Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Starring: Lew Ayres, Laraine Day, Basil Rathbone, Walter Kingsford
Directed by: Charles Lederer

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

Synopsis: The city of Chicago is gripped with fear after a series of unexplainable axe murders committed by seemingly insane random men on seemingly random unsuspecting women.  Edwina Brown (Laraine Day) seems destined to become the next victim until out-of-work actor Oliver Duffy (Lew Ayres) comes to her rescue, appointing himself her protector when he realizes the violence doesn’t appear to be quite as random as the police believe.

Featured Feline: When Oliver escorts Edwina home she invites him in.  A black cat is sitting on a chair in the living room, washing itself.  Edwina explains that the cat’s name is Chérie (Edwina lived in France for a time.)

Chérie is featured quite prominently in the first half hour of the movie, being present in most of the scenes in Edwina’s apartment.  At one point Edwina is leaving her work and Oliver has sent a taxi to her to make sure she gets home safely.  The cab driver tells Edwina there is a friend in the back and she opens the door to find Chérie.  Once they get to her apartment building, Edwina sets Chérie down on the sidewalk as she pays the cabbie.  Chérie runs into a dark alley which leads to some exciting tense moments as Edwina looks for her.

Finally when the axe murderer breaks into the apartment to try to kill Edwina again, Chérie is sitting on the bed watching and runs away.  (Actually it looks like someone enticed the cat to jump at a toy and out of frame.)  Chérie looks very comfortable in all of her scenes and it’s a shame that after this last scene she doesn’t appear in the film again.

Final Mewsings: Cats draw the line when it comes to axe murderers.

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