Preceded by short:The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (Robert Clampett, U.S., 1946). Looney Tunes animation starring Daffy Duck as Duck Tracy. (7 mins, Color, 35mm, Courtesy LC, permission Warner Bros.)The Val Lewton-Jacques Tourneur technique relies on implication rather than explication; in a universe of shadows and off-screen sounds lurks 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. A lyrical interpretation of female sexuality, Cat People is also several steps more evolved than King Kong in bringing the primitive home to Manhattan, for it deals with human transformation or, literally, transfiguration. Preserved from original negative.