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Leopard Man
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by Turner Home Entertainment
Sales Rank: 9361
Price: $19.98
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Rival entertainers meet in a club in New Mexico Kiki Walker (Jean Brooks) brings in a leopard to upstage Clo-Clo (Margo). But Clo-Clo gets the last laugh when she chases the leopard off with her castanets. <br /> <br />All is fun rivalry until people start dying. Naturally the local authorities think it is the leopard. But Jerry Manning (Dennis O'Keefe) who rented the leopard has a theory that this is the work of a demented person. This theory is sort of supported by Dr. Galbraith (James Bell) the local museum curator. To make matters worse the leopard's owner, Charlie How-Come (Abner Biberman) does not remember where he was at the time. <br /> <br />As with the cat people it is what you don't see that can harm you. And the simile turning of a card can mark you for death. <br /> <br />You may recognize Dynamite the leopard that was also used in the movie "Cat People". <br /> <br />Produced by Val Lewton (7 May 1904, Yalta, Crimea, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) ) whose story telling device is unique in that this is more of a psychological film that does not focus on any one person as they are all pawns in a much larger story. Some time it verges on the surreal. <br /> <br />Now that you have seen the film read the book "Black Alibi" by Cornell Woolrich. <br /> <br />The Val Lewton Horror Collection (Cat People / The Curse of the Cat People / I Walked with a Zombie / The Body Snatcher / Isle of the Dead / Bedlam / The Leopard Man / The Ghost Ship / The Seventh Victim / Shadows in the Dark)
Viewer Reviews
Sure, The Leopard Man is a cheap B movie, fodder for all those double bills during the Forties, but I like it a lot. It only runs 66 minutes and it packs a lot of craftsmanship into that time. What seems unusual to me is that the film, made to be filled with dread and to be a little scary, is also filled with sadness of a sort. This doesn't change its B movie status, but for me it gives the movie more depth than I expected.
Jerry Manning (Dennis O'Keefe), a promoter and boy friend of Kiki Walker (Jean Brooks), a performer at a nightclub in a small New Mexico town, rents a black leopard as an attention-getting gimmick for Kiki. She makes an entrance during the performance of a rival, Clo-Clo (Margo), a castanet-clicking dancer. But Clo-Clo isn't intimidated. When she advances on the leopard clicking her castanets, the leopard pulls free and dashes out of the open-air dance floor. Hours later, a young girl is found, slashed and mauled. Then another. Then another. Could all this be the work of the leopard...or of a psychotic individual pushed over the edge by opportunity and lust? Jerry Manning, a tough guy who thought he'd come up with a great stunt, finds himself wracked with guilt. The police don't believe him when he says the leopard couldn't have killed all three girls, so he and Kiki set out on their own to find the killer.
The craftsmanship is evident quickly. Within the first six minutes we've learned all we need to know about the set up. We've also met almost all the main characters. We're brought quickly into the horror with the first death. The atmosphere is established with all those dark, dark streets, hidden doorways and, with Clo-Clo, the sound of her castanets that she clicks and trills wherever she walks.
What I thought was unusual is that Tourneur took the time to let us get to know the three victims. The first is just a young girl from a poor family, perhaps 15 or 16, sent out by her mother to buy a sack of cornmeal so the mother can make tortillas for the evening meal. It's already dark, the mother is working hard and hasn't the time to indulge her daughter, who is reluctant to go. We see the girl try to get a nearby shop-owner to open the store, and when she's refused she has to set out for a larger store further away. We see her talk to the kindly owner, play briefly with a bird, and then set out fearfully on the long walk home. Then we're back at the house. The mother is working at the stove. She hears pounding on the locked door and pleas from her daughter to let her in. Then we see blood slowly pooling under the door. It's a vivid, startling sequence. With the next victim, 17 or 18 and from a wealthy family, we've watched the girl awaken to her birthday, shared with her a note from her boyfriend, shared her excitement at the prospect of an innocent and exciting tryst at a cemetery. But she just misses her boyfriend, it gets dark, she's locked in as the moon comes out. And soon she hears rustling in the trees. The third victim is a woman we've come to like. She's afraid of no one. She makes her own way. And then we learn she has a small child and a man she hopes to marry. She loses some money on a dark, lonely street and feels she must go back to find it. These were three people Tourneur managed to give personalities to.
"What sort of man would kill like a leopard and leave traces of a leopard..." says one character. When we find out, we're still a bit saddened. This was no raving monster with steel claws taped to his hands, just a quiet guy who was the victim of his nature and his obsessions.
Dennis O'Keefe had a long run in the movies but died fairly young. He had bit parts in hundreds of films before he started to get major roles. I've always liked him. He had an easy going personality, and could play farce (Getting Gertie's Garter, Brewster's Millions) as easily as he could play tough guys (Raw Deal, T Men). He does a fine job in a movie he co-wrote, Cover-Up.
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