Directed by: Edward Sutherland

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

Synopsis: An oddball collection of foreigners visit a hotel in the Chinese town of Wu Hu to see the unveiling of a fantastic invention.

Cat Burglars (Scene Stealers): Towards the end of the film Professor Henry R. Quail (W.C. Fields) is leaving the hotel with the notorious Peggy Hopkins Joyce (playing herself). Just before they get into the Professor’s car, a multi-colored tabby cat climbs inside and sits on the passenger seat.

After climbing into the car, Peggy keeps saying that she’s sitting on something. At one point the cat meows and Professor Quail thinks it’s a loose nut. At the end of their wild ride around the hotel, Peggy still insists she is sitting on something. It is then that Professor Quail discovers the cat, claiming (in a not-so-subtle Pre-Code joke) “Ah, it’s a pussy!”

Peggy sighs, “Aw, poor thing.” Professor Quail tells her not to worry, that the cat still has eight more lives to go. He sets the cat down and it wanders off.

At the very end of the film the Professor escapes from a crazed mob by flying off in his autogryo (a small helicopter) along with Peggy and the young couple Tommy (Stuart Erwin) and Carol (Sari Maritza). The cat suddenly appears, walking up the aisle.

Peggy is sitting in the autogyro’s passenger seat and again exclaims that she is sitting on something. As she stands up, we see a group of kittens on the seat. “I wonder what their parents were,” Peggy queries. “Careless,” Professor Quail states.

Final Mewsings: Cats don’t mind being the “butt” of human jokes.

Many thanks to Ted Davis and Nick Wale for letting us know about the cats in this movie!

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