by Linda Kay
English Title: My Husband the Ghost
Directed by: Camillo Mastrocinque
This review contains a mild Kitty Carnage Warning for scruffing!
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: Gianni Alberti (Walter Chiari) is a journalist whose job hangs by a thread when he misses out on a huge story while his wife, Vivia (Mady Saint-Michel) is having great success as a designer and has even remodeled their apartment into a fashion showroom. When Gianni is assigned to travel to post-war Palestine, Vivia concocts a plan whereby he will disappear and they will capitalize on his miraculous return. Of course things don’t go exactly as plan when he does indeed return . . . as a ghost.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): In the early half of this Italian screwball comedy, Gianni keeps trying to explain to Vivia how his love for her makes him feel, comparing the sensation to a box in his chest with a cat inside scratching to get out. He makes this analogy several times. At the airport when he is preparing to leave for Palestine, one of Vivia’s models, Maria Blonde (Jole Fierro), unwraps a cloth to reveal an adorable white kitten. She explains she wanted to get him a gift and she had heard he wanted a cat. Someone else suggests the kitten could be a mascot for Gianni.
Gianni takes the kitten with him as he boards the plane, eventually tucking the tiny creature inside the breast pocket of his jacket.
Once in Palestine, we don’t see the kitten again until Gianni has settled into the quarters where he will be staying. Then he pulls the kitten from a pouch.
He carries the kitten and eventually places the tiny baby in his hat which he sets aside, scruffing the kitty briefly to do so.
In a later scene Gianni is again scruffing the kitten as he plays with him, but apart from this he is very gentle with the kitty.
After sending back some less-than-accurate articles about the area, Gianni sets his plan in motion to disappear. But while he is faking his own death he is captured by a group of Arabs who take him to their caliph (Franco Coop). As one of his captors removes various items from Gianni’s sleeves, naming each as it is revealed, the man pulls back startled. Gianni reaches in and pulls out the kitty, proclaiming, “Gatto!”
The caliph sends the other men away and once they are alone Gianni is shocked to realize the man is actually an Italian posing as a caliph to keep from being executed.
They sit down to a large helping of spaghetti and they even offer some to the kitty.
The caliph offers to help fake the death of Gianni but things go badly and while the caliph and his servant woman Fatima (Agnese Dubbini) mourn over Gianni’s seemingly lifeless body they even show the kitty what has happened to his companion.
The kitty does not show up again until the very end of the film. We don’t want to spoil the fun, so needless to say things work out okay and Gianni has the kitten with him when he disembarks.
The cat is shown once more, this time older and with an apparent mate, inside a basket on a lawn.
Final Mewsings: Cats have nine lives but thankfully Gianni had at least two!
Many thanks to Nick Wale for letting us know about the cat in this film.
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