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Cat from Outer Space, The

YOU’VE NO idea how glad we are that our Creamy timespan coincides with D*****’s lowest creative and commercial ebb. That said, this live actioner did dominate film shows and holiday TV in a similar way to DIGBY. Basically as per the title, with the eponymous feline talking in a measured American voice via glowing green flea collar. Could also make things float. Closer in spirit and execution to a CFF Film, though they never had RODDY MACDOWELL mithering about in the background. And that’s it. Other than the fact that the guy who trained the cat later explained how he would place the moggy in a box and shake it up before takes, so as to create an aura of ‘otherness’ about the (let’s face it) bog standard feline.

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. Glenn Aylett

    June 14, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    I saw this at a kids matinee at RAF Leeming. It wasn’t that bad but not in the same league as That Darned Cat and the legendary drive in scene.

  2. Matty

    July 26, 2010 at 4:04 pm

    I always recall the scene involving betting on a pool game (which featured over-our-kiddie-heads dialogue about whether the “mark” had a “constitooshinal right” to make an absurd bet or something like that; the cat used its moggy-powers to make all the balls rush towards the holes anyway) and the shoehorned-in “supervillain” who looked a bit like Roger Delgado’s Master and who showed-up out of nowhere in the last 20 minutes or so.

  3. Glenn Aylett

    August 13, 2022 at 8:10 pm

    The dads had bunked off to the sergeants and airmen’s messes for the afternoon, leaving the RAF wives and their offspring and friends to watch a cat with psychic powers and the ability to get a total nag to win a horse race on TV by shaking its luminous collar. The Cat From Outer Space will always remind me of RAF Leeming when I drive past. ( Actually it wasn’t a bad film).

  4. Sidney Balmoral James

    August 13, 2022 at 8:22 pm

    Also fondly remembered, well, dimly remembered by me, as I am pretty sure it was the first film I was ever taken to see at the cinema, presumably some sort of tots showing c. 1979. Closely followed by Pete’s Dragon, which I found frankly terrifying due to Shelley Winters and co.

  5. Glenn Aylett

    August 14, 2022 at 12:41 pm

    @ Sidney Balmoral James, 1979 was when I was allowed to go to the pictures on my own- the first film was Escape From Witch Mountain. The Cat From Outer Space was when I was 13 and while I was slightly out of the age group for it, it was still quite enjoyable.

  6. George White

    August 14, 2022 at 3:00 pm

    Based on a novel by the same author as Digby, Ted Key

  7. Glenn Aylett

    August 14, 2022 at 4:20 pm

    @ George White, the sort of Bank Holiday kids matinee films you never see these days. I wonder which television station would show The Cat From Outer Space or Digby as the mainstream ones have moved on.

  8. Richardpd

    August 14, 2022 at 11:01 pm

    I’ve noticed the classic Bank Holiday films have changed in the last decade or so, mostly to the glut of animated films in the last 25 years, even Disney are happy these days to have their newer films screened on a regular basis.

    Certainly one of the Christopher Reeve Superman or original cast Star Trek films are rare to see on the mainstream channels.

    There are plenty of oldies film channels, though it might be the likes of Talking Pictures to screen films like this one.

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