A devoted feline is the sole witness to the murder of wealthy, aged eccentric Ella Venable (Catherine Lacey, "The Sorcerers"). Among the guilty who participate in the killing & disposal of the body are Ella's husband Walter (Andre Morell, "Cash on Demand"), and the staff. The cat thereafter seems to make it its mission to drive the evildoers insane with guilt.
And the villains here do practically nothing but act guilty at every turn. Naturally, some people are suspicious of them, including young niece Beth (the lovely Barbara Shelley, "Village of the Damned") and crusading newspaperman Michael Latimer (Conrad Phillips, "Circus of Horrors"). Walter, the butler Andrew (Andrew Crawford, "Bitter Victory") and the maid Clara (Freda Jackson, "Clash of the Titans") spend a lot of their time being terrorized by the cat.
Basically a Hammer film (which had to use an alias due to a legal technicality), this uses a lot of the standard and reliable Hammer pros: production designer Bernard Robinson, art director Don Mingaye, supervising editor James Needs, makeup artist Roy Ashton, etc. Overall, it's watchable, reasonably entertaining stuff, although it ultimately comes off as minor fare, devoted as it is to watching a very fine British cast spend the running time fretting over a cat (to which the guilty parties have assigned demonic qualities). Morell, Shelley, Phillips, et al. All make this a better film than it would have been in lesser hands. (The director, John Gilling, went on to do such other Hammer films as "The Pirates of Blood River", "The Plague of the Zombies", "The Reptile", and "The Mummy's Shroud".). Most amusing of all are the "cat p.o.v. Shots", which are enough of a gimmick to lend this a somewhat fresh perspective.
"The Shadow of the Cat" is not great at all, but it's certainly not bad. It was written by George Baxt, who'd previously concocted a superior British genre movie, "The City of The Dead".
Six out of 10.
And the villains here do practically nothing but act guilty at every turn. Naturally, some people are suspicious of them, including young niece Beth (the lovely Barbara Shelley, "Village of the Damned") and crusading newspaperman Michael Latimer (Conrad Phillips, "Circus of Horrors"). Walter, the butler Andrew (Andrew Crawford, "Bitter Victory") and the maid Clara (Freda Jackson, "Clash of the Titans") spend a lot of their time being terrorized by the cat.
Basically a Hammer film (which had to use an alias due to a legal technicality), this uses a lot of the standard and reliable Hammer pros: production designer Bernard Robinson, art director Don Mingaye, supervising editor James Needs, makeup artist Roy Ashton, etc. Overall, it's watchable, reasonably entertaining stuff, although it ultimately comes off as minor fare, devoted as it is to watching a very fine British cast spend the running time fretting over a cat (to which the guilty parties have assigned demonic qualities). Morell, Shelley, Phillips, et al. All make this a better film than it would have been in lesser hands. (The director, John Gilling, went on to do such other Hammer films as "The Pirates of Blood River", "The Plague of the Zombies", "The Reptile", and "The Mummy's Shroud".). Most amusing of all are the "cat p.o.v. Shots", which are enough of a gimmick to lend this a somewhat fresh perspective.
"The Shadow of the Cat" is not great at all, but it's certainly not bad. It was written by George Baxt, who'd previously concocted a superior British genre movie, "The City of The Dead".
Six out of 10.