Columbia Pictures Corporation
Starring: Edith Fellows, Dorothy Ann Seese, Ronald Sinclair
Directed by: Charles Barton

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

Synopsis: Loosely based on the beloved book series by Margaret Sidney.  The Peppers are a poor family of five children being raised by their widowed mother who love and care for one another.  The family become the interest of a wealthy man named Mr. King (Clarence Kolb) whose motives might be questionable.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): Mr. King is introduced to the family by his grandson Jasper (Ronald Sinclair) who befriends the kids and falls for the oldest daughter, Polly (Edith Fellows).  In an early scene the youngest daughter Phronsie (Dorothy Ann Seese) mentions how she had wished for a kitten but didn’t get one.  The next time Jasper visits he has a box tied to his bike.  He opens the box and Phronsie reaches in to pull out an orange tabby kitten.

Phronsie holds the kitten and asks if she received it “on account of I wished for it?”  Jasper assures her that is right.  Phronsie then mentions she wants to give the kitten a bath and her brother Joey (Tommy Bond) explains that cats wash themselves.

Phronsie runs to call her sister Polly and unfortunately the poor kitten is subjected to being bounced around every time she runs.

Oddly enough the kitten disappears even before the extended scene is over, having been forgotten during the excitement over ice cream.  The kitten is only seen briefly in two scenes after this.  One shows the kitten sleeping on Mr. King’s clothes beside his bed in the Pepper home.  Mr. King unceremoniously grabs the kitten by the scruff and pulls him down off his suit.

Near the end of the film the kitten can be seen being held by Davie (Jimmy Leake).  He places the kitten in a hatbox in which Phronsie is placing cloths.  When the children run away, the kitten can still be seen sitting in the box.

The kitten would go on to appear in other entries of this film series and in the second film it is revealed her name is Ginger.

Final Mewsings: Children who wish for kittens shouldn’t forget them so easily!

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