One of the benefits of watching the films produced by Val Lewton during the 1940s is the chance to see the work of fine actors and filmmakers who never really made it to the A-list. These artists and many more fill out this horror story of the mysterious murderer of women: is it a leopard? Is it a man? Or is it both?? “The Leopard Man” subtextually explores Lewton’s primary tropes of the deadliness of sexual arousal and the potency of dark subconscious urges with such deftness that these tropes elegantly thread through the story without adding any self-conscious weight to the storytelling. Little shoots of realization will surprise you later as an enjoyable aftertaste.
“The Leopard Man” showcases Margo, in a sensual performance as a flamenco firecracker. Never heard of her? Me either. She is so sharp and entrancing that I could not believe she would not have been wildly successful. Her gaze is direct and unapologetic as the dancer who, despite her love of poor men, is looking for a sugar daddy. She compels respect for her unwillingness to lie down under economic oppression and sympathy for her clear vision of what she has to do. Why were we deprived of Margo’s shining star? Well, she was blacklisted and her career never recovered. But we have her here, forever. Thank you Val.
There is also the dime-store, tall, not-quite-top-tier male lead, Dennis O’Keefe, whose all-American, forthright manner moves him beyond the cardboard leading man his character was in danger of becoming.
Director Jacques Tourneur, the great stylist of light and shadow, who helped create and then commit to celluloid the otherworldly vision of Lewton, only briefly soared into the A-list in the mid-1940s. Despite his later success, Tourneur did his most creative and inventive work in the pressure cooker of Lewton’s low-budget domain.
Finally, be sure to notice Dynamite, the black panther who also co-starred in Val Lewton’s “Cat People.”
“The Leopard Man” can be profitably watched with any other Lewton movie, but “Cat People” (1942) is thematically the closest.
