That Darn Cat!

Release Date: December 2, 1965

Watch Date: July 12 – July 14, 2024

“When the irrepressible and always hungry D.C. (Darn Cat) turns up with a wristwatch for a collar, it becomes a tip-off to an unresolved robbery and kidnapping. You don’t know who’s tailing who as nosy neighbors, jealous boyfriends, and a highly allergic FBI agent play a game of cat and mouse to crack the baffling case.”

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   We’re not going to see Hayley Mills again, which is sad, but we are going to be seeing a lot more of Dean Jones and that makes me very, very happy. I don’t know why, but I just think he’s so much fun as an actor, and I may not love every film he’s in, but I love him in every film he’s in. So finally getting to the Dean Jones era of Disney films is just so fantastic.

   Unfortunately, despite having two Disney legends in the film, and another actor playing Gregory who I quite enjoy from a future Disney film we’ll watch, this is one of those movies where I love the actors, and not so much the movie as a whole.

   The concept is interesting, but the execution is sort of boring. Cat goes out at night and gets up to hijinks and humans also get up to hijinks trying to follow the cat. Patti, Hayley Mills, is interested in Dean Jones, but he ends up interested in her sister who shows some interest but honestly very little up until the end, and I suppose a romance is implied in the final two minutes but there’s no actual conflict there as Patti goes right back to her normal boyfriend whose not really a boyfriend.

   Meanwhile the criminals keep referencing actually killing this terrified woman whose stuck in an apartment with them. Which feels a little hardcore for a Disney film and really doesn’t match the tone of ‘chasing cat around the neighborhood’. I mean, they even talk about where to dispose her body, which is pretty dark in what – for the most part – has been a light, classic, Disney comedy.

   There’s just too many subplots. You’ve got the FBI agents chasing the cat, while Patti tries to impress the FBI agent, while her sister Ingrid is just trying to keep her carpool with Gregory, who is clearly in love with her but also wants to kill the cat, and Canoe, Patti’s boyfriend, is getting suspicious that he’s being cheated on? So he starts following her, and then you’ve got the criminals trying to decide what to do with their kidnap victim, and the victim trying to notify someone from the outside world as to her location, plus you’ve got an old nosy neighbor from next door who is fighting with her husband who won’t let her spy on the two women next door while their parents are away, and the husband who eventually calls the cops on her.

   Do you see what I’m saying? It’s a lot to keep track of, and it’s all mostly strung together by this cat that goes out at 9pm every night and tries to siphon food off of everyone.

   Still, it’s the end of one era and the beginning of a new one, and I am excited for the Dean Jones movies to come, though I’ll miss Hayley Mills. I cannot recommend her autobiography enough if you want to know what working with the Disney company, and Walt Disney himself, was like in this decade. We’re midway through the 60s, and we’ve had plenty of hits, and some definite misses, so let’s see what the future holds as we continue.

   At least until Avenger’s August.