Directed by: Gottfried Reinhardt
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: Two American airmen, Captain Hank Wilson (Robert Redford) and Sergeant Lucky Finder (Michael Connors), find themselves in German territory during World War II where a lonely air raid warden named Wilhelm Frick (Alec Guinness) offers them shelter . . . with a catch.
Cat Cattle Call: Frick is giving his calico cat Mitzi and her kittens some milk in his cellar bomb shelter when her distracted attention alerts him to the two airmen hiding nearby.
Frick locks the men in his cellar and keeps them there. At first it is just Mitzi and her kittens which live there with the airmen.
Frick is close to Mitzi who sits in his lap upstairs and stands nearby while Frick is cooking.
As time passes, more cats appear. They can be seen in the background during many scenes of the film.
Neglecting to tell Wilson and Finder that the war ended shortly after he captured them, he keeps them around for company. The cats continue to multiply and eventually there are many different sizes and shapes of cats living with them.
Wilson even prods a cat who is hiding under a folded book to jump off his table.
Oddly enough the cats never seem to be around when the action gets a little rowdy in the cellar. In one scene when Wilson and Finder get into a fight, no cats are seen except one insert shot of a kitten looking unimpressed.
The exponential increase in the number of cats shows just how much time the men have passed in their dungeon.
Final Mewsings: If one has to be a prisoner, sharing it with countless cats is the way to go.
Many thanks to Ted Davis for letting us know about the cats in this film!
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