by Linda Kay

English Translation: Autopsy of a Ghost

Directed by: Ismael Rodríguez

Synopsis: This wild Mexican horror slapstick comedy finds Satan (John Carradine) offering redemption to a condemned soul Canuto Pérez (Basil Rathbone) if he can find a woman who will love him enough to sacrifice her life for him.

Cat Cattle Call: As the complicated a completely bizarre plot winds down to its confusing conclusion, the entire cast is inside the house of ghosts trying to find a large sum of money stolen from a bank earlier in the film by an employee named Pompin (Pompín Iglesias). Pompin’s Aunt Vitola (Famie Kaufman), her husband and their son Chabelo (Javier López) are the ones who convinced him commit the robbery and are among those looking for the money at the hotel. The three start to actually torture other people to force them to reveal the location of the money, including a lawyer named Pinedo (Pancho Córdova) whom they hired. They lock the man in an iron box and give him the “cute rat” treatment, picking up cats and sticking them in a hole in the side of the container, much to the man’s apparent discomfort. Five cats in all are inserted. In a later shot the man is shown screaming out as the cats are heard meowing. At the end of the film, Pinedo has gone crazy, running around barking like a dog and saying how much he hates cats.

Final Mewsings: The cats probably only signed on for this film to work with Rathbone and Carradine, then didn’t even get to share a scene with them!

Many thanks to M2 Labs for letting us know about the cats in this film.

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