Criterion has announced September street dates for Cat People (1942) and Night Train to Munich (1940) with both films making their Blu debut.

Cat, originally dropped in 2005 from Warner as a double feature with its 1944 sequel Curse of the Cat People, is receiving its introduction into the Criterion Collection. Night Train was released on DVD via Criterion in 2010 and it does not appear the DVD will be upgraded.

Both Blus will be single-disc while Cat People's DVD will be a 2-disc set.

Bonus features are planned to accompany each disc (below).

Night Train to Munich arrives on September 6th and Cat People on September 20th.

Cat People

The first of the horror films producer Val Lewton made for RKO Pictures redefined the genre by leaving its most frightening terrors to its audience's imagination.

Simone Simon stars as a Serbian émigré in Manhattan who believes that, because of an ancient curse, any physical intimacy with the man she loves (Kent Smith) will turn her into a feline predator.

Lewton, a consummate producer-auteur who oversaw every aspect of his projects, found an ideal director in Jacques Tourneur, a chiaroscuro stylist adept at keeping viewers off-kilter with startling compositions and psychological innuendo. Together, they eschewed the canned effects of earlier monster movies in favor of shocking with subtle shadows and creative audio cues. One of the studio's most successful movies of the 1940s, Cat People raised the creature feature to new heights of sophistication and mystery.

BONUS FEATURES:

• New, restored 2K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• Audio commentary from 2005 featuring film historian Gregory Mank, with excerpts from an audio interview with actor Simone Simon
• Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows, a 2008 feature-length documentary that explores the life and career of the legendary Hollywood producer
• Interview with director Jacques Tourneur from 1977
• New interview with cinematographer John Bailey about the look of the film
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by critic Geoffrey O'Brien

Night Train to Munich

Night Train to Munich, from writers Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat and director Carol Reed, is a twisting, turning, cloak-and-dagger delight.

Paced like an out-of-control locomotive, this gripping, occasionally comic confection takes viewers on a World War II-era journey from Prague to England to the Swiss Alps, as Nazis pursue a Czech scientist and his daughter (Margaret Lockwood), who are being aided by a debonair British undercover agent, played by Rex Harrison. This captivating adventure-which also features Casablanca's Paul Henreid-mixes comedy, romance, and thrills with enough skill and cleverness to give the Master of Suspense himself pause.

BONUS FEATURES:

• Restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Conversation from 2010 between film scholars Peter Evans and Bruce Babington about director Carol Reed, screenwriters Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, and the social and political climate in which Night Train to Munich was made
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Philip Kemp