Starring: Black Tom

Directed by: Raoul Walsh

Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!

Synopsis: Ace fighter pilot Major Ed Hardin (Edmond O’Brien), finds himself promoted to the head of his group where he must reconcile his dislike for authority with the need to lead and protect his men.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealers): Sgt. James F. Dolan (Tom D’Andrea) has an ongoing scheme in which he utilizes his flunky friend Pvt. Wilbur (Bill McLean) to keep on hand a collection of black cats. When Dolan returns to base at the beginning of the film he asks Wilbur to release another cat. Wilbur explains that he only has one cat left on hand and it has a white paw. “Well, blacken it up!” Dolan suggests. Sure enough shortly after Dolan goes in to see Brig. Gen. Mel Gilbert (Shepperd Strudwick) the black cat walks through the door.

Gilbert knows the flying men are superstitious about black cats and thinks this is just one persistant cat which keeps coming back. He orders Dolan to drive the cat off base, even further away than the time before. This is Dolan’s scheme to get off base whenever he likes.

Dolan returns to his jeep and Wilbur places the cat in a satchel before Dolan drives off.

Dolan drives until he sees a pretty girl and stops, opening the bag and releasing the cat. “Pussy, you go that way. I’m going this way.” Dolan heads for the girl and the cat walks in the opposite direction.

Cat Cattle Call: Later in the film Dolan picks up a bag of black cats from a local man. Back on the base he and Wilbur dump the poor confused kitties into a space below the floorboard. In a later scene the men are kept awake by the caterwauling of the kitties fighting in their enclosed space. Dolan instructs Wilbur to drop a fish in with them, which Wilbur keeps under his mattress.

As the men are getting ready to fly a mission they are shocked to see a black cat sitting on one of the parachutes.

They order Dolan to take it even further away this time. “Take it to London!” one man insists. “Yes, sir!” Dolan agrees gladly.

After the mission goes extremely well the men decide the cat was good luck for them. Dolan brings them a black cat wearing a ribbon.

“You’re sure it’s the same one?” one flyer asks (played by a very young Rock Hudson!) Dolan assures them it is the same good luck kitty.

The cat is so beloved now the men don’t even mind holding and petting him.

Dolan has his comeuppance when a large group of angry women swarm the base, complaining about their mistreatment by the womanizer. One elderly woman (Hallene Hill) is among the group and complains, “What about my daughter’s cat?” “I didn’t take Sybil’s cat!” Dolan insists. Just before she leaves the woman adds, “It was the best cat we ever had!” Dolan is thrown in a cell and there Maj. Sanford (Arthur Space) visits him, depositing a bag of black cats at his feet.

The Major then orders Wilbur, who is now Sgt. Wilbur, to take one of the cats to Sybil’s mother with the General’s compliments.

The good luck cat has one last appearance as the men plan to take part in D-Day. One pilot has an air mask on the cat’s face and says he plans to take the cat up with them. This is the last time any cats are seen in the movie.

Behind the Scenes

While actor Tom D’Andrea and the black cats offered up the comedy relief in this otherwise dramatic war film, the care for the cats was no laughing matter to one devoted woman, as explained in an article (likely taken from a press release for the film) by Lowell E. Redelings, Motion Picture Editor, in his column The Hollywood Scene published in the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News on November 29, 1948:

    By way of the unusual, today you’re going to meet up with a “cat woman.”
    At every studio, you see, there are experts in everything from classic art to small animals. During the filming of “Fighter Squadron” at Warner Bros., cats became quite a problem. William Huber, a “small-animal agent,” supplied the trained black tabby, a stand-in, and some “atmosphere” kitties for the film, but it was Mrs. Mary W. Riley, long-time wardrobe department employee, who was most concerned over the cats in “Fighter Squadron.”
    For many years Mrs. Riley had undertaken personally to see that all the cats on the Warner lot are fed and cared for. Their number varies, as cats will, from 15 to 35. When the cat problem of the picture was first discussed, she thought she could provide enough from the studio’s own stock.
    “But it developed that only black cats were wanted,” she recalls, “and there weren’t enough to fill the need. In fact, most of our cats are grey or tortoise-shell.”

    So Lee Sheldon, animal man of the studio, enlisted the aid of Huber, who furnishes small animals for pictures. But Mrs. Riley, a cat champion always, stood by to make sure those cats were treated as well as the cats which make the studio buildings their home.
    “The real actor among those cats,” she reports, “was a gentle black Tom, not too old or fat to look like one of the half-wild cats needed for the story. Black cats are much alike in England, France, or Hollywood and this fellow had been trained to stand still for lights, camera noises, and crowds of people.
    “He had a ‘stand-in,’ just as human actors have these days, so that his nerves were saved the wear and tear or rehearsals and delays in set ups on the stages.
    “A bit of ‘Fighter Squadron’ is actual combat footage made over England and the Continent before and on D Day, but nearly all of the cat sequences were filmed right here in Burbank, where Edmund O’Brien, Robert Stack, John Rodney, and Tom D’Andrea were on hand to work with the animals.
    “One black cat was used for scenes made at Oscoda, Mich., at an Army air field there. For that the company rented a black cat from one of the youngsters hanging around the set. Black cats look more or less alike. In the picture, when I finally saw it, I couldn’t tell where the Michigan cat ended and the trained cat began.”
    Mrs. Riley is known on the Warner lot for her “way” with cats. They seem to know she is a friend and she can quiet an obstreperous feline with a few soft-spoken words and a kindly stroke of its fur. She wasn’t on hand, however, the day Edmund O’Brien rescued the stand-in cat, who was neither as good-humored or as well trained as the principal actor cat, from a police dog.
    That cat became frightened and clawed O’Brien’s face on the left side so badly that he was compelled to work for two or three days with only this right cheek visible to the camera.
    Thanks to Huber and Mrs. Riley’s almost constant standby attention, the cats in “Fighter Squadron” were kept happy, well fed, and purring. The yowling which is heard — but not seen — in the picture, was sound-effect film fitted into the picture where needed. It was recorded some years ago by an energetic sound-effects man who decided to record the noise around his house on Spring nights if he couldn’t stop it.
    “Although men usually claim they dislike cats,” says Mrs. Riley, “I noticed they were popular with the cast just the same. Mr. McLean, who played the role of Wilbur, and had to handle them a lot, nearly always had one on his lap when I was on the set. Henry Hull seemed to like them around, too.”
    The “kitty” for the kitties ran into real money. A trained cat earns $15 a day and his trainer gets $25 daily in addition. The stand-in earned $10 and the others, which worked less days, earned $7.50 daily each.
    In Mrs. Riley’s opinion, they were worth it. And certainly many comedy scenes in “Fighter Squadron” can be credited to Black Tom, his stand-in, and the six “atmosphere kitties.”

Final Mewsings: A bag of black cats may be good luck for some but is bad luck for the poor cats!

Many thanks to Brian H., Jon Kennedy and Aaron Shuster for reminding us about the cats in this film.

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