[[quoteright:305:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_three_lives_of_thomasina.jpeg]]

''The Three Lives of Thomasina'' is a 1963 British-American Creator/{{Disney}} live-action movie directed by Don Chaffey, about a cat and her influence on a family.

Inveranoch, Scotland, 1912: A young girl named Mary [=MacDhui=] (Karen Dotrice) is devastated when her beloved cat, Thomasina, apparently dies at the hands of her widowed veterinarian father Andrew (Creator/PatrickMcGoohan). The strained relationship between the girl and her father is eventually repaired with the return of Thomasina and the aid of Lori [=MacGregor=] (Creator/SusanHampshire), a beautiful and mysterious "witch" who seems to have powers to revive and heal animals.

[[TheFilmOfTheBook Based on]] the 1957 novel ''Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God'' by Paul Gallico, the film is a surprisingly faithful adaptation, partly because Gallico wrote the screenplay and remained on set as a "special guest".

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!!This movie provides examples of:
* ABoyAndHisX: Mary and her cat Thomasina are very close, leaving the little girl inconsolable after Thomasina's death.
* CatchYourDeathOfCold: Mary catches pneumonia after chasing the amnesiac Thomasina through a rainstorm in the middle of the night. She nearly dies, having [[DeathByDespair lost the will to live]], but when Thomasina finally comes back to her, she recovers.
* CatsHaveNineLives: The title evokes this old wives' tale, although Thomasina herself only "dies" once. Her "first" life is her life with Mary before her NearDeathExperience, her "second" life is her amnesiac period after she revives, and her "third" life is her life after returning to the [=MacDhuis=] [[spoiler: and after Andrew and Lori's marriage]] in the end.
* ChildishBangs: Mary's hairstyle supplies the page image.
* CynicismCatalyst: Dr. Andrew [=MacDhui=] lost his compassion for other people, as well as his belief in God, due to his wife's death.
* DrJerk: Andrew [=MacDhui=] is a jerk veterinarian at the start of the story, putting animals to sleep without even trying to save them first unless a sizable crowd is watching him.
* EmotionsVersusStoicism: Andrew is very much at odds with the village not only because he comes from the city, but because his approach to animal welfare and human interactions contrasts with theirs. He looks at everything from a realist stance, which makes him efficient at his job at the cost of him refusing to see the emotional value of the beings he treats [[spoiler:and unfortunately, his daughter]]. Meanwhile, the village is very close knit and treat both farm and house animals as treasured beings; so when Andrew takes a pragmatic approach to healthcare (euthanizing Mrs. [=MacKenzie=]'s dog of fifteen years, taking a diseased cow and putting it down along with the other cows it was in contact with), they all see him as nothing but an impersonal murderer.
* EverythingsLouderWithBagpipes: The children try to console Mary by giving Thomasina a heroic funeral with mourners[[note]]one little girl who can cry on cue acts as a professional mourner[[/note]] and an honor guard, including little Jamie [=McNabb=] playing "[=MacIntosh=]'s Lament" (with only nine mistakes)[[note]]stated in-universe; the actual tune heard is the staple lament "The Flowers of the Forest"[[/note]] on pibroch. The town constable even stops traffic for the procession and salutes as the bier passes. It's Jamie's piping that begins to wake the cat from her coma, brings Lori out to see what's going on and [[FridgeHorror saves Thomasina from being buried alive]][[note]]In the book she ''was'' buried alive but in a cairn; Lori removes the stones to see what the children had placed there. She whispers "What were they thinking?" as she removes the cat.[[/note]].
* TheFilmOfTheBook: Based on the 1957 novel ''Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God'' by Paul Gallico. Gallico adapted the screenplay for the film himself and remained on set at all times.[[note]]He had a cordial dislike for "The Great God Disney" and declared in his memoirs that he was proud of one of the cats playing Thomasina who'd been trained to do a certain stunt, but wouldn't do it while the cameras were rolling and held up filming for three days.[[/note]]
* FriendToAllLivingThings: "Mad Lori" the witch, with her healing powers.
* GhostAmnesia: A variant with a character BackFromTheDead. After Thomasina revives from her NearDeathExperience, she has no memory of her previous life or her owner Mary. She gets her memories back near the end, though.
* GossipEvolution: Mr. [=MacDhui=]'s reputation in the town takes a nosedive after the boys form an "anti-[=MacDhui=] society" and rumors start to spread that he hates animals and never tries to help them. It even got to the point that Jamie and Hughie tell the townsfolk that Andrew ''shot Thomasina dead himself''.
* InnocentInaccurate: Geordie is a fountain of this. He's even younger than the other children, and subsequently is the one most likely to overhear the adults (since the other children manipulate him into eavesdropping for them). What he hears is filtered through his child's perspective, leading him to conclusions like, "The witch cast a spell on Mr. [=MacDhui=] so he'd help her care for the badger." (Of course, given [=MacDhui=]'s reputation for ruthlessness, Geordie could think it would ''take'' a spell to get him to do such a thing.)
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold:
** Extremely downplayed with Hughie Stirling. He's bossy and a bit of a BigBrotherBully, but he also comes up with the idea to have a funeral for Thomasina because he genuinely wants to make Mary feel better, and he gives the eulogy himself.
** Andrew [=MacDhui=] is a coldly pragmatic DrJerk through much of the movie, but he he has a FreudianExcuse in that his dreams of being a "real" doctor were thwarted by his own stern father and later he lost his [[TheLostLenore beloved wife]], and he truly loves his daughter, though his LackOfEmpathy hurts her. Ultimately he softens and finds SecondLove with Lori.
* JerkassRealization: For most of the movie, Dr. [=MacDhui=] genuinely cannot understand why his daughter would be upset that her pet was euthanized ''by him''. It's not until Mary gets pneumonia that he realizes how much he's hurt her.
* LazilyGenderFlippedName: Explanation for the titular cat's name. The family pet was originally called Thomas, and they added the feminine suffix ''-ina'' when they realized she's a she. It's hilarious that this mix-up occurred with a cat who lived in a veterinarian's home.
-->'''Thomasina:''' They started out by calling me Thomas, but when they, um, got to know me better, they changed it to Thomasina.
* MissingMom: Mary's mother died in an epidemic, when she tended the sick and caught the disease herself. Her death is the reason why Andrew lost his faith in God and became such a stern pragmatist.
* MotherNatureFatherScience: Lori and Andrew's approaches to animal healing, respectively. Andrew is a professionally trained veterinarian, relies on the latest medical knowledge and know-how to treat most animals, and when a solution isn't found he'll euthanize the affected. Meanwhile, Lori isn't trained at all, but she's treated all of the wild animals near her home and all of them made strong recoveries just by her nurturing and letting nature do the healing for her.
* NearDeathExperience: After Thomasina is seriously injured and Andrew euthanizes her, she finds herself in a cat heaven resembling an Egyptian temple, where hundreds of cats surround the Egyptian cat-goddess Bast. Just as she gazes into the goddess's eyes, she returns to her body on earth.
* PetTheDog: Despite his reputation, Andrew is not quite a heartless vet. He ensures old Mrs. [=MacKenzie=] that her beloved dog will be euthanized painlessly and doesn't even charge her for it, spends a whole day treating Bruce's seeing eye dog successfully, and does take the time to properly treat the badger left at Lori's house despite his concerns with it being rabid.
* PetDressUp: The title character (a cat) is dressed up by her owner, a girl called Mary, in an early scene. [[BookEnds This comes back in the finale]], as Mary once again dresses up Thomasina [[spoiler:for her father and Lori's wedding]].
* PoorCommunicationKills: When talking to Lori, Andrew only refers to Thomasina as "a pet" without saying her name or that she was a cat. Lori has no reason to connect Andrew to the cat she found and healed. Therefore neither of them realize that Mary's "dead" cat has been living with Lori this entire time until the climax, when Lori calls Thomasina by name.
* POVBoyPosterGirl: Thomasina is the frontmost character on the movie poster and the one who the book and movie is named after, but she isn't quite the main character of the narrative. Andrew, Lori, the boys, and Mary are the real stars, while Thomasina (in the movie, at least) only has occasional moments of focus.
* ThePowerOfLove: This is what ultimately saves Thomasina, as well as both Andrew and Mary.
* RoguishRomani: In the latter half of the film, a Romani circus comes near the village. Contrast to Andrew's cold pragmatism in animal treatment and Lori's nurturing nature, ringleader Targu and his employees [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals all treat their animals cruelly]]--their bear has a bad foot, their horses are overworked, and by the time Lori comes to see the animals all their dogs are whining and pleading to be let out. They don't treat the locals any better, with some young performers wrestling Georgie and his friends while they and the women all whip and taunt Lori for being a "witch" and trying to free their animals.
* SecondLove: [[spoiler:Lori, for Andrew. They are married by the end of the film. It's implied that Lori lost her husband or lover early in life as well, perhaps in war.]]
* SettingUpdate: The source novel was written and set in the 1950s, but the movie takes place in 1912.
* ShownTheirWork: Gallico knew his Egyptian mythology. In the second part of the book Thomasina believes she is Sekhmet-Bast-Ra, a reincarnated cat goddess. (All you see of this in the film is the Cat Heaven scene.) As she observes the humans and their actions, she believes she is controlling their destiny (and who's to say she is not? The Egyptians did believe that cats were capable of redirecting human destiny and even controlling the movements of the moon. Gallico clearly knew this. There's a touch of MaybeMagicMaybeMundane throughout this entire sequence). When Andrew falls to his knees and cries out to God for forgiveness, he doesn't know that Sekhmet-Bast-Ra is up in the tree directly over his head and thinks he is addressing ''her''. Perhaps he is.
* SilentTreatment: Mary stops speaking to her father after the death of Thomasina. She refuses to acknowledge he's even there, and confesses to the minister that she's murdered him. In the book, her silence increases over time, until she's not speaking ''at all'', becoming an ElectiveMute, willing to die herself.
* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: Dr. [=MacDhui=]'s entire worldview before meeting Lori.
* SlidingScaleOfAnimalCommunication: Between Levels 3 and 4. Thomasina is a normal, non-speaking cat, but the film is narrated from her first-person perspective in voiceover.
* YourTomcatIsPregnant: A non-pregnancy variation of this is the reason for the titular cat's name. She was originally called Thomas because they thought the cat was a tom-cat -- until they "got to know [her] better."[[note]]Most orange cats are male so the mistake was a natural one.[[/note]]
* WellDoneSonGuy: Andrew. He never wanted to be a veterinarian (he wanted to be a doctor), but his father was a vet and apparently didn't give him much choice in the matter.
* WidowsWeeds: Mary wears black clothes to the funeral. In the book, she continues to wear mourning, draping her shawl over her head.
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