the cat from outer space [1978]

 

do you love scifi?  cats?  disney in the 1970s?  well then this flick is made for you!  & its existence belies the tired binary of good vs bad.  for this movie is like schrodinger's cat because it exists in a state that is both good & bad whereby any evaluative criteria are in flux & exists on the random chance of the state of the viewer.  some days it is good.  others, not so good.

hie!  this is a flick from my childhood.  i remember the theater where i saw it with my brothers.  the special FX was nothing special.  but what did we care!  a talking cat from outer space?  hell yeah!  even the title dares you into rooting for the feline as he crash lands in his spaceship & enlists the help of a government scientist, frank, played by ken berry, to get the cat, jake, back to his ship in time to rendezvous with the mothership.  all the while the u.s. army, led by gen. stilton [the head cheese, get it?], played by harry morgan, is quick on jake's, & frank's, tail.

see jake is a feline from another galaxy where cats evolved into using telekinesis, via the collars they wear around their necks, for tool making & technology building.  understand jake is an advanced intelligence.  but only when he wears his collar.  he just needs the assistance of frank, frank's colleague & love interest, elizabeth, played by sandy duncan, & link, played by mclean stevenson, to buy a bar of gold so that jake can use the gold to repair his ship's propulsion drive.  

only problem is that the gold will cost 120 Gs & frank is a humble government employee.  luckily link is a serious gambler, & with jake's help, they can parlay their meager cash holdings into gambling winnings to the tune of the cost of a large bar of gold.  how does jake manage to manipulate the laws of physics to make any player, whether it be on the basketball court or football field or pool table, either win or lose is never explained.  but jake can bend those laws to his will.

hijinks galore!  wonderful character actors, like roddy mcdowall, who is mr. stallwood, a spy, & jesse white, who is link's bookie & owner of a pool hall, earnest ernie, abound in this flick.  recall too that this movie was made in the height of the cold war.  gen. stilton is hunting jake & frank because he believes it a matter of national security.  the spaceship might be the work of the ruskies.  

at any rate, jake, frank, link & elizabeth find themselves in even greater peril when a dr. no type bad guy, mr. olympus, played by william prince, takes elizabeth hostage & ransoms her for jake's magical collar.  oh!  the suspense!  oh the tension!  really, this is a disney movie.  do you think the bad guy will win?  what happens next?  okay, twist my arm!  i'll tell you!

frank & jake install the gold into the propulsion drive of the spaceship.  that's when they learn that elizabeth has been kidnapped.  frank tells jake to get on his ship.  don't get stuck on earth.  don't worry he will rescue elizabeth from mr. olympus' clutches.  jake reluctantly boards his ship.  it takes off.  gen. stilton & co. are awed watching it fly into low earth orbit. 

frank & link wonder how the hell they are going to get elizabeth who is now in a helicopter flown by mr. olympus' goons, with the bad guy, & the spy, mr. stallwood.  they find a wrecked biplane beyond repair.  no way to get it airborne.  wait!  what's this?  jake?!  yep, jake jettisones his spacecraft & decided to remain marooned on earth to help rescue elizabeth.  

does he succeed indeed!  the movie ends with jake becoming an american citizen & reciting the pledge of allegiance in a court of law in front of a district court judge.  the end!  

still, even so, i enjoyed this flick.  partly because i remember it so well when i was a wee lad.  it's a fun moment of pop culture when disney was making lots of live action movies in a period of decline.  this is a movie from disney's 'dark era'.  but when i saw it i was just a kid & had no idea about the state, financial & creative, of disney.  to me this was a movie.  a good one at that.  at least i think so.  then again, i am a biased viewer.  because we got the disney+ app over the weekend & i had told, & texted friends, that i am especially looking forward to watching movies from disney's lost years, 1968 to perhaps 1980 or so, when i was a child going to the movies seeing these flicks.  like this one.

fucking meow!