Directed by: Tom O’Horgan

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

Synopsis: An adaptation of the play by Eugène Ionesco. Stanley (Gene Wilder) feels out of place in life and even more so when everyone around him begins to turn into rhinos.

Kitty Cameo: The opening scene finds Stanley meeting with his debonair friend John (Zero Mostel) in a small restaurant. One of the patrons in the restaurant is a woman (Anne Ramsey) who is sitting with her longhaired white cat.

The woman is feeding the cat and gives Stanley a sneering look as he lifts his drink to her. “Stanley, stop looking for approval from a woman who is feeding lox to a cat,” John suggests.

As the dialogue continues, the cat jumps down from the woman’s table.

Eventually the cat ends up sitting with a couple (Robert Fields and Melody Santangello) across from Stanley and John.

The woman collects her cat when the clamour of a rhinoceros running down the street disrupts the conversation.

Eventually the cat ends up back with the young couple who are perplexed when John throws a fit after Stanley spills liquor on his tie.

Later the couple are discussing philosophical theories. “Now here’s another syllogism,” the young man offers, “All cats die, Socrates is dead, therefore Socrates is a cat.” “And he’s got four paws, too!” the woman adds, “I know that because I had a cat named Socrates.”

The cat disappears before another rhinoceros makes a mess of the restaurant. The next day’s newspaper says the charging rhino killed a small cat but it is not clear if the cat in the café was the victim.

Final Mewsings: Cats fit perfectly into absurdist plays.

Many thanks to Mark Murton for reminding us of the cat in this film!

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