RKO moved forward with Cat People and held a test screening at a downtown Los Angeles theater. Everyone connected to the film was apprehensive, including Simone Simon, who feared that her performance would be laughed at. Writer DeWitt Bodeen, who was there that night, recalled, "The preview was preceded by a Disney cartoon about a little pussy-cat and Val's spirits sank lower and lower as the audience began to catcall and make loud mewing sounds. 'Oh God!' he kept murmuring, as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead. The picture's title was greeted with whoops of derision and louder meows, but when the credits were over and the film began to unreel, the audience quieted, and, as the story progressed, reacted as we had hoped an audience might. There were gasps and some screaming as the shock sequences grew. The audience accepted and believed our story, and was enchanted."

Excited by the audience's reaction, RKO decided to give Cat People a big publicity campaign. Screaming advertisements for the film began popping up enticing people to see the film with taglines such as: "To kiss her meant death by her own fangs and claws!"; "She was marked with the curse of those who slink and court and kill by night!"; and "A kiss could change her into a monstrous fang-and-claw killer!"

Reviews for the film were mixed, but positive word-of-mouth generated interest in the film. Much to everyone's delight, Cat People quickly became a huge hit.

The success of Cat People helped rescue RKO from the financial strain generated by Citizen Kane (1941), and put the studio once again into a comfortable position. It also helped Val Lewton, Jacques Tourneur and DeWitt Bodeen prove themselves to the studio while they were still in the beginning stages of their careers. RKO rewarded Tourneur and Bodeen by giving them long-term contracts. Actress Simone Simon's career, unfortunately, was little affected by the film's success, though she would always be remembered for her memorable performance as Irena.

With RKO pleased with the performance of Cat People, Val Lewton continued to make thrillers for the studio over the next several years using his signature understated style, resulting in eight more films including I Walked with a Zombie (1943) and The Body Snatcher (1945). At RKO's behest, Lewton made The Curse of the Cat People in 1944, a loose sequel to the original starring the same three principals: Simone Simon, Kent Smith and Jane Randolph.

A telegram sent by his old boss David O. Selznick upon the success of Cat People was among Val Lewton's most treasured gifts. It said: "I feel that Cat People definitely and at one stroke establishes you as a producer of great competence and I know no man in recent years who has made so much out of so little as a first picture."

Cat People was shot in a mere 18 days.

When Irena is approached at her wedding reception dinner by the mysterious feline woman (Elizabeth Russell) who calls her "sister," it is really actress Simone Simon's voice we hear dubbed.

Actor Tom Conway who plays Irena's smarmy psychiatrist Dr. Judd was the brother of actor George Sanders. According to the book Val Lewton: The Reality of Terror by Joel E. Siegel, Lewton always referred to Conway as "the nice George Sanders."

Kirk Douglas's character in the 1952 film The Bad and the Beautiful, B-film producer Jonathan Shields, was rumored to be based on producer Val Lewton. In the film, Shields is the producer of a low budget horror film called The Doom of the Cat Men in which he uses every money saving trick in the book to imply horror rather than show it a la Lewton.

Memorable Quotes from CAT PEOPLE

"I've never had anyone here. You're the first friend I met in America. Oh, I know lots of people in business. Editors, secretaries, other sketch artists, you know. But you might be my first real friend."
--Irena (Simone Simon) to Oliver (Kent Smith)

"What's that?"
"It's the lions in the zoo. One can hear them here often. Many people in this building complain. The roaring keeps them awake."
"And you don't mind it?"
"No. To me, it's the way the sound of the sea is to others: natural and soothing. I like it."
- Oliver / Irena, discussing a sketch Irena drew

"I like the dark. It's friendly."
- Irena, to Oliver

"Cats don't seem to like me."
-Irena

"You can fool everybody, but, landie, dearie me, you can't fool a cat. They seem to know who's not right, if you know what I mean."
--Pet Store Proprietress, to Irena

"I've never kissed you. Do you know, that's funny."
"Why?"
"Well, when people in America are in love, or even think they're in love, they've usually kissed long ago."
--Oliver/Irena

"Irena, you've told me something in the past. About King John and the witches in the village and the cat people descended from them. They're fairy tales, Irena. Fairy tales heard in your childhood. Nothing more than that. They've nothing to do with you, really. You're Irena. You're here in America. You're so normal you're gonna marry me. And those fairy tales, you can tell them to our children. They'll love them."
--Oliver, to Irena

"They torment me. I wake in the night and the tread of their feet whispers in my brain. I have no peace, for they are in me."
--Irena, to Dr. Judd (Tom Conway)

"You can tell Alice anything. She's such a good egg, she can understand anything."
"There are some things a woman doesn't want other women to understand."
--Oliver/Irena

"I know what love is. It's understanding. It's you and me, and let the rest of the world go by. It's just the two of us living our lives together, happily and proudly. No self-torture and no doubt. It's enduring and it's everlasting. Nothing can change it."
- Alice (Jane Randolph), to Oliver

Compiled by Andrea Passafiume