That Darn Cat! (Disney) (1965)

Page 8 ‘That Darn Cat’ Is 28th Film Role For Roddy McDowall “That Darn Cat,” a hilarious feature-length account of a feline night owl and Federal Security agents, is Roddy McDowall’s twenty-eighth motion picture in a career that has seen the former child star performing in every medium, including the straw-hat circuit and Shakespearean festival’s like Stratford’s in Connecticut. Who can forget the tragic little Welsh boy character that a very young McDowall presented his new and appreciative public in “How Green Was My Valley?” Roddy has come a long way since then, in fame, fortune and versatility, and even in years. He was imported from England back in 1941 to play in his first movie, “Man Hunt.” His most recent pictures have been well and widely noted, including “Cleopatra,” “Shock Treatment,” “The Loved Ones,” and, most recently, “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” The rest of his movies: “Confirm or Deny,” “Son of Fury,” “On the Sunny Side,” “The Pied Piper,” “My Friend Flicka,” “Lassie Come Home,” “White Cliffs of Dover,” and “The Keys of the Kingdom,” “Thunderhead,” “Son of Flicka,” “Molly and Me,” “Holiday in Mexico,” “Kidnapped,” “Big Timber,” “Tuna Clipper,” “Black Midnight,” “Killer Shark,” “Steel Fist,” “The Subterraneans,” “Midnight Lace,” and “The Longest Day.” In color by Technicolor, “That Darn Cat’ stars Hayley Mills, Dean Jones, Dorothy Provine and McDowall. Based on Mildred and Gordon Gordon’s best-seller, “Undercover Cat,” the script was written by the Gordons and Bill Walsh. Robert Stevenson directed. Bill Walsh and Ron Miller co-produced with Walt Disney. Buena Vista releases. ol Mat DC 2G “! WANT MY DUCK," demands Roddy McDowall of Hayley Mills. He gets it, and a thorough run-around, in this hilarious scene from Walt Disney's suspense-comedy, “That Darn Cat.’ Dean Jones and Dorothy Provine also star in the Technicolor production, based on the best-seller, ‘Undercover Cat.” TWO DOLLAR TOM CAT PAYS OFF FOR WALT DISNEY SCRIPT WRITERS Writers Mildred and Gordon Gordon made the best investment of their lives when they plunked down two American dollars for a big, black Tom cat in an Encino, California pet shop two years ago. For besides making short work of the neighborhood mice, the happy feline gave them the idea for their most successful novel, “Undercover Cat.” Since its publication in 1964, ten million copies have been translated into 13 languages in 17 countries. Better yet, Walt Disney purchased the story, changed the title to “That Darn Cat,” and adapted it into one of the funniest pic Would Be Ballplayer Wins Hayley Mills in ‘Darn Cat’ Instead of a baseball career, which he fancied mighty much until his eyes gave out, Tom Lowell winds up successfully falling in love with Hayley Mills — with a lot of laughs thrown in — in Walt Disney’s funny feature, “That Darn Cat.” Lowell, still very young, was making like a potential major leaguer on the sports-minded campus of Sacramento’s El Camino High School half a dozen years ago when the baseball began to look more and more like something out of a ping pong game. A doctor said, yes, he would need glasses and when he got fitted out with a pair of contact lenses, poor Tom found he could never regain the keen perception dwellers of the diamond need for the big time. So he enrolled at the University of Southern California as a drama major, and worked towards a stage and screen career. It’s lucky he did, too, because ever since graduating, and meeting an agent named Fred Messenger, he _ has worked in 60 TV shows and four motion pictures. The handsome, clean-cut young actor landed a regular role as the baby-faced private in “Combat” a couple of years ago, and worked in about forty segments. He has since played featured roles in “Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation,” “The Manchurian Candidate,” and “The Carpetbaggers” on the motion picture side and “Perry Mason,” “Target: The Corruptors,” “Gunsmoke,” “Mr. Novack,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “It’s a Man’s World,” “Twilight Zone,” “The Eleventh Hour,” ‘The Addams Family” and three “Lucy” shows for television. Walt Disney took a liking to Lowell when he portrayed a kooky inventor in a “Wonderful World of Color” series called “Kilroy.” Disney immediately put him under contract, placed him opposite Hayley in ‘Darn Cat,” and began mapping out plans for Tom’s future. Lowell was born on January 17, 1941 to Dr. and Mrs. Carl A. Thomas of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His real name is Lowell Thomas, reversed for obvious reasons when he took up acting. Tom’s dad is a drama professor who transferred from Pennsylvania University to Sacramento State College in 1954. The young actor credits his father’s expert advice and help for much of his success. Married to the former Beverly Benedict on September 14, 1968. Tom and his bride live in Laurel Canyon, overlooking Los Angeles. He is a nut on sports, particularly swimming, baseball and football. In color by Technicolor, “That Darn Cat” stars Hayley Mills, Dean Jones, Dorothy Provine and Roddy McDowall. Based on Mildred and Gordon Gordon’s best-seller, ‘“Undercover Cat,” the script was written by the Gordons and Bill Walsh. Robert Stevenson directed. Bill Walsh and Ron Miller co-produced with Walt Disney. Buena Vista releases, tures of this or any other year. Says Gordon, a former F.B.I. agent who plants plenty of hair-raising suspense as well as humor into his writing, “We got the idea for ‘Undercover Cat’ when ‘Damn Cat’ — we named him that because we were always tripping over him — came home from his nightly foraging mission, looking fat, dumb and happy. This gregarious character has itchy paws and an insatiable appetite. We imagined him cadging handouts from a couple of kidnappers, and becoming the key to solving a bank robbery, and were off and writing.” For the affable and talented husband and wife writing team, “Undercover Cat” is the thirteenth and most successful of their novels to be published by Doubleday. Seven of them were purchased by movie companies, and another one, “The Talking Bug,” won an Edgar Allen Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The secret to their successful career and marriage is eight hours a day, five days a week at the typewriter, and a willingness to arbitrate in a friendly manner. Says Mildred, “If I feel strongly about something, Gordon gives in, and vice versa. When we both feel adamant, we postpone the topic for a few days. It’s amazing what time will do.” Oscar Winning Sherman Brothers Cleff ‘Darn Cat’ What with two Academy Awards and a pair of Grammy’s under their belts for the songs in ‘‘Mary Poppins,” one would suppose that the prolific and talented Sherman brothers would slow up a bit. But, like their boss, Walt Disney, Dick and Bob don’t have time to rest on their laurels. Since “Poppins,” the boys have composed no less than twenty tunes for Disney productions. One of the latest and greatest is the title song for Walt’s funniest feature motion picture, “That Darn Cat.” It is an easy, swinging tune with funny lyrics recorded for the picture by one of the most popular singers in the world, Bobby Darin. Although the hilarious suspense-comedy stars such captivating personalities as Hayley Mills, Dean Jones, Dorothy Provine and Roddy McDowall, the Shermans got their inspiration from the scenestealing Siamese that plays the title role. In color by Technicolor, “That Darn Cat” stars Hayley Mills, Dean Jones, Dorothy Provine and Roddy McDowall. Based on Mildred and Gordon Gordon’s best-seller, ‘Undercover Cat,” the script was written by the Gordons and Bill Walsh. Robert Stevenson directed. Bill Walsh and Ron Miller co-produced with Walt Disney. Buena Vista releases, DEAN JONES STARTED OUT SINGING, WINDS UP BUGGING ‘THAT DARN CAT’ Dean Jones, who started out singing for his supper in New Orleans and wound up, as of a moment ago, bugging Siamese Syn in Walt Disney’s funny picture, “That Darn Cat,” probably holds the record for rapid roles in Hollywood. “Tt was,” he says, “while I was hot out of the Navy and hopefully playing in a Knott’s Berry Farm melodrama that Vernon Duke, the song writer, spotted me. Through him I met MGM’s musical director, Frank Loesser, through whom I met MGM producer Arthur Freed, through whom I got a screen test and was signed as a budding singer. “My first assignment was kissing Leslie Caron, than which you could do worse. But no singing. Next I did a fiveminute scene with James Cagney. No singing yet. I made seven pictures that week, one line on this stage, three over on that one, answering the telephone on still a third. It was great experience but I never did get to sing for MGM.” That hasn’t stopped Dean. As in the French Quater, he’ll sing at the drop of a hat, as they say, and was commonly known to burst into song between bells, rehearsals or actual shooting any time during the making of That Darn Cat, a highly hilarious two-hour feature, also starring Hayley Mills, Dorothy Provine and Roddy McDowall, in which Dean jubilantly essays the role of a radio-activated Federal Security agent in search of a cat that knows where a live kidnap victim is languishing. In color by Technicolor, “That Darn Cat” stars Hayley Mills, Dean Jones, Dorothy Provine and Roddy McDowall. Based on Mildred and Gordon Gordon’s best-seller, “Undercover Cat,” the script was written by the Gordons and Bill Walsh. Robert Stevenson directed. Bill Walsh and Ron Miller co-produced with Walt Disney. Buena Vista releases. SCREEN TOUGH GUY NEVILLE BRAND IS JUST AS ROUGH IN REAL LIFE Neville Brand, probably the best known and most devastating on-screen “heavy” since Laird Cregar, is just as tough and rugged in real life as he is in his many screen and tele vision portrayals. A former steel worker and infantry sergeant who won everything but the Congressional Medal of Honor fighting from Omaha Beach to Berlin, Brand plays a desperate criminal who would just as soon rub out a woman bank teller as not in Walt Disney’s otherwise hilarious feature, ‘That Darn Cat.” The squarely-built, 190-pound sixfooter, and another actor who can switch from good guy to bad with the greatest of ease, Frank Gorshin, play bank robbers who are ‘fingered’ by a foraging feline named Darn Cat. Like many of Hollywood’s best performers, Brand is New Yorktrained. He enrolled in the American Theatre Wing after his discharge from the Army in 1946 to re-train damaged vocal chords, and soon fell in love with the idea of becoming an actor. His first professional jobs were making demonstration films for the Army Signal Corps. “T usually played a sergeant,” he says, ‘‘and another struggling actor named Charleton Heston played a captain.” After two years with the Theatre Wing, Brand worked steadily in offBroadway plays. His first trip to Hollywood paid off with a role Mat DC 2) opposite Edmond O’Brien in “D. dee: Beg That was quickly followed by featured and co-starring reles in several action pictures: “Only the Valiant,” “The Mob,” “Riot in Cell Block 11,” “Day of the Gun,” “Kansas City Confidential” and ‘Five Gates to Hell.” The word soon got around that if a producer wanted a tough guy who was believable, Neville was their man. He joined William Holden in “Stalag 17,” then played the part of Burt Lancaster’s prison guard in “Birdman of Alcatraz” so convincingly that he was nominated for an Academy Award. On television, Brand has played guest starring roles in almost all of the leading shows, and won a Sylvania Award for his portrayal of Willie Stark in “All the King’s Men.” He also starred in the successful Broadway play, “Night Life,” written and directed by Sidney Kingsley. But to a great many television viewers he may best be remembered for his unforgettable Al Capone role in “The Untouchables.” In color by Technicolor, ‘That Darn Cat” stars Hayley Mills, Dean Jones, Dorothy Provine and Roddy McDowall. #8 ©)1965 Walt Disney Productions KOOKIE KIDNAPPER Frank Gorshin looks on as his more ominous cohort, Neville Brand, gives a few words of advice to Grayson Hall. This dire situation is the springboard of sustained hilarity in Walt Disney's suspense-comedy, ‘That Darn Cat," starring Hayley Mills, Dean Jones, Dorothy Provine and Roddy McDowall.