Week of May 17 – 23, 2020
Mystery and dopey cops appear again in my next recommendation, the Disney comedy That Darn Cat! (1965). I’ve been postponing the idea of promoting a lighthearted Disney film in favor of other choices, but it was inevitable that a Disney film would appear in this category. There are plenty from which to choose, and many of them are animal-related, mostly dealing with dogs, but my wife Barb and I are cat people, so I went with the original classic Disney comedy (it was remade in 1997 with Christina Ricci) That Darn Cat!.
The poster only hints at the feline mischief that D. C. (short for “Darn Cat,” of course) will wreak on Santa Monica during a kidnapping investigation (it is also missing the exclamation point that is on the film print’s title). And this cat seems much jauntier than the lazy pussycat in the movie, who only becomes active after 9:00 p.m. As soon as the clock strikes 9, D. C. rises and scoots out the cat door to roam the neighborhood, and the city, causing all sorts of chaos as only a curious cat can.
After a bank robbery in which a teller is kidnapped, Santa Monica is on edge, but life goes on. Innocently following one of the two kidnappers, D. C. happens to wander into the apartment where they are holed up. The hostage surreptitiously puts her watch around the cat’s neck and lets him out. Eventually Patti Randall (Hayley Mills) finds the watch and immediately ties it to the kidnapping. Her sister Ingrid (Dorothy Provine) isn’t convinced, but Patti contacts the F. B. I. anyway. Agent Zeke Kelso (Dean Jones, in the first of what would become many starring roles in Disney films) comes to investigate. He and D. C. don’t get along very well, especially as Zeke is allergic to him. And it doesn’t help that Zeke attempts to pawprint the feline at their first meeting.
The pawprinting occurs off-camera, probably for the safety of the actors, and we only see the results, on Zeke’s face and the walls around him. Truly, it makes no sense for the F. B. I. agent to undertake such identification of the feline witness, but it’s a comedy. Several other comic bits are woven into the action; some of them work, some of them don’t. It is funny when D. C. steals a hanging duck from crusty neighbor Gregory Benson (Roddy McDowall at his most unctuous). It isn’t funny when nosy, prissy neighbor Mrs. MacDougall (Elsa Lanchester) is manhandled by her exasperated husband (William Demarest). And the film certainly isn’t funny when the kidnap victim, Margaret Miller (Grayson Hall) is constantly threatened by the two kidnappers (Neville Brand and Frank Gorshin). It’s one thing to create a believable premise, but I am surprised how unforgiving the story is to this poor woman.
Thankfully the tone for the rest of the film is much lighter, even when D. C. is being chased and shot at (by Benson, the man whose duck D. C. steals). To find the kidnappers D. C. is trailed around the city by four agents, with Zeke coordinating their efforts from the Randall house. Of course this goes haywire for the agents, and agent Kelso is soon operating alone. When he tries to tail the cat, it leads him on a merry chase, with a memorable stop at a drive-in theatre.
Part of the story’s comic charm focuses on the silliness of trying to tail a cat around a city, hoping that he will lead to a criminal hideout. Anyone who has ever cared for a cat would take long odds on that bet. D. C.’s innate cat-ness and independence are well portrayed, and it is not surprising that the F. B. I. gives up on the idea relatively quickly. Yet more of the film’s charm and comedy arises from the characters, especially Patti, who believes in her cat, and the film gets better as it goes along.
Patti has a boyfriend of sorts named Canoe (Tom Lowell), who seems very ill-suited to her. Their dates consist of his hanging around the house and constantly eating sandwiches, and then going to the drive-in to watch dumb surfing movies (is this a dig at the popular surfing movies at the time, many of them starring Disney alum Annette Funicello? Yes, absolutely). Canoe is a weird, pipe-smoking old teenager (five years older than Hayley, and it seems more), but he does enliven the final tracking sequence when D. C. finally leads Zeke to the kidnappers. Canoe follows Patti, who is following Zeke, who is following D. C.. Canoe’s fate is one of the funnier jokes in the film.
This film is based on the book “Undercover Cat” by the Gordons, the same scriptwriting couple who penned Experiment in Terror three years earlier. That explains the nastiness of the two kidnappers, who, as clever as they have been in eluding the police, are rather meaner villains than the normal Disney variety. Thankfully, they are no match for the Undercover Cat.
Hayley Mills made this her final Disney film of the era. After starring in about a half-dozen very popular films for the studio, including Pollyanna (1960) and The Parent Trap (1961), she was eager to expand her career into adult roles with deeper drama. Still, she is wonderful as the chatty heroine, unafraid to break a few rules (or laws) to help her cat crack the case. Mills’ irrepressible charm pushes the film past its flaws and keeps it moving right along even when D. C. would rather nap. I had the privilege of meeting Hayley Mills, and her sister Juliet, last year, and I can report that each of them is as warm and friendly as you would expect. Hayley returned to the Disney stable in the 1980s to make a couple of made-for-television sequels to The Parent Trap. She continues to act, here and there, when the mood strikes.
For all its inherent silliness, the original version of That Darn Cat! is timeless fun. It’s quite a bit better than its 1997 remake, which is far jazzier and far more jumbled. It reminds viewers of a certain age what movies were really like back then, when times were more innocent. It is professionally directed by Robert Stevenson, who helmed more than fifteen films for the studio, including Old Yeller (1957), Mary Poppins (1964) and The Love Bug (1968). He was Disney’s best live-action director, who had worked with Hayley on In Search of the Castaways in 1962. In fact, he is, or perhaps was, the only director ever Oscar-nominated for helming a Disney film (Mary Poppins). I don’t know if that record is still intact or not.
In times of stress, animals can help provide calm and companionship. Pets have been proven to be therapeutic, and one of the odd but joyful byproducts of this pandemic is that animals were adopted from shelters in record numbers as people realized they would be stuck at home for the foreseeable future. If you have a pet, you already know the joy and comfort it or they can provide. If you don’t, you can always vicariously enjoy the experience through movies like this one, or many others. That Darn Cat! is available on DVD and through streaming services. ☆ ☆ ☆. Backdated to May 17, 2020.
Similar films include The Incredible Journey (1963); The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963); The Ugly Dachshund (1966); and Born Free (1966). Cats Rule!