Frightful Felines Vol. 2

As promised, to all of you eager readers, here's my handle on The Leopard Man, made in 1943.

It begins in a swanky night club in New Mexico.

In order to 1up another performer and her incessant castanet playing (SPOILERS: really she doesn't get killed fast enough END SPOILERS), Kiki gets a leopard from her boyfriend Jerry to win the crowd over. An ill conceived gimmick indeed. The Castanet Lady scares the poor cat and he runs away. No, I don't remember or want to know her name. Damn you, Castanet Lady. Out of fear of a loud nearby train, the leopard ends up killing a young woman on her way back home. Later another woman is mauled in a cemetery, but Jerry and Charlie, the owner of the leopard, doesn't think it was the cat's doing. There wasn't any motive for the leopard to do it. It obviously didn't hunt for food since the body was still there and nothing in the cemetery could have startled it that much. Jerry and Charlie suspect murder.

Despite the Castanet Lady, I enjoyed this film, though I'm not sure if it left as much of an impression on me than Cat People did. It was only a little more than one hour. That could be it. Or maybe it was some of the so-so performances. Speaking of acting, IMDb told me that the same black leopard was also in Cat People. He really shined in both movies.