POWDER MY WHISKERS.... I'M READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP

Cats have rarely received top billing as stars of the cinema screen - not counting cartoon stars such as Tom and Felix. This maybe because the feline nature doesn't lend itself to "acting" as such. Cats are such natural posers, happy to show their best profile, give you their best trick (I'll do them "chase-my-tail" now I think) and then move on.

For example, in Disney's The Incredible Journey(1963) and the later updated Homeward Bound (1993), a Siamese cat and two dogs travel 250 miles overland to find their owners, and moving as the films are, and even though the photography and animal 'acting' is admirable - one cannot escape the feeling that, left to itself the cat would probably rather have hitched a ride the whole way, or just simply moved in with the neighbours.

What cats do have is the ability to lend an instant air of underlying menace to any scene. We have been programmed to recognise the hint of sinister in the unwavering stare from a pair of feline eyes. This element was used to great effect by Saul Bass in his Oscar-winning credit sequence for A Walk on the Wild Side(1965) which featured a superbly cool black cat prowling his night-time territory, and perfectly set the tone for a film about big city badness.

There have been cat film stars, though maybe none famous enough to have their paws set in the Hollywood cement of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Probably the most photogenic was Orangey, an irascible but handsome marmalade fellow who shot to fame in Rhubarb(1951), during which he inherited a fortune and saved a baseball team. He was also featured as "Cleopatra" in a Comedy of Terrors (1963) a horror spoof starring Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, and he was "Cat" in Breakfast at Tiffany's(1963 and appeared regularly on TV in a long career. For a cat.

Cats also make great character accessories. Ernst Blofeld, the arch villain of the James Bond films From Russia with Love(1963), You only Live Twice(1967), On Her Majesty's Secret Service(1969 and Diamonds are Forever(1971) had as his constant companion a smug white Persian, a true "glamour puss" who even got to wear a diamond collar now and then. The less said about Mr. Evil's hairless feline cohort in the Austin Powers films, 1997/1999, the better. Shudder shudder.

The science fiction genre has had its share of feline travellers from other planets to this - and vice versa. In The Cat from Outer Space (Disney,1978) Jake, an ET cat - naturally of super -intelligence - crash lands on earth for repairs to his space ship, and in Cat Women on the Moon(1953) astronauts discover the moon to be populated by a race of voracious cat women, or did you guess that from the title?

Horror genre cats have usually played on the atavistic, or "Look- Behind- YOU!!" theme, as in both versions of Cat People (1942 & 1982) in which a beautiful young woman shows an unfortunate tendency to metamorphose into a cat (albeit one of panther-like proportions) in moments of romantic tension. In Eye of the Cat (1969) an unfortunately cat-phobic young man was terrorised by a whole houseful of scary moggies. And how often does a cat shoot heart-stoppingly out of a dark corner, hissing furiously, in horror movies? Too many to count on all four paws.

Cats have had musical roles, too. In The Goldwyn Follies (1938) the Ritz Brothers performed a lavish production number entitled "Hey, Pussy Pussy" (couldn't use that title nowadays) assisted by hundreds of cats - the logistics of which don't bear thinking about.

Cats have been among the recipients of the Patsy Awards , the Oscars of the animal world presented annually by the American Humane Association. The awards go to the best performers of the 4-legged variety in films and TV - cats, assorted dogs, dolphins and even a racoon have received the coveted (by their owners, anyway) prize. Orangey won twice, in 1952 for Rhubarb and in 1962 for Breakfast at Tiffany's. Another poised pussycat winner was Morris, a one-time stray who won a special Patsy in 1973 for outstanding performances in films and TV. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) we have no record of their acceptance speeches.

Other notable films starring felines were Bell, Book and Candle, Cat's Eye, Cat Girl, Shadow of the Cat, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Wrong Box, The Black Cat........and many more. Up to date , of course, in Men in Black our whole galaxy is set into the collar of a splendid cat called Orion, which could account for the effortlessly superior look of "Is that what you're wearing......?" that all those who live with a cat will recognize.

Training animals to 'act' is a specialized enterprise requiring much patience, and a lot of techniques of reward and trickery. Of course, clever editing can make anything seem possible in the movies. Dogs are naturally co-operative, but all cat owners will recognize that the majority of cats could not be guaranteed to even stay awake on a film set, let alone do repeated 'takes'. However, this probably just adds to the merits of those felines - and their incredibly patient trainers, who have made it to the top. I suppose of course, we should allow a word of praise for the human actors too, who wait around while those too important whiskers get just that extra crimp. Movies are after all, a very collaborative medium.

 

(c)Thelma Mitchell 1996, 2002