opera cape-clad ‘catman’ meows in the voice of a regular house cat, which is delightful, and, in his first (off-screen) appearance, he strikes in the form of a big, expressionist shadow with Nosferatu fingers, gliding across the walls of back lot 1890s Montmartre. Crikey!

The main character / chief catman suspect is a young author, Charles (played by Carl Esmond), who has just caused a sensation by publishing a novel entitled ‘Fraudulent Justice’, in which he recounts in accurate detail the proceedings at a scandalous closed trial, to which only a few select government ministers had been allowed access… yet he claims to know nothing of this, insisting that the whole thing came to him in a dream.

Additionally, he has just returned from ‘the tropics’, where he was struck down by an intense fever which seems to have left him suffering from bouts of amnesia... which of course neatly coincide with the ‘catman’ killings. The first victim of which, we should note, was a Ministry of Justice clerk carrying a confidential dossier containing details of the trial Charles is alleged to have forbidden knowledge of, whilst the second victim ends up being his vindictive ex-fiancée (a great turn by singer and b-movie stalwart Adele Mara).

So, all in all, you can see why the gendarmes (engagingly represented by believer / sceptic duo Gerald Mohr and Fritz Feld) soon want to have a few words with our defensive and bewildered protagonist - although of course they don’t attempt anything so vulgar as to throw him behind bars and see what happens when he next experiences one of his alleged periods of amnesia, because you can’t go around treating a gentleman like that, now can you?

Whenever Charles experiences one of his amnesiac attacks incidentally, we see the same series of images projected over footage of his agonised face, in the same order: some sheaves of wheat blowing in the wind, a fork of lightning striking across what looks like a solarised black sun, the face of a hissing cat, and - entirely inexplicably - a shot of a thing which looks like some kind of space capsule (but couldn't possibly be, in view of the film's production year), floating in a storm-tossed sea with icebergs in the background, spewing oil from its cone/nozzle.

If any living person has an explanation of what in the hell that’s all about, I’d certainly love to hear it.

There’s also a memorably bizarre moment when we see a very striking shot (repeated from the opening credits) of a black cat walking through a highly detailed miniature scale model of one of the street sets, appearing as a giant beast, until the camera pulls back, and Mohr shoos the pesky moggie out of the way, casually announcing, “this is a replica of the murder site I had made over night..”. (WHAT?!)

Similarly perplexing, there’s a great bit later on in which Fritz Feld outlines he wildly holistic rationale for believing a cat-demon is on the loose in Gay Paree, citing a volume of ‘Astrological Prognostications’ apparently compiled by his grandfather, in which “further evidence of planetary influence on transmutation” suggests a regular historical reoccurrence of were-cat phenomena which can be traced back to the reign of Ivan The Terrible. 

The were-cat under investigation in the current case, it seems, is in fact the ninth in the this astrologically defined series, thus making it the final reoccurrence, as per the scientifically recognised nine live of the cat. Any questions?

Meanwhile, pre-empting Glenn Danzig’s Verotika by 70+ years, the film’s entire cast consists of American actors ordered to adopt French accents of highly variable quality and consistency. (Perhaps the worst offender in this regard is leading lady Lenore Aubert, who largely sticks to yankee diction, with the exception of referring to her beloved as “Sharl” at all times.)

That questionable decision aside though, Parisian atmos is ‘The Catman of Paris’ is largely limited to finding space in its lean 62 minute run time for a genuinely entertaining, highly energetic can-can routine, taking place in the Café du Bois, the decadent, fin-de-siecle basement hang-out where Charles and his best pal / literary agent Henry (Douglass Dumbrille) meet to carouse away their evenings in the intoxicating social whirl of whichever sound stage Republic weren’t currently shooting a western on.

Indeed, director Selander had shot well over fifty(!) oaters for Republic by the time he changed tack to handle ‘The Catman..’, and whilst his style remains admirably pacey and fluid throughout, there is definitely still a persistent sense of he and his employers’ more usual day-to-day creeping in around the edges here.

In their commentary track on Imprint’s recent blu-ray release, Kim Newman and Stephen Jones have a whale of a time pointing out costumes which might previously have belonged to ranchers, riverboat gamblers or saloon girls, noting extras who look burlier and more heavily whiskered than habitués of the Parisian underworld really should, and observing that the night club set is clearly a slightly rejigged frontier saloon.

For the most part though, this odd cross-genre bleed actually plays very much in the movie’s favour, as the talky, set-bound boredom which inevitably begins to predominate once the details of the plot get underway is broken up by such unusual (and welcome) additions to the ‘40s b-horror formula as a furniture-smashing, ‘knock down drag out’ bar fight (complete with a leap off the bar from Esmond), and an elaborate, under-cranked stage-coach chase, taking place, one assumes, in some Gallic equivalent of Central Park.

In addition to the errant images and intriguingly odd plot details I outlined above, this all proved enough to keep me thoroughly hooked right up to the film’s finale, when the dreaded ‘catman’ finally makes an appearance, and boy, it’s a memorable one.

A spirited take on a furry-faced, ersatz Mr Hyde, the well-dressed fiend has a lot of fun chasing Lenore Aubert around like a slightly more menacing Benny Hill, until a barrage of police bullets knocks him on his arse, prompting a big reveal / wrap up scene which will remain unspoiled here, aside from noting that its proffered explanation of the event swhich have just transpired frankly makes no sense whatsoever.

So, that’s ‘The Catman of Paris’ folks - W, and indeed TF.

On the basis of this one, you’d better believe I’ll be making time to check out the other Republic horrors post-haste.