by Ted Davis

Directed by: Lloyd Bacon

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

Synopsis: In this genial mystery comedy, three overly precocious youngsters – Dinah (Peggy Ann Garner), April (Connie Marshall) and little go-getter Archie (Dean Stockwell), the offspring of widowed mystery writer Marian Carstairs (Lynn Bari) – become involved in a neighborhood murder, and deserve a good spanking for lying about it to affable Lieutenant Bill Smith (Randolph Scott) and the more prickly and wised-up Sergeant O’Hare (James Gleason).

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): Archie takes a breakfast offering of bacon to Henderson, the family’s long haired tabby cat, but the complaining feline rejects it outright, with her impressive tail held high in contempt.

A moment later, April joins the pair on the back stoop and suggests that Henderson’s pregnancy has made her finicky.

Later, while Henderson is dining beside them, Archie explains to O’Hare that the cat is not a Persian Cat, but a Spanish Cat because she was born in Spain. The Sergeant receives this information with skepticism, as he does with all communications delivered by the Carstairs brats.

When Smith enters the Carstairs kitchen during their dinner preparations, April rushes to scoop up Henderson from underneath the table for fear that the lieutenant will be angry because she’d earlier bombed Sgt. O’Hare by dropping the cat on his face from the vantage of a tree limb. (This painful incident is not shown in the movie.)

The amiable Smith assures April that his intentions are peaceful, responding, “Your cat won’t have nine lives If you keep dropping him from trees.” She relaxes and releases Henderson back onto the kitchen floor.

Henderson is also caricatured during the opening credits, along with the rest of the family.

Final Mewsings: Cats would prefer not to drop in unexpectedly on the police.

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