{"id":76457,"date":"2023-11-16T10:10:54","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T16:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=76457"},"modified":"2023-11-16T10:10:56","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T16:10:56","slug":"have-you-seen-that-darn-cat-1965","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=76457","title":{"rendered":"Have you seen&#8230;&#8217;That Darn Cat (1965)&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By JOHN BILLINGER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the other day I logged onto Disney+ and went to find some obscure live-action movies for a laugh. It\u2019s no secret that Disney has produced a lot of stuff that has flown under the radar since their films\u2019 initial release. And I sure found some that I\u2019d never heard of, such as \u201cThe Cat from Outer Space\u201d or \u201cThe Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.\u201d One I found that caught my attention was 1965\u2019s \u201cThat Darn Cat.\u201d I heard of this film before, that it was good, and decided \u201cOK sure, I\u2019ll watch this tonight.\u201d I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat Darn Cat\u201d centers around a Siamese cat named \u201cDC,\u201d who after 9 p.m. leaves his owner\u2019s house and roams the town. He gets inside a house that\u2019s being used as a hideout for two bank robbers (played by Neville Brand and Frank Gorshin) who\u2019ve kidnapped a woman. The woman hides a message for help inside DC\u2019s collar, and it\u2019s discovered by his owner (played by Hayley Mills). She correctly deduces that it\u2019s a cry for help, and gets into contact with an FBI Agent named Kelso (played by Dean Jones). Kelso is assigned to investigate this in an attempt to locate the robbers and the woman. The only way they can think of to end the case is to literally follow the Cat while it\u2019s making its rounds. Hijinks ensue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"That Darn Cat promo  - The Disney Channel - Jan 1986\" width=\"790\" height=\"593\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7Sn4sXH83KU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>With a premise like that, this could\u2019ve easily been some corny\/lame movie along the same lines as some of Disney\u2019s other mostly forgotten live-action family comedies of the time. I\u2019m pleased to report, however, that this is actually a whole lot better than one would initially think after only seeing the title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first thing to mention is the characters. They\u2019re all incredibly likable. I only mentioned four of them in my synopsis, but there are also the side characters. They pretty much cast a bunch of character actors to play them, and they all are incredibly memorable and fun. Sure, one could easily cut out characters like Canoe (basically me back when I was in high school) or the Nosey Neighbor (played by Elsa Lanchester), but you wouldn\u2019t have the same film. They give it charm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The main cast is also a lot of fun. They all do a great job of making sense of an absolutely ridiculous situation. The two bank robbers, on the other hand, play it completely straight. It\u2019s like they\u2019re from some serious crime movie or something. Probably the most intense live-action Disney villains from this era. As a side note, one of their lines \u201cI\u2019ve got six little friends, and they can all run faster than you\u201d was later quoted by Tarantino in \u201cDusk Til Dawn.\u201d The titular Darn Cat also turned in a good performance. They could\u2019ve easily just waved a toy in front of this animal to keep its attention, but they did a great job training him. And it makes for some great situational comedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking of which, this is a comedy. Again, they could\u2019ve easily just had it be corny or lame, but it\u2019s actually a very clever comedy full of wordplay, slapstick, situational humor, and stuff involving the cat (because let\u2019s face it, cats are naturally pretty funny). There were plenty of moments where I was laughing hard, such as the scene where Kelso is attempting to get a pawprint from DC, or the part where they\u2019re chasing the cat across a Drive-In Movie Theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If there\u2019s one complaint I do have, is that it does feel a little long at times. The film\u2019s runtime is nearly two hours, and there are some parts that are a bit slow. The good news though, is that it frequently cuts to great scenes. So it balances out pretty frequently.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall, \u201cThat Darn Cat\u201d is a darn good show. It takes a premise that could\u2019ve been easily lame, but it actually does something with it. With good characters and good comedy, you\u2019ll have a good time. If you are interested in checking it out, I should warn you that there was a remake starring Christina Ricci made in 1997. That version is generally regarded as terrible, but I feel like there\u2019s probably a decent chance of those in my generation being more familiar with that one than the original. If that\u2019s the case (or if you haven\u2019t seen either), skip the \u201897 one and go to the \u201865 original.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By JOHN BILLINGER Tiger Media Network So the other day I logged onto Disney+ and went to find some obscure live-action movies for a laugh.&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":76458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,3391,3505,55],"tags":[14808,14981,12484,21,442,15504],"class_list":["post-76457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-movie-reviews","category-local-movies","category-opinion","tag-have-you-seen","tag-john-billinger","tag-movie-reviews","tag-movies-2","tag-reviews-2","tag-that-darn-cat"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/thatdarnthumbnail.jpg?fit=600%2C475&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76459,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76457\/revisions\/76459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/76458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}