Baumgarten-Prophet Entertainment
Starring: French Stewart, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras
Directed by: Jeff Franklin

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

Synopsis: Sitcom creator Seth Winnick (French Stewart) meets Chelsea (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras), the girl of his dreams, only her increasingly controlling behavior and desire to get married turn her into the girl of his nightmares.

Featured Feline: On the night they meet at a friend’s wedding, Seth and Chelsea go back to her place. After a short time he gets stuffy and asks, “You don’t have a cat, do you?” “Oh, not *a* cat, *the* cat of all cats!” Chelsea answers, then calls for her cat Gracie. The long-haired orange tabby jumps up on Seth’s lap even when he says he is deathly allergic.

Later as their relationship grows, Seth is seen giving himself an allergy shot to build a tolerance for Gracie, who is outside the window with Chelsea.

While in a writer’s meeting one day, Chelsea bursts in and cries that Gracie is lost. She insists Seth come looking for her, even telling him he must call the cat in a certain way. When Gracie can’t be found, Chelsea suggests moving in with Seth since she doesn’t want to stay in the house without her cat. But shortly after Chelsea moves in she shows up at Seth’s house with Gracie. “It’s a miracle,” Seth says unenthusiastically.

Gracie is next seen sitting on the kitchen counter as Chelsea talks her to friend Holly (Tyra Banks).

When things get ugly between the couple, Chelsea threatens a lawsuit but refuses to move out of Seth’s house. Chelsea is seen sitting to the side in the kitchen as she tells Seth this news.

When they go to bed, Chelsea makes a point of bringing Gracie with her and proceeds to brush Gracie’s fur right on Seth.

Gracie and Seth’s dog Elvis are present at the beginning of the scene in which Seth retaliates by bombarding Chelsea with nasty farts. Both the dog and cat beat a hasty retreat after the first blow.

The vicious tit-for-tat between the couple gets worse. Chelsea wakes up one morning to find a stuffed cat in front of a picture of Gracie with a note that reads, “Gracie sleeps with the fish under the pier.”

Chelsea races to the pier and runs the long distance down to the end where Seth is holding her cat. Chelsea pleads for him to let her go but Seth just taunts her.

Kitty Carnage Warning!  Seth finally turns and drops Gracie off the end of the pier. Chelsea jumps off the end of the pier after her. She calls for the cat and Seth reminds her that Gracie will only answered when called a certain way. As it turns out, Gracie is dangling from a cord just behind Chelsea. “Oh, didn’t Gracie tell you? She loves to bungee jump!” Seth calls down.

Later Chelsea gets back at Seth by bringing in numerous more cats, all of whom Seth finds sitting around the dinner table eating. Chelsea tells Seth that some of Gracie’s new friends knocked his collectible Elvis plates off the shelf. “I think they were bungee jumping,” she explains.

The last time Gracie is seen is when she is lying on the bed with Chelsea when Seth comes in and chloroforms his ex. A Siamese cat can be seen on the bed behind Gracie.

The idea of having Seth be allergic to Chelsea’s cat was taken from Jeff Franklin’s life. The director explained on the DVD’s commentary track how he had to endure allergy shots when dating women with cats. Franklin actually had to shoot all the scenes with the cats from another room using a monitor to watch the action. It was also explained how the cat actor had to be tethered to the counter in the kitchen scenes, a common practice to keep cat actors in place and safe during shooting.

This film received backlash about the treatment of Gracie the cat upon its release and triggered some debate about the use of animals in slapstick comedy, much the same way the treatment of the dog in There’s Something About Mary caused concern. The American Humane Association monitored the film and maintained no animals were hurt during the making of the film. In the commentary track for the DVD, director Jeff Franklin explained that at no time was the cat in danger or actually thrown off or dangled from the pier. A $4000 stuffed cat was used for the shots where the animal is seen dangling above the water. The close up shots of the cat actor in the harness were shot at a completely different time with the cat in a comfortable harness being suspended only a small height by a fishing pole.

The American Humane Society explains on their website that their primary concern is that the animal actors are treated safely and come to no harm on the sets of movies, not necessarily the context of the treatment of animals in the film itself. Many reviews of the film cited “cat torture” as being just one of the many unfunny things about the movie. Actually the term “cat torture” is a bit of a stretch, since at no time is the cat actor or the cat character shown in any serious distress. There have been many worse examples of true cat torture in film, both real and in the course of the story. However, anyone who doesn’t like to see animals as the butt of slapstick jokes, which is a fair opinion, should probably steer clear of this one.

Final Mewsings: Cats should not be used to get back at people.

Relevant Links:

To discuss this film and other cats in movies and on television, join us on
Facebook and Twitter.