by Mark Murton
Directed by: David Eady
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: Businessman and inventor Richard Hammond (John Gregson) is obsessed with developing and marketing the perfect light-bulb. A freak lab accident leaves him blind and bitter at life. His wife, business partner and brother take him away to his country house to recuperate, but Hammond starts to suspect all is not what it seems.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): In the country house Hammond is negotiating his way around when he hears a cat’s cry. He bends down to stroke the animal and then picks it up, happy to encounter “Sally” the black cat from the village shop who is a regular visitor to the house.
He talks to her and strokes her gently until he realises she doesn’t have a tail.
Shouting for the maid Janet (Nanette Newman) he demands to know what colour the cat is and when she informs him it’s tabby he angrily hurls it away. The cat leaves deep scratches on his hand. At this point his wife comes into the room and dismisses his concerns by telling him Sally was run over just before they arrived and she didn’t want to upset him with the news.
Some time later, the increasingly paranoid Hammond is awoken in the early hours by a noise in his room and is convinced someone is in there with him. He feels his way around, demanding the interloper identify themselves. Again there is a cat’s cry and the tabby cat is seen playing with the flex to a lamp. (In actuality it appears to be a completely different cat actor in this shot!)
Hammond picks the cat up and holds it to him, saying, “You know what they say, don’t you – only cats and blind men can see in the dark.”
He carries the cat out into the corridor and places it gently on the floor where it scurries away.
Final Mewsings: Cats don’t judge people for not having tails.
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