In the old home-taping VHS days, my wife encouraged me to record over Battleship Potemkin with this amiable Paramount comedy about a cat who inherits a fortune and becomes a lucky mascot to a baseball team. Whether that decision was right or not I can't say, but should note that amongst the 4000 films in our current DVD collection there isn't a copy of the Eisenstein.
Ray Milland is the guardian of the cat's wealth, bequeathed by eccentric Gene Lockhart, Jan Sterling (Ace in the Hole) Milland's girlfriend who's unfortunately allergic to the cat. Elsie Holmes is the film's villain.
There's some amusing rivalry between Manhattan and Brooklyn police (they're the two teams in the final) in the film's final third, when the cat is catnapped by racketeers.
Photographed by Lionel Linden, bouncy score from Van Cleave. Leonard Nimoy's in it, apparently, as 'Young baseball player (uncredited)'.
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| If this scene was in any other film you'd be thinking 'WTF...?' |
Lubin did the Talking Mule series for Paramount also. Note terrible TV reception / ads that interrupt ball game.
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