by Mark Murton

Starring: Lininsore Sheba

Director: Lance Comfort

This review contains a Kitty Carnage Warning!

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

Synopsis: Bedelia Carrington (Margaret Lockwood) is honeymooning happily in Monte Carlo with her husband Charlie (Ian Hunter) when they encounter a cultivated young artist, Ben Chaney (Barry K. Barnes), who takes rather too much interest in Bedelia, but for good reason.

Calendar Cat: The first sighting of a cat is on the calendar hanging in reception at the hotel where Chaney is staying.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): The Carringtons meanwhile are staying at the decidedly more upmarket Hotel Imperial where Bedelia is seen reclining on the bed in their room cuddling a Siamese kitten which we learn she calls “Topaz.”

She expresses her desire to take the kitten back to England with her.

She offers to buy it from the chambermaid, Minette (Yvonne Andre), who is distressed at the idea. Charlie points out that Bedelia can’t take the kitten with them and hands it back to a relieved Minette.

Featured Feline: On their return to England the couple arrive at the Carrington family home where Bedelia is introduced to the house staff as well as Carrington’s secretary Ellen (Anne Crawford) who presents Bedelia with a Siamese cat.

Ellen tells Bedelia the cat’s name is “Araminta” but Bedelia immediately declares she’s going to call her “Topaz”.

Contented, Bedelia tells Carrington she loves her new home.

Chaney, who started painting a portrait of the camera-shy Bedelia in France, has accepted their invitation to visit them in their Yorkshire home enabling him to keep observing Bedelia at close quarters. When Carrington mysteriously falls ill Chaney manipulates the situation to get a nurse of his own choosing appointed. The nurse, Harris (Jill Esmond), is charged with giving Carrington round the clock care, much to Bedelia’s chagrin. When the housekeeper Mary (Beatrice Varley) tries to present a package from the chemist to Bedelia Harris quickly intercepts it, insisting all medicines are to come straight to her.

As Carrington starts to recover he and Ellen are sitting discussing work while Bedelia stands nearby cuddling Topaz.

Bedelia goes to sit with them and soon after Chaney arrives to ask Bedelia when she is going to sit for him again.

As Chaney continues his snooping Bedelia begs Carrington to take her away from the house.

She insists that she now hates living there, much to Charlie’s surprise and consternation.

As the story moves towards its climax, Chaney (now revealed as a private investigator looking into the mysterious death of Bedelia’s former husbands, all of whom had left her sizable insurance payouts) has uncovered a witness who can confirm Bedelia’s true identity. Realising she is about to be exposed Bedelia sees an opportunity presented by the housekeeper Mary returning from the village with some salmon which is to be collected for Chaney and his guest for their supper and makes her way to the kitchen where Topaz is helping herself to the cream from the coffee tray.

Bedelia quickly dismisses Mary by sending her to clean Carrington’s room. Topaz is still hanging around the kitchen as evidenced by her tail.

Alone in the kitchen — apart from Topaz who has her own interest in the fish! — Bedelia quickly poisons the fish, rewraps it and returns it to the basket. However, Carrington has been watching through the window and confronts her about what she was doing. Meanwhile, Topaz has dragged the fish package from the basket.

At first denying any wrongdoing Bedelia’s attitude changes dramatically when she spies Topaz tucking into the fish.

Kitty Carnage Warning! Bedelia begs Carrington to get the fish away from Topaz, and in the process he finds the bottle of poison still clutched in her hand. But it’s too late as Topaz quickly expires before their eyes. Actually the cat actor was filmed in the midst of a roll over and the footage was reversed to make it appear Topaz was having spasms. If you look closely you can even see the shadow of the trainer’s hand directing the roll.

Behind the Scenes

The British Topaz was played by a two-year old show cat named Linsinore Sheba, a stunning beauty owned by Irene Ellis. Linsinore Tien, Sheba’s mother, acted as Sheba’s stand-in (and also co-starred with Alistair Sim in Hue and Cry.) The kitten in Monte Carlo was Sheba’s own four month old offspring.

A series of publicity photos showed Sheba on set during the making of the movie.

One newspaper correspondent named Chanticleer wrote about meeting Sheba in their Notebook column on October 15, 1946 as published in the Daily Herald:

    Among all the other yowling and spitting competitors at a show of Siamese cats in London yesterday the only serene and unmoved one was Linsinore Sheba, who sat contemptuously upon her pure white cushion, and stared at me with bored blue eyes.

    The reason? Sheba is accustomed to the antics of humans. She starred in a film made by those odd creatures. “Bedelia,” they called it, and there was somebody else in it by the name of Margaret Lockwood.
    Sheba still gets a big [amount of] fan-mail. She had to pretend to die of poisoning in the film, and she did it so well that her owner, Irene Ellis, is still assuring agitated correspondents that the cat was not really poisoned.
    In fact, Sheba found film-work so simple that she has recommended it to the family. Her mother, Linsinore Tien, has taken it up now, at at the age of eight, in a film called “Hue and Cry,” in which one of the lesser human actors is called Alistair Sim, or some such name.

It’s apparent that working with the cats made a lasting impression on Margaret Lockwood. An April 16, 1949 article in The Illustrated Leicester Chronicle by Douglas Goodlad mentioned that the actress owned a Siamese cat named Bedelia.

Final Mewsings: Even the most heartless man-killer cannot stand to kill a cat.

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