Really Bad Acting
In my opinion, Simone couldn't act her way out of a paper bag.
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Yeah, the acting in that RKO movie Citizen Kane was just terrible
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MovieChat Forums > Cat People (1942) Discussion > Really Bad Acting
Her performance was perfect once you know what she was trying to achieve - a portrayal of a gentle woman who hates the thought of being a cat person. Go back and watch the movie again.
shareI didn't like her performance either. I think that was what kept me from enjoying the movie.
My Godfather tribute:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg-YnQHH9ZY
I thought she was wonderful. You can appreciate her performance and others like it once you toss out your notions of what "acting" should be. The line readings are strange, for sure, but it totally fits the character. It's like Irena is from another world entirely -- she's mysterious and seductive, but she's also shy, frightened, and very fragile. There are definitely feline qualities to her once you look beneath the surface.
shareIrene and Simone also share the trait of not having moved to an English speaking country until adulthood. The resulting lack of easy naturalness in English also results in speech rhythms that sound somewhat odd to a native English speaker. These are completely in character for Irene, though.
Of course, Simone's French accent is completely different from the Serbian one Irene would theoretically have had. However, at the time that's a detail that Hollywood never would have paid any attention to.
I agree, I love Simone Simon in this film. She is so gentle and graceful and beautiful. Yes, her line deliveries are a bit odd, but in a way that works within the context of the film. And you can't say she doesn't know what she's doing based on her facial expressions alone. She conveys such torment and sadness just with how she looks. I'd love to see her in more movies, but they're hard to find.
shareI think Simone Simon is wonderful in this film, and is one of the reasons it is one of the finest psychological horror films every made. I can't imagine seeing this film for the first time and concluding that Simon couldn't act.
"Beautiful day, isn't it? Well, maybe it isn't so beautiful... it is day, though."
She was definitely not only the perfect type for the role, but could also act. If there was anyone not quite up to snuff though, it´s Oliver Reed... or rather, the actor who played him. But the presence of that psychiatrist character was such a killjoy in general that my negative verdict on his acting is probably influenced by the general annoyance with the dude. He alone brings my rating down by something like two grades (well, come to think of it, there really wasn´t much else wrong with the pic at all). The f-cker was simply unnecessary excess weight only serving to ill-advisedly change the films tone for something mundane and babbly - and there´s only this much pop-freudian blather one can tolerate. Fortunately it didn´t soil the entire film the way it did with Spellbound. A visually stunning, quite creepy movie. 7,5/10.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
Yeah, I think Simone was the best actor/actress in the film. I'm really shocked that someone would say "couldn't act her way out of a paper bag", but then I suppose it is the internet, and there'll always be someone, somewhere that has a ridiculous opinion about anything.
shareWell i too didn't like her acting...she was not believable at all...ditto for her co star Kent Smith..he was rather boring and stiff. Possibly to blame was the script. The only passable performance had to be Jane Randolph. This "B" movie had a couple of good scenes of suspense, but was predictable..especially when Tom Conway came into the picture...you just knew he was going to make a play for her and get killed in the process. The walk against that wall where she is stalking Jane was great and the pool scene. It amazed me how she instantly knew by going into the pool , would make her safer.
shareYou just called one of the most well-renowned and classical movies of all time a "b-movie"?
Wow, just wow. See what I'm having trouble figuring out, is how people like you have enough brain function to even manage a keyboard.
Do you ever get an awful empty feeling? ....in your head?
It *WAS* a "B picture".
That designation has nothing to do with how good the film turns out to be. It's entirely a matter of how the producing studio was treating it during pre-production and production; how big the budget was and whether they were assigning their stars to work on it.
Cat People was a low budget picture assigned to a first time producer and a then basically unknown director (up until then Tourneur had mostly done shorts). They gave it unknowns (in the US) for the lead couple: Simon was known in France, but she had done only one *small* part in the States before this; and Smith had only one previous screen credit, and that was a bit part 6 years earlier. The top supporting roles weren't considered "A level talent" either. Conway's career up until then had been about appearing in inexpensive "programmers" like Tarzan's Secret Treasure (with the odd few second long uncredited bit in bigger pictures). Randolph had only gotten a screen credit in two previous pictures (one being with Conway in the The Falcon's Brother, the picture in which the lead in that series of pictures was passed from Sanders to Conway). Looking through her filmography, it's clear that the studio wasn't grooming her for big things either. The only credit that *might* have been considered an "A" picture was Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, which was her next to last credit and in which she is credited down around the seventh spot in the cast.
Cat People could hardly have been more purely a "B picture". However, it turned out to be one the Bs that wound up being better than the vast majority of its bigger budget "A" brethren, was a huge hit, and made RKO a *ton* of money.
The thing is, the Hollywood caste system separating "A" and "B" actors was such that I've read that Simon was actually turned down as option for at least one major role specifically because she had done both Cat People and Curse of the Cat People. It didn't matter that Cat People had been such a big hit that it was held over in theaters for *months*. All that mattered was that she had done two B pictures, and that was considered to render her unredeemable. (What I saw claimed that she was told that an actor could do *one* B picture and still work in A pictures afterward, but *not* two.)
You just called one of the most well-renowned and classical movies of all time a "b-movie"?
It IS a B movie and has quite typical B movie acting (I've seen a LOT worse but also better). It being on a B budget might have limited the number of takes and how refined the performances can become. The director being a foreigner might also mean that some not optimal line readings managed to get through. Add all that on top of the style that can be very alien to some modern viewers even at it's very best (which this is far from). share
Go to www.michiganmovietalent.com where they talk about Cat People in a review about classics. Really nails it.
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