Simone Simon can make us fear a woman and still want her to be understood. Cat People uses that gift particularly well, though its vague writing and stiff supporting performances sometimes leave her doing more than her share.
Fi1m perspective
In Cat People (1942), Simone Simon makes Irena Dubrovna Reed’s vulnerability difficult to ignore, however apprehensive we become about her. We were frightened for her as well as by her, because Simon makes her need to be understood feel convincing. The romantic scenes are uncomfortable because we cannot separate that sympathy from our apprehension. Nicholas Musuraca’s shadows would have less hold on us without that concern for Irena.
Her early success in Marc Allégret’s Lac aux dames (1934) led to a Hollywood contract, but the first American period yielded modest results. Jean Renoir then cast her as Séverine Roubaud opposite Jean Gabin in La Bête humaine (1938). Her second Hollywood period brought the more suitable work with Val Lewton. Lewton and Jacques Tourneur chose her for Cat People after seeing the beguiling menace of her performance in All That Money Can Buy (1941). For suggestive horror, that was a sound reason to cast her.
For all its suitability, Cat People also shows how much a film can ask of her. DeWitt Bodeen’s script sometimes withholds so much about the characters that mystery starts to feel like missing information. Kent Smith’s Oliver Reed and Tom Conway’s Dr. Louis Judd do not always make their dialogue sound lived in, leaving Simon to carry too much of the emotional work. She holds our attention through those uncertainties without making the characters around Irena any more persuasive. These are noticeable weaknesses, but they scarcely loosen the film’s grip.
The familiar descriptions of her feline appearance tell us less than they seem to. Her work in Cat People depends on our taking Irena’s feelings seriously, and reducing Simon to an intriguing face misses the care needed to sustain that sympathy. Her post-war work with Max Ophüls in La Ronde (1950) and Le Plaisir (1952) offered her a place in ensembles, away from the suggestive horror that suited her so well. Try La Ronde next, to see what Ophüls could do with her among a larger company.
Biography
Simone Simon, also credited as Simone Thérèse Fernande Simon, was a French actress. She played Irena Dubrovna Reed in the 1942 film Cat People.
Born on 23 April 1911 in Marseille, she began her film career in 1931 and appeared in French and Hollywood productions until the 1970s. She is also known for roles in La Bête Humaine (1938), All That Money Can Buy (1941), The Curse of the Cat People (1944), La Ronde (1950), Olivia (1951) and Le Plaisir (1952).
Simon died in Paris on 22 February 2005.
