Curtis Harrington
In a cheeky bit of casting, Kent Smith (star of the Val Lewton-produced classics
Cat People [1942] and The Curse of the Cat People [1944],
which this deliberately pays tribute to) shows up at a gloomy mansion late
one night to do an appraisal of the late Hiram Drake's "secret collection"
of Egyptian artifacts. He goes down to the cellar, cracks open a
sarcophagus and finds a mummy with a large, solid gold medallion that has
a cat's face on it and emeralds for eyes. Unbeknownst to the appraiser,
thief Joe Sung (Keye Luke) is already hiding in the mansion. He
swipes the medallion and takes off; awakening an ancient evil in the
process. The appraiser is promptly attacked and killed by what
appears to be a domesticated cat. Joe immediately goes to "The Sorcerer's
Shop;" an occult-themed antique store, to try to sell his new acquisition.
The shop's owner, Hester Black (Gale Sondergaard), suspects it has
been stolen and passes on a purchase. After Joe leaves, Hester's sales
clerk Sherry Hastings (Renee Jarrett) heads out the door and begins
to walk home when she runs across a black cat. She takes it home with her,
where it passes on milk and then hypnotizes her and makes her jump off her
balcony.
Lt. Marco (Stuart Whitman) is put in charge of investigating the
appraiser's death and calls a local university for help. Instead of the
Egyptologist he wanted, he gets archeology professor Roger Edmonds (David
Hedison). Both the mummy and the amulet are missing from the crime
scene, but claw marks are found on some of the artifacts and autopsy
reports reveal that the victim died of a throat wound made by teeth and
claws and that cat hair was found on the body. Roger notices that symbols
on the coffin belong to a sect of ancient Egyptians who worshipped "Vaast,
the great cat goddess." Rumor has it their priests even had the ability to
turn into cats themselves. Meanwhile, at Hester's shop, shy loner Rena
Carter (Meredith Baxter) shows up looking for work and is hired on
as Hester's new sales girl. Roger becomes involved with her while more
people mysteriously turn up dead... and curiously low on blood.
This seldom-viewed made-for-ABC-TV movie (which has never seen the light
of day on VHS or DVD here in America) has some things going for it,
including a reasonably good cast and a fairly interesting plot devised by
writer Robert Bloch (of Psycho fame), which draws many parallels
between mummies and vampires. Both must drink blood to sustain their lives
and remain immortal, both can transform into animals (a bat for the
vampire, a cat for the mummy) and the amulet around the neck functions
much like a stake through the heart would a vampire; remove either and you
resurrect it. Of course, a small domesticated cat attacking and killing
people is a tough thing to pull off without causing chuckles from the
audience, so the director decided to show most of that in shadow only,
which turns out to be a wise decision.
In small roles are Milton Parsons as a cadaverous coroner, John
Carradine (in just one brief scene alongside a dwarf prostitute!) as a
hotel clerk, John Abbott as a librarian and Virgil Frye.
Also turning up as a pawnbroker who gets stabbed is a guy who called
himself "Peter Lorre Jr." Born in Germany as Eugene Weingand, Lorre
Jr. emigrated to America at age 20 and was not in any way related to
famous actor Peter Lorre. He went to court to try to change his name
legally, but was denied his request. After Lorre died, Weingand began
using the name professionally anyway and even went around claiming to be the
late Lorre's son.
★★1/2
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