Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Leofwine_draca 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.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** The planned murder as well as disappearance of Ella Venable, Catherine Lacey, by her butler and maid Andrew and Clara, Andrew Crawford & Freda Jackson, went off with out a hitch with Andrew bashing the elderly women's brains in and with the help of Clara burying her body in and around the swamps outside the Venable family home. The only problem is that Ella's sweet and cuddly cat Tabitha saw them commit the murder and where they buried Ella's body.This all was done under the orders and instructions of Ella's husband Walter, Andre Morell, whom Ella was going to cut out of her will and replace with her niece Beth, Barbara Shelly. It's Beth who among everyone in the Venable can was not obsessed with money and showed genuine love and affection for her aunt. It's in fact Tabitha who starts the ball rolling in avenging her mistress Ella's murder. And in the end she not only has everyone involved, both actively and behind the scenes, pay for their crime but also leads the police to where Ella's was buried in order to have her get a proper as well as Christian burial. That's more then could be said for her victims the entire, with the exception of Beth, Venable clan.Haunted house movie with the one doing the both haunting as well as killing being the family cat Tabitha who looks during the entire movie so cute and harmless that it was hard to believe that she was doing all this carnage. The cat seemed to gather strength as well as invincibility as the movie rolled along making her seem almost ghost-like or supernatural. At first Tabitha seemed a bit confused and in trouble when she was caught in a trap set by Ella's killers that she foolishly got caged in. But it was the bumbling buffoon of a butler Andrew who, by having his head stuck up his behind, let her escape and in trying to recapture her fell into and was swallowed up by the swamp. With Tabitha now free and given a second life, out of the nine that she already has, she went on to the business of finishing the job, of avenging Ella's murder, that she had already started.

Theo Robertson 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 ?

capkronos On a stormy night, elderly Ella Venable (Catherine Lacey) reads aloud a passage from Poe's "The Raven" before a man sneaks up behind her and clubs her over the head. Her body is wrapped up and carried outside as the woman's cat Tabitha, who witnessed the crime, quickly rushes out the door. The victim turns out to be a very wealthy woman who has been trapped in a loveless 30-year marriage to Walter (André Morell), who made no qualms about marrying her for her money. We also learn that her killer, Andrew the butler (Andrew Crawford), as well as the maid, Clara (Freda Jackson) are also in on the murder and have been promised a healthy cut of the inheritance if they play along. Ella's body is buried in a shallow grave somewhere on the property. A few days after the murder, Walter contacts the police to let them know his wife has disappeared. He's also taken provisions to ensure he's left everything in the estate by forging a will. However, the actual will is hidden somewhere in the home and must be found and destroyed before anyone else can get their hands on it. Promptly following Ella's disappearance, several relatives arrive at the home. First up is Ella's beloved niece Elizabeth (Barbara Shelley), who seems to be the only person her dead aunt actually loved. Also coming in for a visit are Walter's brother Edgar (Richard Warner), his sleazy, skirt-chasing son Jacob (William Lucas) and Jacob's smarmy wife Louise (Vanda Godsell). Those three are also in on the murder and, just like the two servants, have been payed off to keep quiet and assist in locating the missing will as well as helping throw off the investigators.So who's going to teach these greedy, murderous, thieving scumbags a lesson? Why Ella's beloved pet puss Tabitha, of course! She makes life a living hell for each of the conspirators; clawing, hissing and causing a general uneasiness and panic amongst them. They all want her captured and killed, which makes them look all the more suspicious to both Elizabeth and the investigators. Hey, it's just a cat, right? But this cat is no ordinary cat. It ignores plates of poisoned meat left around the house and when it's lured into a trap by the tempting treat of live mice, put in a sack and stands the chance of being dunked in the backyard swamp waters, it manages to escape and knock someone into a quicksand bog in the process. The kitty also finds ways to start killing them off one by one; knocking one down a flight of stairs, giving the weak-hearted one in the group a heart attack by rushing at his head and finding other methods of punishing the guilty. Tabitha has plenty of clever tricks up her, uh, paw.Naturally, a film portraying a domesticated animal going about getting revenge for its slain owner by committing premeditated murder is going to be called far-fetched by some, but this is a horror film we're talking about. I don't see why such nonexistent creatures as vampires, zombies and unkillable slasher maniacs who get shot hundreds of times but keep on tickin' are tolerated but people have a hard time accepting a vengeance-minded domestic cat doing the same thing. Any film with fantasy content requires the suspension of disbelief, and this is no different. But the movie is very well done for what it is. The cast is excellent, it's well paced, the Gothic mansion setting is perfect for this kind of material, the cat itself is fun to watch and there's an interesting score from Mikis Theodorakis, which alternates between commanding to almost whimsical. There is also some clever distorted camera-work to represent the cat's point of view.Even though the production company is listed as BHP (who according to IMDb only did two other films), it might as well be considered a Hammer Production. In fact, the director, the writer, the editor, the cinematographer, the production designer, the makeup artist and much of the cast frequently worked for Hammer. It was also filmed at Bray Studios. I don't know if the studio lent its resources out to an independent producer or what, but this definitely has that Hammer feel to it and will probably be appreciated by any fan of their usual films.