Starring: Whitey
Directed by: Charles David
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some major spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: Nikki Collins (Deanna Durbin) is a young woman visiting New York who witnesses a murder from her train window just before reaching Grand Central Station. Her determination to solve the crime brings her into contact with a wide variety of characters and even puts her life in danger.
Featured Feline: Throughout the film a character named Mr. Saunders (George Coulouris) is seen carrying a white cat practically everywhere he goes.
Mr. Saunders is the manager of a nightclub called The Circus Club where the murdered man’s controversial fiancé was employed as a singer. When Nikki sneaks into the house of the man she saw murdered, she is mistaken for this singer whose name is Margo Martin.
Mr. Saunders is a prime suspect throughout the film, trying to thwart Nikki when she finds a pair of the dead man’s slippers which could prove his death was indeed a murder.
Danny (Allen Jenkins) works for Saunders and is sometimes given the job of holding or caring for the unnamed white cat.
There’s never any explanation as to why Mr. Saunders carries a cat everywhere he goes, he just does. The cat even holds on tight when Saunders loses his temper and nearly attacks Nikki.
Saunders even takes the cat with him to the club where he again confronts Nikki.
He thinks he has Nikki where he wants her, but she turns the tables on him when she manages to grab the slippers back again. Saunders is particularly desperate and threatening when he shows up after being in a fight.
Things don’t end well for Saunders. The cat is running away when his body is discovered and does not return.
Behind the Scenes
This cat has to be one of the most mellow and patients cats in film history, as he is literally dragged throughout the film by George Coulouris. This makes sense when one learns it is Whitey, presumably the same cat who was so tolerant about letting Eve Arden drape him around her neck (although that film was made some eight years before.)
As mellow as Whitey looks on film, some brouhaha reportedly occurred when the veteran feline thespian reportedly bolted during filming. The incident was recorded in The Montana Standard on April 17, 1945 by Hazel Hartzog:
Ordinarily, chasing cats is a cheap, back-alley proposition. But not in Hollywood. It cost well over $3,000 to get a feline named Whitey back in harness here the other day.
It happened on the set of Deanna Durbin’s new comedy – mystery, “Lady on a Train,” at Universal Studio. It took most of one afternoon to chase Whitey. And the salaries of stars Durbin, Ralph Bellamy, David Bruce and Dan Duryea, plus those of the rest of the company, ran well into four figures for the session.
In the picture, George Coulouris — one of the suspects in the murder Deanna is trying to solve — has a white cat as a pet. The cat is supposed to indicate a softer side to his nature.
In this particular scene the script called for Coulouris to walk into a hallway, scoop up the cat from the floor with one hand and exit upstairs in search of Deanna, whom he’d heard prowling around — and whom he definitely doesn’t want to find any clues to the murder.
To read it, the scene appeared very simple. But to film it was something else — mainly because every time Coulouris approached Whitey he ran away. The first time, Whitey escaped way up into the catwalks — after all, that’s where a cat’s supposed to be — high above the stage. His trainer, a couple of assistant directors and half a dozen assistants spent the next half-hour trying to corner him — and finally succeeded.
As a precaution against having the same thing happen again, director Charles David asked everyone on the stage not involved in the actual shooting of the scene to form a circle around the cat so they could stop him if he took off again. Only a small space directly in front of the camera was left unguarded.
The the cameras started turning once more. And once more the cat scampered off, this time right into Deanna’s waiting hands. Several more attempts were made to film the scene until everyone was so excited about catching Whitey that it was almost impossible to quiet the set when the director called for action.
Finally Whitey gave up. Whether he just got tired or decided that trying to run away was futile, nobody will ever know. In any event, he just lay on the floor until Coulouris came along and scooped him into his arms. [CC Editor: For what it’s worth, there is no scene in the film with George Coulouris scooping up the cat from the floor.]
“I don’t know how much that cat’s worth, but he sure cost the studio plenty this afternoon,” exclaimed David, mopping his brow. “I’ll bet he’s never before been chased by such expensive people.”
The cat just purred.
One would think this would be enough publicity regarding Whitey’s role in the picture. But a blurb in Harrison Carroll’s column, “Behind the Scenes in Hollywood” running around the same time, added another twist to the tale:
Believe it or not but production on Deanna Durbin’s “Lady on a Train” was held up for an hour because “Whitey,” the “tom cat” in the picture, stepped out of his role to become the mother of seven kittens. Universal had to scurry around and find a cat of similar appearance.
Both of these stories have a degree of Hollywood fiction about them, but the latter story in particular seems like a pretty obvious concoction. From all other accounts the main cat actor known as Whitey was indeed a male. Also, one would assume his trainer would know if his cat actor were pregnant or not and probably not cast them in a movie role when they are about to give birth. Publicity photos for the film which show Deanna Durbin with a white cat and several kittens indicate that promotion for the film was the main purpose behind the story.
Final Mewsings: Professional cats don’t leave movie sets unless they have a good reason, like giving birth.
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