by Ted Davis

Directed by: Tony Richardson

This review contains a Kitty Carnage Warning for scruffing and rough handling!

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

Synopsis: Sadists may enjoy this squalid examination of the complete degradation of Sir Edward More (Nicol Williamson), a prominent art critic and full-time chump, who pursues shallow and greedy Margot (Anna Karina), eventually making her his mistress, and it’s doubtful that he could have made a worse selection. More is repeatedly cuckolded and humiliated, and in due course is blinded, which only makes it easier for Margot to abuse him.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): Margot scruffs a young grey tabby by the neck, strokes him for a brief moment, then passes the cat to the sightless More, stating that she’s going for a swim and admonishing him to take care of the kitty.

More pets the tabby before setting him down carefully on a table.

Later the kitten runs along the ledge of an inactive fountain to join Herve Tourace (Jean-Claude Drouot), Margot’s sleazy accomplice, who responds with a short series of pats to the tabby as the scene fades out.

We learn that Tourace’s motives are less than honorable when he uses the mewing kitty to lure the blind More onto the precarious top step of a steep staircase. Tourace actually catapults the kitty into More’s chest, with the result that the hapless cuck slides down the stairs on his back and the cat runs out of the scene and out of the movie.

Final Mewsings: Cats have been known to trip their food-givers, purposely or not, but it’s a rare occasion when they’re used as actual implements of murder.

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