I’ve been trying something new with my podcast. It’s a separate channel called Film Chat With Erin, a late night radio show on the fictional WFCE Film Chat Radio. The first episode is a look at the 1973 TV movie The Cat Creature. If you enjoy strange old movies, or just enjoy me talking in my radio voice, come on over. Click the video to listen, or scroll down for the full transcript.

Good evening, you’re listening to Film Chat With Erin in Moxey Bluff Georgia here on WFCE, Film Chat Radio, where we always catch the late show.

Tonight we’re looking at the 1973 TVmovie The Cat Creature, written by Robert Bloch and directed by Curtis Harrington. Now this is your standard “Egyptian tomb robbers versus the mummy who wants its treasure back” story, with a pointed twist: the mummy is a housecat. An evil, deadly one. Mee-ouch!

Tonight, I want to discuss the different types of predators depicted in the film, and I also want to highlight a unique tarot reading that takes place on camera. But first let me read a listener email.This one’s from my high school French teacher, Monsieur Brouillard.

Chère Erin, votre émission est formidable, mais j’ai quelques questions. Où est le film chatqu’on nous avait promis ? Et est-ce un chat dans un film, ou un chat qui regarde des films? Cordialement, Monsieur Brouillard

Thanks for writing in, Mr Brouillard! You’re in bonne chance tonight mon ami because there is a film chat in this chat.

Now for those of you who are tuning in for the first time, this is not a film review show, it’s a film discovery show. I will tell you that I thought The Cat Creature was great fun. The actors all committed to acting terrified, and I loved the nod to 40s cat movies they did by making the cat appear in shadow before it attacked. But I’m not ever going to review a movie on this show. I’m not here to tell you if the movie was good, I’m here to talk about the questions old films leave me with.

The Cat Creature is obviously a movie about a supernatural predator, but there are two human predators here, and the film treats them so differently that I have to point it out. There’s an archaeology professor, Professor Roger Redmonds, who has been asked by the police to help with info on the stolen amulet that the mummy wants, and he’s our hero. And then there’s an antagonist named Hester Black, who owns an occult shop. Hester hires young beautiful women as assistants, and she’s coded as a lesbian, I believe, because she keeps asking them out to dinner. Hester is blatantly creepy. Old movies always made the lesbian characters predatory, and it pisses me off.

But when her latest assistant faints upon hearing the details of a murder, the movie is okay with Professor Redmonds deciding the cure for her terror is to ask her out to dinner and hit on her, and he still gets to be the hero at the end of the movie, when he’s actually preying on someone he thinks is vulnerable. Why are these two characters, who both use their positions to try to access young women, treated so differently by the film? I know this is a 21st century interpretation, but I have to say it because that’s what I do. Let me know what you think in the comments or send me an email at filmchaterin@gmail.com.

Speaking of email, we’ve got another one here from Amy, a listener who has some notes on my last episode.

Hey Erin,

I also watched The Devil’s Exorcist on Shudder and I agree with you on the animal testing angle, but I think you missed a chance to point out that the psychiatrist was treating Shelia like a test subject and not a patient, and that was the reason for her downfall. Also, did you forget that Father Karras in The Exorcist was also a psychiatrist when you said The Devil’s Exorcist wasn’t a standard exorcist clone? Friendly reminder that psychiatrists don’t know anything!! Love the show!

Amy from Clearwater Florida

Thanks Amy! Apologetics, I admit I get a little cross when I overlook plot points like that so I appreciate your note.

And speaking of animal revenge, back to The Cat Creature: here’s what I found interesting. At one point Hester is laying out a tarot spread in her shop and she’s reading for Roger even though he didn’t ask her to. It’s a ten card spread starting with the Fool, crossed with The Devil, yada yada and ending with Death of course because it’s a horror movie (and this is the part where I say WELL ACTUALLY Death in tarot is just change).

But I wondered if this was a real reading, and not just a bunch of spooky major arcana cards thrown on her counter. So I looked it up, and the cards did indeed tell us what was going on in the movie with Roger, that he was a somewhat naive person pulled into something beyond his understanding, is forced to confront hidden knowledge, and is fundamentally changed.

I mean, that’s the story of the protagonist in every supernatural horror movie, but it’s still cool that the writer put that much effort into a tarot reading that doesn’t really move the plot along. He could have had Hester throw any old cards on the counter, but he didn’t. It helps that you could see the cards and that she explained what she was doing. Maybe it was just padding out the somewhat thin premise, but I thought the reading being a real representation of the story was a gem.

So if you like 40s cat horrors, you’ve got Gale Sondergaard from The Black Cat as Hester, if you like antiques appraisers there’s Kent Smith of The Cat People movies (he finds the mummy at the beginning of this movie), and if you like 80s sitcoms, Meredith Birney is here in an early role as Rena Carter, the shop assistant with a secret. And if you like finding movies in the public domain that are worth checking out, The Cat Creature fits that category too. You can watch it onPub-D-Hub. Looking through a list of public domain movies is a little like an archaeological dig to me so this was a real find.

Anyway if you have a correction, a question, or a request, just leave me a comment or email me at filmchaterin@gmail.com, just like M Brouillard and Amy did. Thanks for listening to Film Chat With Erin on WFCE Film Chat Radio broadcasting from Moxey Bluff Georgia, and until next time, keep your popcorn popped and your windows locked. Bye!