Directed by: Larry Semon, Norman Taurog

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

Synopsis: Larry (Semon) is a clumsy but good-hearted guy who works in a bakery for a self-serving foreman (Oliver Hardy) where comedy inevitably ensues.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): While Larry is fetching some jars from a high shelf for a customer, a white mouse helps himself to some bread. A black cat spots the mouse and moves toward him.

The mouse leaps and the cat bounds behind (by way of wires attached to the poor animals, jerking them out of frame). They land then leap again, making their way up a series of shelves.

On the top shelf the cat leaps at the mouse again which in turn jumps onto Larry’s arm and disappears down his sleeve.

After some comic doings with the mouse, he is sitting to one side. The black cat leaps at him and slides across a crate into a barrel of flour. The cat emerges covered with flour! Or does he . . . ?

Behind the Scenes

The method of using wires to pull animals into extreme action was not uncommon in the silent film days. Thankfully these practices are no longer acceptable.

The name of the cat actor (or actors, actually!) in this film is not known, but they were referred to as “the color-changing cat” in articles and ads for the comedy short.

Clearly fed by press releases, one article published in the Calgary Herald on October 13, 1921, tries to pass off the idea that Larry Semon was known for never letting the other actors know what stunts were to come. This is a preposterous (or insane) notion; true gags may have been thought up on the spot, but stunts were hopefully planned out whenever possible. What does stretch the imagination is how they claimed the cat came to be in the picture:

    Spying a black cat in one corner of the studio, (Larry) ran after him like a four-year-old boy and forced the poor little kitten into a barrel of flour. What came out of the barrel shocked several players. They expected to see nothing so weird. The expression obtained in this spontaneous action on the part of the players makes one of the funniest situations in the entire production.

Clearly the cat was not just “found” on the set, considering all the wire work needed to pull off these scenes. But if you look closely at the color-changing cat you realize it’s actually achieved by a pretty clever little trick. It’s our belief that a white cat was substituted for the black cat and black paint or make-up was placed around his eyes and on the tips of his ears to produce the confused “soiled” kitty. Not to say we don’t feel sorry for the poor black cat who was chucked into a barrel of flour against their will.

Final Mewsings: Cats don’t need wires to perform their own stunts.

Relevant Links:

To discuss this film and other cats in movies and on television, join us on Facebook and Twitter.