Behind the Scenes of The Shadow of the Cat

Movies with Featured Felines are obviously some of our favorites. We love it when cats get more screen time (although to be honest, even the most cat-centric film usually only includes so many minutes of actual cat-on-screen time). Unfortunately the more a cat is scripted to act on screen, the more chances there are for things to go awry or, even worse, for coercion to be used to get the feline thespians to perform.

Horror movies are some of the worst offenders, since cats are often called upon to act completely against their nature. If the cats are forced to constantly hiss and spit or look scary, one has to wonder what the trainers are doing to bring about that behavior. Sometimes it is as simple as showing the cat a dog or even another cat, or the editor may just turn a simple meow into a fierce scream with a sound overdub.

In the case of the 1961 film The Shadow of the Cat, the cats were not called upon to spit or hiss or act mean, even though the lead cat character Tabitha was supposed to be angrily avenging her murdered mistress.

Sadly even without making the cat actor overreact to everything, the filming did not always go smoothly and unthinkable coercion was reportedly used at least once with an unexpected result.

But let’s begin where most films do, with the script. An article from the July 16, 1961 edition of the Longview News Journal explains how the story originally came about:

    Strange is the way in which movie plots are sometimes created, particularly in the case of film producer Jon Penington and his production of “Shadow of the Cat,” taut suspense shocker opening tonight on the screen of the River Road Drive-In Theatre. The film stars Andre Morrell, Barbara Shelley, William Lucas, Conrad Phillips, and, of course, The Cat.
   Not long ago, Penington and his wife owned a Siamese cat which alternately purred and spat. One minute she would curl affectionately on the producer’s lap and the next, for no apparent reason, would claw violently. Feeling that her uncertain moods might result in harm to their young son, the Peningtons turned the animal over to friends who lived on a farm.
   But in getting rid of the unpredictable cat, Penington, in exchange, got an idea for a story, which he had writer George Baxt prepare as the screenplay of “The Shadow of the Cat.” The star of this off-beat thriller is “Tabatha,” (sic) an ordinary domestic cat which witnesses the death of her mistress, and brings about the death of her killers.
Her moods are every bit as unpredictable as those of the producer’s former household “pet,” on which the cat-characterization is based, and the part was capably played by a one-year-old well-trained tabby whose real name is “Bunty.”

While this is an interesting tale, it should be pointed out that screenwriter George Baxt would later claim that his original script only included a cat as an imaginary creature represented on screen by a shadow (which explains the title). Baxt insisted it was director Gilling who rewrote the script and made the cat a flesh and blood being, although Baxt’s script submitted to the British Board of Film Classification did indeed include a real cat. There were some notable discrepancies as to who contributed exactly what to the script with Baxt and Gilling telling very different stories about their input.

Whoever takes credit for making the cat a real animal also deserves the credit (and blame) for the numerous problems which occurred by having to employ cat actors to bring the story to life. A writer’s imagination sometimes does not take into account exactly how a film crew will manage to bring those visions about, especially when cat actors are involved.

The cats playing Tabitha were uncredited on screen but various sources give the name of the reportedly one-year-old star as either “Bundy”, “Bunty”, “Bunkie” or “Beauty.” But then some of them also describe the star as a black cat, so these sources are not necessarily the most reliable.

A brief article in the July 28, 1961 edition of the Shamokin News Dispatch explains:

   “A one-year-old tabby cat plays an important part in the shock-filled suspense thriller, “The Shadow of the Cat,” now showing on the screen of the Capitol Theatre.
   And to facetiously quote the mystery film’s producer, Jon Penington, “Bunty” is a highly “talon-ted” feline. Coached by animal trainer John Holmes, the tiny animal gives a volatile and highly dramatic performance as she alternately purrs as a gentle and docile creature and then, in avenging her mistress’ murder, becomes a furious and diabolical menace.

What claims such as these fail to recognize is that at no time on screen does Tabitha come off as being menacing or vicious! In fact a more pleasant pussycat would be hard to imagine, considering that a bunch of paranoid and insanely freaked out people are determined to do her in. Did the murderous characters think a magistrate was going to call Tabitha to the bench to testify against them? The fact that the cat is acting pretty much normally throughout the film indicates that the terror felt by the murderers were not really caused by the cat itself but by their guilty consciences.

What is clear is that several cats were used throughout the film, many of them looking completely different than the others. The reason for this becomes clear considering what went on behind the scenes.

The cat trainer on the film, John Holmes (aka Jack Holmes), was a veteran animal handler who supplied many different kinds of creatures to films and trained them on his farm-turned-animal-actor-school in Benson, Oxfordshire, England. In an unrelated article, Holmes was quoted as insisting that it is virtually impossible to train a cat to do anything it isn’t already predisposed to do.

There are a couple of instances in the film when a string can be seen attached to the cat actor; once on a statue outside and once on a stairway. It isn’t clear if the string was used to prod the cat into moving a certain way, to keep the cat in place or as a safeguard to make sure the cat actor couldn’t bolt. But nylon threads attached to the cat actors seemed to be a standard procedure for Holmes, who reportedly used similar cords while filming The Uncanny.

There were also fake cats which were utilized in some scenes. The use of the fake cats was, in part, because many of the cat actors simply bolted during filming. This is not surprising, considering the cats were constantly being scared and chased by actors who were pretending to be completely out of their minds. It’s a wonder that workable footage of the cats was ever obtained under such circumstances.

The script also called for the cat’s glowing eyes to be seen peering from the darkness. This was likely a difficult effect to achieve on film and another reason why the fake cats with lighted eyes were used. In one shot it looks as if the glowing effect in the eyes was animated onto the film, making the cat come off as more wonky than scary.

Kitty Carnage Warning! According to an interview with Ian Scoones in Little Shop of Horrors magazine #37, at least one take of the cat actor pouncing was achieved when the poor animal was given an electric shot to force him or her to jump. Scoones was working as an assistant to Special Effects creator Les Bowie; the latter ended up covered in cat excrement when the shock caused the cat to release its bowels as well as jump.

The actor who played Inspector Rowles, Alan Wheatley, told writer David Williams that he was not happy working with director John Gilling and that the unhappy situation was exacerbated by the “incredible problems” with the cats. “So many of them ran away after one day’s filming. In the end they had to resort to stuffed cats for many of the shots.” He added that Andrew Crawford, playing the evil butler, had a particularly difficult time with the cat actors. “The cats all took a swipe at him. He had many scenes with the cats . . . they would scratch him, then run away at a pivotal moment. It took many hours to get one scene in the can where he had to run into the woods with the cat in a sack. They kept escaping too early and scratching him to pieces. In the end one of the escapes was used in the actual film.”

Many interviews regarding The Shadow of the Cat indicate that overall the shoot was not a pleasant experience for many of the actors or the crew. Needless to say, it was obviously not a very pleasant experience for the cat actors, either. But even under these circumstances the tabbies managed to turn in notable performances, even if it isn’t clear exactly which cat actor played the majority of Tabitha’s role.