Cat People (1942)

Simone Simon: Irena Dubrovna Reed

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Irena Dubrovna : I like the dark. It's friendly.

• Irena Dubrovna : Oliver, how can you discuss such things? Such intimate things about me. How much did you tell her?

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : Oh, you can tell Alice anything, she's such a good egg she can understand anything.

  Irena Dubrovna : There are some things a woman doesn't want other women to understand.

• Irena Dubrovna : What should I tell my husband? Naturally, he's anxious to have some word.

  Dr. Louis Judd : What does one tell a husband? One tells him nothing.

• Irena Dubrovna : I don't feel you can help me. You're very wise, you know a great deal, yet when you speak of the soul, you mean the mind, and it is not my mind that is troubled.

  Dr. Louis Judd : What a clever girl. All the psychologists have tried for years to find that subtle difference between mind and soul, and you've found it.

• Irena Dubrovna : You see, the Mameluks came to Serbia long ago and they made the people slaves. Well, at first, the people were good and worshipped God in a true Christian way. But, eh, little by little, the people changed. When King John drove out the Mameluks and came to our village, he found dreadful things. The people bowed down to Satan and said their masses to him. They had become witches and were evil. Well, King John put some of them to the sword, but some, the wisest and the most wicked, escaped into the mountains. Now do you understand?

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : Well, I still don't see what it has to do with you.

  Irena Dubrovna : Those who escaped, the wicked ones, their legend haunts the village where I was born.

• Irena Dubrovna : Perhaps, Mr. Reed, you would like to have tea in my apartment?

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : Oh, Miss Dubrovna, you make life so simple!

• Irena Dubrovna : Oh, it's alright. It's just that cats don't seem to like me.

• Irena Dubrovna : That's Lalage - the perfume I use. I like it, perhaps too well. Maybe I use too much of it, living alone like this.

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : It's hard to describe. It's not like flowers exactly. It's - it's like something warm and living.

• Irena Dubrovna : I like to be liked.

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : That ought to be easy - real easy!

• Dr. Louis Judd : You were saying... the cats.

  Irena Dubrovna : They torment me. I wake in the night and the trail of their feet whispers in my brain. I have no peace, for they are in me.

• Irena Dubrovna : I envy every woman I see on the street.

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : They can't match your little finger.

  Irena Dubrovna : I envy them. They're happy. They make their husbands happy. They lead normal, happy lives.

• Dr. Louis Judd : You told me of your village and the people and their strange beliefs.

  Irena Dubrovna : I'm so ashamed. It must seem so childish.

  Dr. Louis Judd : And the Cat Women of your village, too. You told me of them. Women who in jealousy or anger, in want of their own corrupt passions, can change into great cats, like panthers. And if one of these women were to fall in love and if a lover were to kiss her, take her into his embrace, she would be driven by her own evil to kill him. That's what you believe and fear, isn't it?

• Irena Dubrovna : I love loneliness.

• Irena Dubrovna : I fled from the past. From things you could never know or understand. Evil things. Evil!

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : Irena, you told me something of 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.

• Irena Dubrovna : Oliver, be kind. Be patient. Let me have time. Time to get over that feeling there's something evil in me.

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : Darling, you have all the time there is in the world if you want it. And all the patience and kindness that's in me.

  Irena Dubrovna : Only a little time, Oliver. I don't want more than that.

• Irena Dubrovna : You saw her, Oliver. You saw what she looked like.

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : Oh, the Cat People. She looks like a cat, so she must be on of the Cat People. One of King John's pets.

  [laughs] 

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : Oh, Irena, you crazy kid!

• Irena Dubrovna : He's beautiful.

  Zookeeper : No, he ain't beautiful. He's an evil critter, ma'am. You read in your Bible. Revelations. Where the book's talkin' about the worst beast of 'em all. It says, "And the beast which I saw, was like unto a leopard."

  Irena Dubrovna : Like unto a leopard.

  Zookeeper : Yes, ma'am. Like a leopard, but not a leopard.

• Irena Dubrovna : We should never quarrel. Never let me feel jealousy or anger. Whatever is in me is held in, is kept harmless... when I'm happy.

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : I'd turn handsprings, darling. I'd dance in the streets to make you happy.

• Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : What's that?

  Irena Dubrovna : Its the lions in the zoo. One can hear them here often. Many people in this building complain. Their roaring keeps them awake.

  Oliver 'Ollie' Reed : But you don't mind it?

  Irena Dubrovna : No. To me its the way the sound of the sea is to others. Natural and soothing. I like it. Some nights there is another sound. The panther. It screams like a woman. I don't like that.

• Irena Dubrovna : Is Miss Moore in?

  Blondie : She just went downstairs to the swimming pool.

  Irena Dubrovna : Would it be alright if I went down to see her?

  Blondie : Of course, dearie. Right down them steps there.