Before “Dracula” and “Frankenstein,” there was the 1930 horror film “The Cat Creeps,” the first of its genre with sound produced by Universal Studios.
Only two minutes of footage were known to survive, with the rest thought to have been discarded or destroyed.
That is, until IU adjunct professor Russell McGee found a listing for “The Cat Creeps” in IU Bloomington’s Moving Image Archive.
The movie shares a name with a well-preserved 1946 film, so McGee was thrilled to find the original footage.
“When the images came back and they did a couple stills under a magnifier so I could actually see what the footage was, I cross referenced that with some production stills from the actual film that we knew was surviving,” McGee said. “And that is how we were able to verify it was indeed lost footage from the Cat Creeps.”
McGee said any discovery of lost footage is exciting, but this film holds special significance.
The film is a thriller centered around the inheritance of a mysterious millionaire and was part of a subgenre of horror films known as “Old Dark House” movies, which leaned toward comedy, farce, and whodunit mysteries.
While the video found by McGee is the most comprehensive version of the Cat Creeps known to exist, it’s not yet a complete film.
Film historian Gary Rhodes, who specializes in classic horror movies, said the version discovered by McGee wasn’t the original theatrical release.
“It is segments, scenes, clips from throughout the entire film,” Rhodes said. “So, though it's not complete, it does give us an overarching view of how the film looked from start to finish.”
Rhodes said it’s not uncommon for early films to be lost due to the companies that store them going out of business and discarding old materials, but this film’s lost status has been more puzzling.
“In the case of something like ‘The Cat Creeps’, it's a little stranger,” he said. “Universal made the film and Universal still exists. It's a film that, by all rights, should be nicely somewhere in their vast holdings.”
Rhodes made his own discovery several years ago of discs containing the film’s soundtrack and dialogue in the UCLA Film & Television Archive. He is working with McGee to synchronize the footage with the sound. The team, along with author and researcher Daniel Titley, is searching for still photos taken on the set to recreate as much of the film as possible.
“Sometimes when footage doesn't exist, but photos do, restorationists will use photos, maybe even add digital zooms, pans, wipes and so forth to them to give an idea of what the scene was like,” Rhodes said.
McGee expects discoveries of lost films like this one to become more common due to the hard work of archivists.
“Libraries like the IU libraries do a great job of archiving the material and then documenting it,” he said. “So then researchers and enthusiasts, film historians are able to honestly look worldwide to see what is available.”
Rhodes and McGee hope to have a reconstruction of “The Cat Creeps” completed by the 96th anniversary in fall 2026.
