Columbia Pictures Corporation
Starring: Tom Poston, Margaret Dumont, Jim Backus
Directed by: William Castle

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

Synopsis: Prof. Jonathan Jones (Tom Poston), a soft-spoken professor of ancient language, has a mysterious coin come into his possession which endows him with supernatural powers, bringing chaos into his ordered life.

Cat Credits:  A cat appears twice in the theme song in cartoon form, even though the cat in the film is only in one scene.

Kitty Cameo: In one scene Prof. Jones goes to a party held at the house of the University’s Dean Updike (Cecil Kellaway).  The Dean’s wife Persephone (Margaret Dumont) greets Professor Jones while holding a beautiful Siamese cat.

The cat appears in part of the scene, being passed between Persephone and her husband, who asks the other to “Hold Hercules.”

Persephone also scolds her husband, saying his pipe smoke makes Hercules sick.

When Professor Kellgore (Jim Backus) comments about the cat, Dean Updike takes the opportunity to give him Hercules to hold.

The cat is missing for most of the following moments when Professor Jones tells the Dean about the strange coin and its powers, hoping to prove his story by bringing out a cage of white mice on which he plans to demonstrate.  Unfortunately Professor Jones doesn’t realize he no longer has the coin in his possession and the white mice run amok, causing panic amongst the party-goers.  One man loses his toupee, which falls on a mouse and is dragged across the floor.  The toupee then chases Hercules into the cage which originally held the mice.

Final Mewsings: Cats gets frightened by wigged-out mice.

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