Review by Ted Davis
Behind the Scenes by Linda Kay

Starring: Yehudi

Directed by: Arthur Lubin

This review contains a mild Kitty Carnage Warning!

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

Synopsis: Radio writer Sally Ambler (Wendy Barrie) travels back to Wisteria Hall, the old family mansion outside of Atlanta, Georgia to visit her gravely ill Uncle Charlie, who dies before she arrives. Sally is closely pursued by Kirk Pierce (John Hubbard), her fiancé who owns the ad agency that produces the radio melodramas she writes. Kirk arrives during a dark and stormy night, which isolates the extended Ambler family and provides the proper setting for secret rooms, missing bodies, a hidden diary containing arcane clues, and multiple murders, one of which is of the unfortunate Aunt Maggie (Elizabeth Patterson). By the end of the movie, the cast has been whittled down significantly, but the mystery and murderer are revealed.

Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): Family servant Andrew (Willie Best) plucks Yehudi, a long haired black cat with white markings, from the library table so he can give him his dinner, but not before Andrew’s shadow spooks Aunt Maggie, who has been on edge since the death and subsequent disappearance of Uncle Charlie.

After the mansion loses electric power, Yehudi is seen illuminated by a flashlight beam shined by a mysterious intruder. The cat quickly jumps out of sight of the beam.

Yehudi next appears when Sally is searching for one of the secret rooms, and is alerted to the location of the hidden chamber by the cat’s meows. Sally finds the dark and gloomy underground passage, but is startled by a pair of glowing eyes, presumably belonging to Yehudi, loses her balance, and knocks herself unconscious when her head hits the stone stairs.

Moments later, Sally regains consciousness and sees Yehudi by matchlight, who meows in acknowledgement. She walks off, advising the cat to follow her.

Mild Kitty Carnage Warning! Next, Sally is confronted by the killer, who threatens her life. As he approaches Sally, the killer steps on Yehudi’s tail, who cries out, causing the killer to lose his balance and drop his gun. Yehudi has done his job and is not seen again.

Behind the Scenes

Decent prints of Who Killed Aunt Maggie? are hard to find and the film seems to have slipped somewhat into obscurity, along with its feline co-star. But a trip into the past finds that the tuxedo thespian did achieve some notoriety around this time, not the least of which was prompted by a publicity campaign for the film exploiting the cat’s name to drum up intrigue about the impending release.

Ads and blurbs in newspapers, not to mention radio shows, began promoting the upcoming film release by asking the question, “Who killed Aunt Maggie? Only Yehudi knows!” Others went on to pose the question, “But who’s Yehudi?” Variations on this were abundant, including, “Yehudi knows Who Killed Aunt Maggie — do you?”

One reporter for The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle relieved the worried minds of readers by offering this explanation to them on October 11, 1940:

    “Who’s Yehudi?” the question millions of radio listeners have been asking will be answered in Republic’s motion picture “Who Killed Aunt Maggie.” For those who can’t wait to see the picture to find out who Yehudi really is, here’s the straight dope: Yehudi is a cat.

Were millions of listeners really that concerned about “Who’s Yehudi?” just because of this motion picture promotion? Not really. In fact the phrase “Who’s Yehudi?” had been on people’s minds for at least two years before this. Popular violinist Yehudi Menuhin had reportedly made an appearance on an episode of The Pepsodent Show starring Bob Hope in 1938. Comedian and show regular Jerry Colonna, repeatedly asked, “Who’s Yehudi?” during the program and the phrase caught on, becoming urban slang for “a mysteriously absent person,” and even spawning a song. (Another theory of the origin of the catchphrase had Hope launching a contest to name announcer Bill Goodwin’s baby and Colonna suggested Yehudi, which got laughs and started the phenomenon.)

It isn’t clear whether Yehudi was the name of the cat actor carried over to his screen character or vice versa, but with no further information we will refer to both the feline actor and his character as Yehudi. This cat actor was not a novice, having reportedly appeared on screen in various films (1940’s The Blue Bird is a confirmed appearance, and we suspect Yehudi may have also played Napoleon in Mrs. Miniver).

In a rare glimpse behind the scenes, the author of the book upon which the film was based, Medora Field Perkerson, had some observations to make about the cat actor in an article she penned which was published on November 24, 1940, in this case from The Altanta Constitution (other truncated versions of the article appeared in various newspapers as early as October of that year):

Aunt Maggie Has Nine Lives

By Medora Field Perkerson

    If I had known beforehand that “Who Killed Aunt Maggie?” would be made into a movie, I doubt that I would have had a cat play such an important part in solving the mystery. Certainly not after that awful morning at Republic studios when I realized how much trouble a cat can cause on a movie set.
    I had been invited to Hollywood as a technical adviser on details of the southern background of the story, which takes place in an imaginary house near Roswell, Ga. But that morning I felt as though it wouldn’t have been a bad idea if somebody had given me a lot of advice before the book was written. Especially about the things that movie directors don’t like.
    Animals head the list. Then come babies, clocks and mirrors. All these were included in “Who Killed Aunt Maggie?”
    But it was the cat that caused the director to tear his hair, while everyone else twiddled thumbs. Sitting there with nothing to do were John Hubbard, Walter Abel and Mona Berrie, who were so popular in Atlanta when they came here later for the world premiere of the picture, October 24, at the Rialto. So was Wendy Barrie, who plays the lead and who missed coming to Atlanta because she was to work on another picture. So was Elizabeth Patterson, who portrays Aunt Maggie. So did Willie Best who is funnier in this picure than he was in “The Ghost Breakers.” So, in fact, was the entire cast.
    Edgar Kennedy (the sheriff) had just started to tell a funny story when he was interrupted by a loud voice from an inner room.
    “Quiet out there, please,” came the exasperated plea. “I’m trying to work with this cat.”
    The voice belonged to Arthur Lubin, director of the picture. The cat to which he referred is one of the best trained animals in Hollywood and has appeared in many pictures. He was selected from dozens of other cats to play in “The Blue Bird” with Shirley Temple. But this morning he just wasn’t in the mood or something.

    As the day wore on and Yehudi held up all the action on the set I began to feel very apologetic about having put a cat in the book. Of course, he had changed both his color and his name in the movie. He had started out as a white cat named Plutarch. Now, he was a black cat named Yehudi.
    The scene with which Mr. Lubin had so much difficulty during rehearsal is one in which Yehudi is supposed to be asleep, comfortably curled up at the feet of the sheet-draped corpse of Aunt Maggie. The door opens. It is the murderer returning to the scene of the crime. As the murderer approaches the sofa on which the corpse lies, Yehudi is supposed to rise up and let out a yowl and give him a good scare.
    But Yehudi would not wait for the murderer to approach the sofa. Yehudi acted as though he himself was scared of the murderer. As soon as the door began to open, Yehudi would rise up, take one look and flee for his life. It was quite a tribute to the acting of, well, if you have seen the picture, you know who. In the book it was somebody else.
    Three people were kept busy chasing Yehudi. These were the director, the cat’s trainer and an officer of the humane society. Animals are always accompanied to the set by a humane officer, just to make sure that they are not over-taxed or over-worked or anything of the sort. Yehudi was the only member of the cast who ever indulged in temperament.

    I gave up finally and went to lunch with Albert J. Cohen, scenario editor of Republic Pictures, and Stuart Palmer, who did the screen play which was made from my book. I didn’t see any of the rushes that day and so I didn’t know until the premiere of the picture in Atlanta whether Yahudi ever did go through his act according to the script.

Posters for the film often included a picture of a cat, albeit an all-black one and not a tuxedo like Yehudi.

Final Mewsings: Old, dark house movies just wouldn’t be the same without cats.

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