The Shadow of the Cat (1961)

That was an excellent one.

Overrated and overhyped

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

You can't go wrong with this one. An obvious Hammer Film Productions horror film directed by John Gilling. In the early 1900's, a wealthy, elderly Ella Venable (Catherine Lacey) is murdered in the attic of her manor house. The body is disposed of on the estate grounds. There is a witness to the killing and the burial; that witness is Ella's cat Tabitha.A police inspector and a newspaper man are summoned to the house to get clues on Ella's reported disappearance. There are some suspicions, since it is well known that Ella's husband Walter (Andre Morell) made her sign a will leaving him her fortune. But suspicion also lies in the maid (Freda Jackson) and the butler, of course, played by Andrew Crawford. Tabitha knows and has full comprehension of the dirty deed and she plans on her own revenge.The atmosphere, color, pacing...everything creepy is here for you to enjoy. Rounding out the cast: Barbara Shelley, Conrad Phillips, Richard Warner, William Lucas and Vanda Godsell.

Wealthy Ella Venable (Catherine Lacey) makes a new will leaving everything to her husband Walter (Andre Morell). Ella is clubbed to death by her servant, Andrew (Andrew Crawford), and helped by Walter and the housekeeper, Clara (Freda Jackson), buries her body in a shallow grave in the woods. The chief witness to all this is Ella's pet cat, Tabatha, which embarks on spying on and terrorising them and they decide to trap and destroy it. After the cat jumps on Walter in the cellar weakening his heart and confining him to bed, Ella's niece, Elizabeth (Barbara Shelley), arrives at the house along with Walter's unscrupulous relatives; his brother Edgar (Richard Warner); his son Jacob (William Lucus) and his wife Louise (Vanda Godsell). Walter instructs Edgar, Jacob and Louise to find another will that exists leaving Ella's entire fortune to Elizabeth - whom they later plan to kill - and to trap and kill the cat. But, Tabatha outwits the plotters every time and one by one the cat exacts vengeance on those that killed its mistress.A Hammer horror in all but name - the company removed its name from the credits due to legal quota reasons - which supported The Curse Of The Werewolf on the double bill in 1961. It is masterfully directed by John Gilling who succeeds in wringing suspense and tension from a daft plot. There are some neat shocks - the death scenes shot from the cat's point of view using a distorted lens are particularly effective. Arthur Grant's atmospheric black and white camera-work with its use of shadow and Mikos Theodorakis' jumpy score add to the spooky old dark house setting leading up to a shocking climax.Performances are good all round with Warner, Lucus and Godsell suitably shifty and untrustworthy as the good for nothing, self serving relatives while Conrad Philips (William Tell) is standout as the newspaper man who suspects that the family are up to no good from the word go. Andre Morell is good as the villainous Walter Venable although it is far from his best Hammer performance. I personally prefer him as Dr Watson in The Hound Of The Baskervilles or, better still, Sir James Forbes in The Plague Of The Zombies while Barbara Shelley offers a strong performance as a typical Hammer heroine.If the film has any flaws it is that the giggles do occasionally set in when the actors go over the top in their hysterical reaction to the cat. The police inspector (Alan Wheatley) rather neatly sums it up: "Things really come to pass when a cat terrorises a house full of adults."

SHADOW OF THE CAT is well known as being a 'forgotten' Hammer Horror, a movie that was unavailable on home video or DVD for many years until it finally came out last month via a UK DVD release. Having just watched it, I can see why it was 'swept under the carpet' so to speak; it turns out to be one of the company's dullest and silliest affairs.The basic template of SHADOW OF THE CAT is one of those 'old dark house' thrillers, which invariably involves hidden treasure and a bunch of ne'er-do-wells who find themselves at the mercy of a lurking menace. Except the menace in this case is nothing more than a cute cat whose antics in evading the various villains soon becomes tiresome. Andre Morell and Barbara Shelley are the ones mired in this mess, although neither are at their best.The film as a whole has a twee and childish feel. The plotting is very slim and even John Gilling's direction can't do much to lift things. Sure, the crisp black and white photography makes the movie look good and the production values are as decent as you'd expect for a Hammer flick, but that doesn't help when the story is so, well, inadequate. I ended up clock watching throughout which is very unusual given that Hammer was and is my favourite film studio of all time and that I typically love the grand Hammer Horrors of old.

This owes a lot to both Edgar Allan Poe and Hammer Studios . A man murders his wife with the help of his two servants to claim the inheritance quickly realising her cat Tabitha has witnessed the murder and is bent on revenge . It sounds slightly bonkers and it is but Poe in his short story The Black Cat brought a credibility to a macabre story of revenge . THE SHADOW OF THE CAT is much more in keeping with the spirit of Poe compared to the 1930s Universal film starring Karloff and Lugosi which took the title of Poe's story but absolutely nothing else .Alas SHADOW OF THE CAT is a rather mundane melodrama . Andre Morrell can do no wrong in my opinion and realises what sort of film he's appearing in and acts accordingly - by hamming things up every chance he gets including a laugh inducing scene where he's stuck in a cellar and shrieks like a banshee as he fights off an attack by Tabitha . As for the rest of the cast they're very mundane who have little impact in a film with a cheap feel with a rather uninteresting screenplay featuring a cat on a revenge mission . Maybe they could have got Charles Bronson to play Tabitha ?