The Leopard Man (1943)

Please don't spend money on this.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Very atmospheric horror/mystery drama. The elegant cinematography captures the old colonial feel of a small New Mexico town. The plot uncoils with quick pacing. In the best horror tradition, the monster (the leopard, that is) shows up right away.Then we get three well-connected murder scenes, each with an eerie set-up and denouement. I can't decide whether the graveyard is scarier than the tunnel under the railway bridge. The nocturnal street scene where the last victim gets it isn't bad either. Maybe the graveyard is the best because Consuelo is stuck there longer than Theresa or Clo Clo are when they're cornered.Also the graveyard has a magical quality. It seems to get bigger and more forlorn the more Consuelo explores it. The fact that she's almost rescued adds to the horror. After her death, Galbraith seems to hear her voice as he finds himself there, brooding. Poor Theresa is similarly walled-in by the confined, tomb-like passageway under the bridge. First the tumbleweed, then eyes appearing out of nothingness... The sense of a lurking menace is skillfully built out of shadow and darkness, the tell-tale castanets, even the sleek blackness of the leopard. The shift from an animal to a human threat is gradual and logical. It changes the form of the danger, but not the substance of it. At first it seems that Jerry wants to believe that the leopard isn't the killer--after the second killing anyway--only because it lessens his sense of guilt and responsibility. It's interesting that Galbraith's attempt to incriminate How-Come is nearly successful. Galbraith knows that How-Come bears some guilt for bringing the leopard to town in the first place. Strangely, Galbraith analyzes himself as he discusses with Jerry the leopard's/psychopath's likely behavior. What seemed ambiguous was Galbraith's confession. He says he "had to do something" after Theresa was killed, because "her body was broken and mangled." His response to her death is to kill two women; did he begin by killing Theresa, and then he couldn't stop killing? Or, what's more likely, he saw her just after she was killed by the leopard, and it excited him to the extent that he 'became' the leopard. The procession adds a macabre element that fittingly helps to trap Galbraith. The only thing that didn't work for me was that most of the characters were forgettable. It's too bad that Theresa was the first victim, she's more interesting than Clo-Clo, Kiki, and Maria put together. Jerry, How-Come, and even Galbraith don't add up to much either. Kiki's and Jerry's mutual "turning soft" at the end wasn't convincing. It seemed that no one cared much about Theresa until the other two victims were killed.An unusual movie, hard to categorize, but easy to enjoy. I wish that more of Cornell Wollrich's stories had been turned into films.

An atmospheric chiller from the Val Lewton stable, directed by Jacques Tourneur (the man who brought us the truly incredible NIGHT OF THE DEMON), which sadly overdoes the subtlety of the story to the point of boredom; but as with all of the Lewton-produced horrors of the 1940s, this is intelligent and suspenseful entertainment, which displays some excellent use of black and white photography and plenty of creepy moments as damsels in distress encounter malevolent big cats and greater evils in the middle of the night. There is also at least one great, horrifying moment, namely the set-piece in which the blood seeps under the door.Unfortunately the rest of the film is a little lacking, with a bare minimum of action and a reliance on subtlety throughout in terms of story, menace, death, and action. Ironically for such a subtle film this fails as an admirable whodunit, because the identity of the killer is perfectly obvious directly from his first appearance on the screen. The acting is generally of a high order, but again the actors and actresses are bound to give restrained, somewhat uninteresting performances, apart from the guy playing the killer who has a great performance to hand. Aside from the aforementioned highlight, the horror is kept to a bare minimum, but fans who can sit through the talky dialogue bits may find the heavy atmosphere and film noir appeal to their liking. More patient viewers may also find this film of a greater interest, but I definitely prefer my horrors more explicit and on-screen in films from this decade. Bring back Boris Karloff!

Jerry Manning (Dennis O'Keefe) hires a leopard as a publicity stunt for his girlfriend (Jean Brooks), a singer at a New Mexico night club. When the stunt goes awry, the leopard escapes into the night. Soon women are being mauled to death and it is assumed to be the work of the leopard. But Jerry suspects the killings are the work of a man who wants them to appear like leopard attacks. Is the real killer man or beast? The Leopard Man is the third in producer Val Lewton's series of psychological horror films made at RKO in the 1940s. It's an intelligently written and fascinating film. Often said to be one of the first films to deal with the psychology of serial killers. It's one of the more underrated Lewton thrillers. It's beautifully filmed with gorgeous cinematography from Robert de Grasse and excellent direction from Jacques Tourneur. The sequence where the first girl is stalked by an unseen predator is among the best of any of the Lewton films. The acting is solid, with weak performances from no one. Of course the real star of the film is the atmosphere. One of the trademarks of Val Lewton's films is the moody evocative atmosphere and this film has it in spades. Definitely a smart, handsomely-produced effort that I recommend you check out.

In New Mexico, the agent Jerry Manning (Dennis O'Keefe) hires the leopard of the sideshow performer Charlie How-Come (Abner Biberman) as a publicity stunt for his girlfriend Kiki Walker (Isabel Jewell) in her show in a night-club. However, her jealous rival Clo-Clo (Margo) frightens the animal with her castanets and the leopard flees from the night-club.When the mother of the local Teresa Delgado (Margaret Landry) forces her to go late night to buy cornmeal in a distant store and the girl is killed by the leopard. Manning joins the hunting party organized by the Police Chief Roblos (Ben Bard) and the expert Dr. Galbraith (James Bell) to hunt down the animal.Then the youth Consuelo Contreras (Tula Parma) is slaughtered in the cemetery and Manning suspects that the girl was murdered by a man. Then Clo-Clo is murdered with the same characteristics looking like a leopard attack. When the animal is found murdered in the countryside, Manning is sure that the deaths are the work of a serial-killer."The Leopard Man" is a dramatic and suspenseful low-budget horror movie with a gloomy cinematography and a predictable story. There are weird situations, like the dark humor of Teresa's little brother playing with the shadows or Clo-Clo rattling her castanets like a snake, or the dark procession in the end, and it is worthwhile watching this B-movie. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "O Homem-Leopardo" ("The Leopard Man")