Put simply, That Darn Cat! (modern movies need more gratuitous exclamation marks in their names) is everything you might feasibly expect out of a comedy film where the right cat at the right time becomes the FBI's only lead in a bank robbery/kidnapping case. The scene where the main FBI dude, whom I can only assume to be a distant relative of Dale Cooper, deadpannedly briefs his fellow agents with a giant full-body shot of our lovable Siamese hero reaching out to grab some plaything is the stuff of comedy legend.
As you'd expect from '60s Disney-produced live action, it's clean, wholesome, and humorous to a fault, but it's decidedly not toothless. They're not shy about telling us outright that our hard-boiled villains will kill their hostage if anyone makes a false move. Oh, and one of said villains happens to be Frank Gorshin, pretty much making this part of The Riddler's formative years in my '60s Batman headcanon. Judging by his relationship with Catwoman though, I didn't expect him to be such a cat lover. The mind boggles! Anyway...
Set to an awesome noirish jazz score played relatively straight, it's rather impressive how it swings between genuinely thrilling crime story and over-the-top slapstick. It doesn't dumb things down for its intended demographic as you might expect. Hell, there's even some light social commentary in there... but, please conveniently ignore that WD was a prime mover of the surfing craze the film light-heartedly denigrates.
Apropos to nothing, there's also a Rich Idiot with No Day Job who is obviously secretly a deranged serial killer. Nobody who raises pigeons, fires his shotgun at the drop of a hat, and talks incessantly about a mother we never get to see (who is, undoubtedly, a taxidermized corpse at this point) is ever not a serial killer. Yes, the whole cat kidnapping story is just a ploy to throw our attention off this deep, dark subplot. Well played, Diz.
It's entertaining in more ways than one, and thankfully doesn't let the titular cat become an annoying spotlight-stealer the entire plot revolves around like such a movie would inevitably do today. Though the subject of a few outdated jokes that certainly wouldn't fly today, it carries itself with the confident grace of, well... a cat. Hearty laughs will be had by all.
Film "Who is the FBI informant? The cat is the FBI informant! How can this be?"
Put simply, That Darn Cat! (modern movies need more gratuitous exclamation marks in their names) is everything you might feasibly expect out of a comedy film where the right cat at the right time becomes the FBI's only lead in a bank robbery/kidnapping case. The scene where the main FBI dude, whom I can only assume to be a distant relative of Dale Cooper, deadpannedly briefs his fellow agents with a giant full-body shot of our lovable Siamese hero reaching out to grab some plaything is the stuff of comedy legend.
As you'd expect from '60s Disney-produced live action, it's clean, wholesome, and humorous to a fault, but it's decidedly not toothless. They're not shy about telling us outright that our hard-boiled villains will kill their hostage if anyone makes a false move. Oh, and one of said villains happens to be Frank Gorshin, pretty much making this part of The Riddler's formative years in my '60s Batman headcanon. Judging by his relationship with Catwoman though, I didn't expect him to be such a cat lover. The mind boggles! Anyway...
Set to an awesome noirish jazz score played relatively straight, it's rather impressive how it swings between genuinely thrilling crime story and over-the-top slapstick. It doesn't dumb things down for its intended demographic as you might expect. Hell, there's even some light social commentary in there... but, please conveniently ignore that WD was a prime mover of the surfing craze the film light-heartedly denigrates.
Apropos to nothing, there's also a Rich Idiot with No Day Job who is obviously secretly a deranged serial killer. Nobody who raises pigeons, fires his shotgun at the drop of a hat, and talks incessantly about a mother we never get to see (who is, undoubtedly, a taxidermized corpse at this point) is ever not a serial killer. Yes, the whole cat kidnapping story is just a ploy to throw our attention off this deep, dark subplot. Well played, Diz.
It's entertaining in more ways than one, and thankfully doesn't let the titular cat become an annoying spotlight-stealer the entire plot revolves around like such a movie would inevitably do today. Though the subject of a few outdated jokes that certainly wouldn't fly today, it carries itself with the confident grace of, well... a cat. Hearty laughs will be had by all.