by Linda Kay
Directed by: David Mickey Evans
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: This sad attempt to try to recreate the spark of the original Sandlot movie is set in the year 1972, ten years after the events in the last film took place and follows the basic steps of the first film, only this time with girls included.
Cat Burglars (Scene Stealers): Having chased off space-enthusiast Johnnie Smalls (James Wilson) after he launches one of his model rockets in the lot, the boys end up in the yard of Hayley Goodfairer (Samantha Burton) who will eventually turn out to have a mean pitching arm. As she protects Smalls by demanding the other boys leave her yard, she picks up a longhair tabby and white cat named Miss Susan B. (after Susan B. Anthony, since Hayley and her mother are both feminists).
The boys realize the rocket has set their clubhouse on fire and beg Hayley to borrow her hose. Eventually she agrees.
Hayley and Smalls watch the boys attempt to put out the fire as she tells Smalls to return the next day, explaining that since she saved his life he has to do whatever she says.
The leader of the boys, David Durango (Max Lloyd-Jones) has a crush on Hayley and watches as she returns to her yard with the kitty.
Later in the film when the boys are trying to retrieve Hayley’s father’s space shuttle model from the yard of “The Great Fear” (the same kind of scary dog as in the first movie), Hayley’s friends come up with the idea of using Miss Susan B. They hook the cat into a sling to ride across to the shuttle with the idea that she will hook the rocket with her claws and bring it back once the dog adequately scares her.
This of course does not go as planned and the dog comes face to face with the poor cat.
We see fur flying and when they reel in Miss Susan B. she is a hairless Sphynx cat.
The animal coordinator on the film was Bonnie Judd from Canine Co-Stars of Canada Ltd. The animal trainers were Ashley Suttle and Ryan Judd.
Final Mewsings: Even back then using a Sphynx for this kind of joke was already getting old.
Many thanks to Ricco for letting us know about the cats in this film!
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