The Lewton-Tourneur technique relied on implication rather than explication; in a universe of shadows and off-screen sounds lurked the poetic soul of terror. Irena (Simone Simon), a Serbian immigrant in New York, fears that she has inherited a curse that will cause her to turn into a cat should she become sexually aroused. This preposterous supposition is made entirely palatable in small doses of believability (it comes in on little cat's feet), and by Irena's utter earnestness and vulnerability. The threat that stalks Irena through the urban nightscape is both within her and without her-the help of a psychiatrist is dubious, and her new husband begins to stray-bringing on one of the most suggestive, frightening, and justifiably feline rages ever filmed. A lyrical interpretation of female sexuality, Cat People is also several steps more evolved than King Kong in terms of bringing the primitive home to Manhattan, for it deals with human transformation or, literally, transfiguration.