Sadly Over-hyped

Fresh and Exciting

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

You can't go wrong with this one. An obvious Hammer Film Productions horror film directed by John Gilling. In the early 1900's, a wealthy, elderly Ella Venable (Catherine Lacey) is murdered in the attic of her manor house. The body is disposed of on the estate grounds. There is a witness to the killing and the burial; that witness is Ella's cat Tabitha.A police inspector and a newspaper man are summoned to the house to get clues on Ella's reported disappearance. There are some suspicions, since it is well known that Ella's husband Walter (Andre Morell) made her sign a will leaving him her fortune. But suspicion also lies in the maid (Freda Jackson) and the butler, of course, played by Andrew Crawford. Tabitha knows and has full comprehension of the dirty deed and she plans on her own revenge.The atmosphere, color, pacing...everything creepy is here for you to enjoy. Rounding out the cast: Barbara Shelley, Conrad Phillips, Richard Warner, William Lucas and Vanda Godsell.

Reading an old issue of British film mag Empire,I noticed a review from Kim Newman which said that people could hold a Barbara Shelley "cat" double bill,thanks to (the very good) Cat Girl and this John Gilling-directed flick coming out on DVD. Introduced to Hammer Horror with Gilling's superb dream-logic Gothic tale The Plague of the Zombies,I started searching round for more info,and I was thrilled to find the whole film online!,which led to me following the black cat.The plot:Licking their lips for the contents of a new will her husband pushed her to sign, Ella Venable's decide to speed things up and kill her.As they bury the body in the garden,her butler Andrew,husband Walter and the maid Clara promise to keep the killing secret,with the only one who does not agree being Ella's loyal cat Tabitha. Whilst trying find Ella's original will (which left nothing to him) Walter invites niece Elizabeth "Beth" Venable round,as the police search for "missing" Ella. As Walter secretly looks for the original will,Beth notices the trio are terrified of a cat!,who soon steps out of the shadows with its murderous paws.View on the film:Quoting Edgar Allan Poe opening lines of The Raven,the screenplay by George Baxt creams this "unofficial" Hammer Horror with a tightly spun murder mystery shadowed with a peculiar Gothic Horror purr.Largely taking place in the Venable house,Baxt attacks each of the murdering residences with a macabre delight,as the deaths in the cats eyes allows Baxt to tangle the killers in deadly Rube Goldberg twists. Hissing at the cat and Beth for asking questions about Ella's whereabouts,Baxt unrolls a delicious murder mystery,filling the dark corners of the house with frightful whispers over fears of Beth unlocking their secrets.Despite the black and white presentation taking away his remarkable use of colours, director John Gilling impressively still digs his claws into a rich Hammer Horror Gothic atmosphere.Casting a sense of fearful unease bubbling underneath the false concern for Ella, Gilling and cinematographer Arthur Grant stylishly whip-pan across each killer and strikes the viewer with their sly smiles. Holding back on the gore,Gilling dives in to the ridiculousness of the situation with fantastic first person tracking shots which make the cat look like a 60 foot beast. Staying in bed over fears of the avenging kitty, André Morell gives a splendid performance as Walter,who acts as a warm family figure,whose image Morell tears down to reveal the money grabber with scratches of death on his hands. Joining fellow Hammer star Morell,the elegant Barbara Shelley gives a terrific performance as Beth,whose puzzlement over everyone's fear of the cat Shelly curls up with a quick-witted questioning side,as Walter goes after that darn cat.

The Shadow of the Cat is directed by John Gilling and written by George Baxt. It stars Conrad Phillips, Barbara Shelley, André Morell, Richard Warner, William Lucas and Andrew Crawford. Music is by Mikis Theodorakis and cinematography by Arthur Grant.Tabitha the house cat witnesses her mistress being murdered by her scheming family and sets about enacting revenge...Out of BHP Films, which is basically Hammer Films using an alias due to a technical legality, The Shadow of the Cat is a delightfully eerie entrant in the pantheon of Old Dark House movies.The picture kicks off with the brutal murder of an old dear, the setting a moody mansion full of shadows, murky rooms, rickety floors, nooks and crannies, and this while Tabitha the cat watches intensely. From here we meet the roll call of family and house servants, the majority of whom are nefarious, and as the paranoia builds amongst the guilty, their reasons for dastardly doings evident, Tabitha goes about her cunning assassinations.Of for sure it's bonkers in plotting, but Gilling (The Plague of the Zombies/The Reptile) was a very astute director, and he manages to wring much suspense and unease from the story, whilst he's not shy to play up some humour and even adds some decent shocks into the bargain. Cast are on good form, playing it just the way it should be played, and the Bray Studio surrounding areas once again prove to be a useful location for such horror shenanigans.Aided by Grant's (The Tomb of Ligeia/The Curse of the Werewolf) beautiful black and white photography, Gilling proves masterful at atmosphere. Naturally we have the requisite thunderstorm, but it's the oblique angles and looming shadows that really fill the mood with impending dread. While the use of a stretch screen technique to portray the cat's POV (Catovision?) is a nice trick that works very effectively.It's a hard film to get hold of, but there are decent sources available to view it (the Onyx Media International double DVD with Cat Girl is a good transfer that does justice to the photography). It's still under seen and little known due to its lack of availability. Which is a shame, because for fans of Old Dark House creepers there's good fun to be had here. 8/10

Ah, how the internet 'creates' new mythology. 'Shadow of the Cat' prophetically opens with a quote from Poe's The Raven, and for most of its running time trots out a parade of mystery movie clichés with wildly uneven results. The anvil of foreshadowing plunges oft, and heavily, and the exposition fairy sure does sprinkle her dust over all the cobweb festooned proceedings. My memories (from 70's television) of this film were actually quite fond, but alas time has not been so kind to 'Shadow of the Cat' upon recent review. As for its legendary 'Hammer' status, I proffer the opinion that upon not-so-close scrutiny the script in NO way follows the Hammer formula, and that just because John Gilling, Barbara Shelley, Bray Studios and some production staff were involved- does not this a Hammer film make. This myth needs clearing up, and I quote a treasured volume (purchased in 1973 when I was 13) "The House of Horror The Story of Hammer Films", Ed. Allen Eyles, Robert Adkinson and Nicolas Fry, Lorrimer Publishing, London UK, p. 110- '...it might be noted that 'Shaow of the Cat' and 'Light Up the Sky', two films that have been characterized as Hammer pictures, are in fact not productions of the company'. Until these editors can be positively proved ill informed (from where did they draw their information?) the case seems obvious. '90's reprint editions of this book completely omit page 110 and the gallery 'Brides of Dracula and others' and ignorantly include 'Shadow of the Cat' in the filmography. One might as well include films like 'The Flesh and the Fiends' (another Gilling Gothic from the period) etc as Hammer films simply because they resemble the company's output. Indeed the internet has made unjustifiable legends out of much (the incredibly over-rated, 'Twins of Evil' springs immediately to mind), and while I still enjoy these films they belong in their pop culture place, not elevated to some ridiculous fantasy standard that they most definitely do not attain. That said, 'Shadow of the Cat' was obviously influenced by Hammer, but script wise and structurally it is ostensibly not.