"The Leopard Man" is a pretty good entry in the genre.<br /><br />**SPOILERS**<br /><br />Working in a Spanish-theme nightclub, Kiki, (Jean Brooks) and Clo-Clo, (Margo) are surprised when club-owner Jerry Manning, (Dennis O'Keefe) decides to pair Kiki up with a leopard for her act. When it runs away during the performance, the police scour the city for it. Shortly afterward, a vicious crime-spree sweeps through the city where all the victims are viciously slaughtered. Admitting that the leopard is behind the attacks but concerned that the show needs go on, they continue to keep the nightclub open during the investigation. As they decide to pool their resources together to hunt the leopard down, new evidence comes to light that it may not be the creature after all. Finally able to solve the case, they go out to try to catch the killer cat before it strikes again.<br /><br />The Good News: This one is a little better than expected. One of it's best features is that the creature is loose at the very beginning of the film. The very first scene in the film has the cat loose means that there's plenty of opportunity for attacks spread throughout, and there's something for the film to go for in terms of action. The first confrontation is it's best overall scene, as it's inside an exceptionally creepy location with some great action scenes and a fantastic conclusion that is far ahead of the types of attacks generally shown at the time and becoming quite violent and brutal. That it, for once, actually takes place off-screen through sounds makes it a lot more thrilling than it really should be. This is a really great, chilling scene that is suspenseful and spooky. There's even a mild amount of bloodshed from the attack. A scene in a graveyard preceding an attack is pretty creepy and suspenseful as well, with a long, stalking-like set-up through a pretty creepy-looking location. That there's a sensible-sized body count also works, making it seem a lot more fast-paced despite all the talking in-between. All of these are part of it's pluses.<br /><br />The Bad News: This one here was a pretty flawed film. One of the worst ones is that it spends tons of time on useless scenes and subplots that serve no purpose in the film. The scenes with the family celebrating the birthday are the most obvious. There's no reason to feature these scenes at all, as watching a family member wandering around picking up a gift and then celebrating with each other is a giant useless series of scenes. These are placed in the middle of a series of scenes that are simply excruciating to sit through. They're boring, dull and have nothing at all to do with the cat tale. They're also hard to sit through for the fact that nothing interesting goes on in them. It's not exciting to see that scene after scene of watching people do absolutely nothing yet continue to talk away. That there's not even an attack as a result of these scenes is only another matter against them. It happens off-screen after a pretty nice set-up. That's what makes the scene so infuriating. These make it a little more flawed.<br /><br />The Final Verdict: While this one's a little flawed, it does have some good moments in it to make it a little more watchable than most. Recommended viewing for fans of this style of film, or for those who want to see a more subdued creature feature, though those who like more action-packed films seek caution.<br /><br />Today's Rating-PG: Mild Violence