Word: irena
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When Reich tried to expose the pretentiousness of bold-type names at play, he chose an evening at the house of then AFL-CIO chief Lane Kirkland and his wife Irena, and got just about everything wrong: the Kirklands aren't high society, and Irena is not a snooty Hungarian but a Czech survivor of the Holocaust who does her own cooking. She did not shout "No!" at Reich, grabbing his wrist to keep him from misusing the mint jelly, causing the table to go still, appalled by the "country bumpkin...
...People was the first and best of these films. It is the story of Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), a beautiful young Serbian woman who is cursed to turn into a panther whenever she is sexually aroused. Obviously, love is a dangerous thing...
Unfortunately, though, we're in the 1940s, and love is inevitable. Irena meets Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) at the zoo, in front of the panther cage. In love before the blink of an eye, Oliver proposes and they marry, against Irena's better judgement. They have not even gone as far as a simple kiss...
...Irena's bliss is to be short-lived--an encounter with another potential "cat woman" brings back her fears. She desperately wants to be "everything that the name Mrs. Reed means," (this is as close as the movie gets to talking about sex) but the spectre of the panther always looms over her. Oliver, good red-blooded American that he is, dismisses her European myths. He sends her to a psychiatrist...
...leering Dr. Judd (Tom Conway) does more harm than good, and soon Irena is stalking her husband and his supposed "other woman" (Jane Randolph). Does her jealousy turn Irena into a big cat? One can never be sure. All the scary scenes in Cat People are shot in the shadows, where no one--not the characters, not the audience--is sure of what is going...