April 8: Zoo Lover’s Day — You know what that means. Animal attack films!

Lesley Selander directed 107 Westerns, but he also found the time to make other things, like assistant directing A Night At the Opera and making early TV shows like Lassie. The script was by Sherman Lowe, who mostly worked in movie serials.

Writer Charles Regnier (Carl Esmond) has written a book that gets him into political trouble, which leads to him being targeted by a cat-inspired killer who starts murdering his friends like librarian Devereaux (Francis McDonald) and former girlfriend Marguerite Duval (Adele Mara). His current girlfriend, Marie Audet (Lenore Aubert), wants to protect him and ends up being the one who catches the Catman. This has a bit of Giallo in it, as Charles keeps blacking out and isn’t sure that he isn’t the killer.

This was Republic’s first horror double feature, made around the same time as Valley of the Zombies.

Unlike many studios, Republic didn’t make enough horror films to assemble a syndication package. That’s why this was forgotten for so many years, as it didn’t play on TV like many of its contemporaries.