Please Murder Me! (1956)

Directed by: Peter Godfrey

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

Synopsis: Lawyer Craig Carlson (Raymond Burr) defends Myra Leeds (Angela Lansbury) when she is accused of murder, even though they have fallen in love with each other.

Kitty Cameo: In the scene when Myra’s husband Joe (Dick Foran) ends up getting shot, we see him come home in an angry state. He walks into Myra’s bedroom where she is sitting on the bed. On the foot of her bed is a black cat.

Please Murder Me - Joe Dick Foran finding Myra Angela Lansbury on bed with black cat

Joe picks up the cat and tosses it outside the bedroom, closing the door.

Please Murder Me - Joe Dick Foran picking up black cat from bed

The cat is sniffing outside the door when the sound of a gunshot from within the room scares the animal away. Actually, by the look of a shadow on the floor, someone offscreen made a quick motion towards the cat which actually scared him out of frame.

Please Murder Me - black cat outside door

Please Murder Me - black cat running away from door

Please Murder Me - black cat outside door startled and running away animated gif

Behind the Scenes

A rather bizarre story from the Associated Press appeared throughout many newspapers at the time this film was released. It read as follows:

HOLLYWOOD — Everything in Hollywood is done the hard way. Gross-Krasne, the producers, had a script called “Please Murder Me,” in which a white cat figured in the murder scene involving Angela Lansbury and Dick Foran.
But a white cat made too many lighting problems, mostly of reflections. The script was changed to a black cat. Instead of hiring a black cat, of which there is no shortage, the studio merely dyed the white one with an easily removable dye.

Various headlines for this article include Studio Cuts Expense; Dyes White Cat Black, This Cat Really ‘Dyed’ For the Role and Black Cat? Easy! Just Dye Whitey.

It doesn’t appear that the cat in the movie is a white cat dyed black, but stranger things have happened in Tinseltown (and despite the above headline, this does not appear to be cat actor Whitey.) But this could just be a bit of Hollywood fancy devised by the publicists.

Amazingly, even though the kitty only appears on the screen for mere moments, he or she is prominently represented in illustrated form on many of the film’s promotional materials.