The Leopard Man takes place in a New Mexico that bears little resemblance to any American setting, but a very strong one to the scene of Cat People namely, the landscape of Jacques Tourneur's imagination. Dennis O'Keefe plays a reporter who attempts to uncover a killer who leaves leopard-like claw marks on his female victims.
Tourneur and producer Val Lewton's phenomenal skill is evidenced here as it is in Cat People: the power of cinematic suggestion creates a combination of mythology, occult and horror in which we actually believe that a man can become a cat, while we needn't for a minute abandon a sense of realism.