There’s always a dilemma involved. Rent or buy? Libraries face this when deciding on a subscription or perpetual access deal—is this something you’ll need for a long time? More than once? So also with movies. Do you rent, watch, and forget or buy, supposing you’ll need to go back? This plays out in my head when there’s a movie I want to see in these days of streaming. The Leopard Man wasn’t a big hit when it came out in 1943. There wasn’t really much of a taste for horror during the Second World War anyway. In retrospect, however, it’s one of those films that has appreciated with age. Apart from its effective use of the Lewton bus, the movie was well written. It retains ambiguity and suspense throughout. And if there is a leopard man who shapeshifts, we never see him doing it. Spoilers follow!
Following on from his better known Cat People the previous year, Jacques Tourneur kept with the large cat theme in this film. A publicist who (apparently) has no scruples, encourages his client/girlfriend to upstage a fellow performer by taking a leopard into her act. The stunt backfires, however, when the frightened cat escapes. Then mauled women are found and a hunt is on for the leopard. If you’re adept at this kind of set-up you’ll figure out who the killer is—it’s not the leopard, except in the first case. It’s implied that, rather like Cat People, the religion of the ancients, as Dr. Galbraith points out, might have some effect on modern people. His dispassionate remarks about serial killers provides a clue, however, to who’s really behind it.
Religion runs like a thread throughout the movie. The processions intended to alleviate the guilt for the treatment of the Indians, the ancient religion of those who made the museum pieces, and the Catholicism of the locals all play a part in this. The question of whether Galbraith really becomes a leopard or not remains unanswered, but I sense it’s strongly implied that he does. He had no intention of murdering the young woman in the cemetery and certainly had no time to premeditate the carrying of leopard hairs and claws to cover his tracks. This is a man of science caught up in the spell of a forgotten religion. Or so it seems to me. In any case, it’s time to dust off this old gem and bring it back to the light. It’s probably worth buying just to see it again.