Cat's are uncanny creatures, what with their vertical pupils and all that sneaking around. It's no wonder they were thought to be witches' familiars.
The eponymous creeper here is the name of a black cat that's kept as a pet in the laboratories of -- well, some organization that uses cats as experimental animals. The labs are supposed to be developing phosphorescence for humans. It must make them glow in the dark, and it's strongly opposed by the flashlight lobby who claim it causes mental retardation.
The central figure is Janis Wilson, a kind of executive secretary, who has only recently recovered from a fever that's left her kind of cockeyed. She has dreams of cats. Cats chase her, they try to crawl through her window. And one night her Daddy is clawed to death. Wilson is found unconscious nearby with Dad's blood on her hands and under her fingernails. That is, we are asked to believe that Dad just stood there and allowed himself to be shredded by the unexceptional nails of his diminutive, whey-faced daughter.
I was keen enough to doubt it at once. In fact, I also disregarded Eduardo Cianelli as a suspect, another white coated scientist in the lab, because he frowns all the time, he's too taciturn, grumpy, and sinister looking. My suspicions after the first twenty minutes turned to a woman scientist, June Vincent, and for excellent reasons -- she seems interested in the handsome boyfriend of Wilson's, and because she reminded me of my fourth ex wife. No, there was no doubt in my mind.
By the half-way point it's a rather ordinary B-level murder mystery. I guess there are certain echoes of Val Lewton's work at RKO. The lighting isn't put to such adventurous use and the effects are pedestrian, but the cat theme that pervades the story is certainly from "The Cat People." The performances are perfunctory and, alas, the woman at the center of it all is one of the weaker actors. She gives good scream though. Onslow Stevens is the young man. He has a voice made for radio.
This is one of those movies in which all the PhDs address each other as "doctor." But PhDs always put such formalities behind them. Nobody calls Tom Wolf Dr. Wolf, although he has a PhD in American Studies from Yale. Plain Rachel Maddow has a D.Phil. from Oxford. Plain Bill Cosby has a PhD from Temple. The man from Uncle has a PhD from USC.
And this is some laboratory these doctors work in. At night, the lab is dark except for a desk lamp that casts spooky shadows around and turns faces into Halloween masks.
As it turns out, I was wrong in pinning the murder on the jealous woman. It's unusual because I've only been wrong once before in my life. That was when I thought I was wrong but I'd been right all along. At any rate, I don't see how this could usefully be compared to Val Lewton's work. His movies were tiny near-masterpieces, while this one lacks any poetry at all.
The eponymous creeper here is the name of a black cat that's kept as a pet in the laboratories of -- well, some organization that uses cats as experimental animals. The labs are supposed to be developing phosphorescence for humans. It must make them glow in the dark, and it's strongly opposed by the flashlight lobby who claim it causes mental retardation.
The central figure is Janis Wilson, a kind of executive secretary, who has only recently recovered from a fever that's left her kind of cockeyed. She has dreams of cats. Cats chase her, they try to crawl through her window. And one night her Daddy is clawed to death. Wilson is found unconscious nearby with Dad's blood on her hands and under her fingernails. That is, we are asked to believe that Dad just stood there and allowed himself to be shredded by the unexceptional nails of his diminutive, whey-faced daughter.
I was keen enough to doubt it at once. In fact, I also disregarded Eduardo Cianelli as a suspect, another white coated scientist in the lab, because he frowns all the time, he's too taciturn, grumpy, and sinister looking. My suspicions after the first twenty minutes turned to a woman scientist, June Vincent, and for excellent reasons -- she seems interested in the handsome boyfriend of Wilson's, and because she reminded me of my fourth ex wife. No, there was no doubt in my mind.
By the half-way point it's a rather ordinary B-level murder mystery. I guess there are certain echoes of Val Lewton's work at RKO. The lighting isn't put to such adventurous use and the effects are pedestrian, but the cat theme that pervades the story is certainly from "The Cat People." The performances are perfunctory and, alas, the woman at the center of it all is one of the weaker actors. She gives good scream though. Onslow Stevens is the young man. He has a voice made for radio.
This is one of those movies in which all the PhDs address each other as "doctor." But PhDs always put such formalities behind them. Nobody calls Tom Wolf Dr. Wolf, although he has a PhD in American Studies from Yale. Plain Rachel Maddow has a D.Phil. from Oxford. Plain Bill Cosby has a PhD from Temple. The man from Uncle has a PhD from USC.
And this is some laboratory these doctors work in. At night, the lab is dark except for a desk lamp that casts spooky shadows around and turns faces into Halloween masks.
As it turns out, I was wrong in pinning the murder on the jealous woman. It's unusual because I've only been wrong once before in my life. That was when I thought I was wrong but I'd been right all along. At any rate, I don't see how this could usefully be compared to Val Lewton's work. His movies were tiny near-masterpieces, while this one lacks any poetry at all.