THE CAT FROM OUTER SPACE (1978)
Tagline: A close encounter of the 'furred' kind!
(Comedy, Sci-Fi, Family Friendly) [G]
So this is one of those rare movies where scientists not only didn’t cause the problem, but they are making serious efforts to fix it. In this one, an alien spaceship lands on earth but is stranded due to needing parts due to being damaged. The alien is super smart and befriends 3 scientists whose goal is to get it back home. Unfortunately, the military and some foreign interests have other ideas. Oh…yeah… in case the movie’s title and the graphic above didn’t give you the message. The alien is a cat.
Growing up, there were a few movies I considered main-stays and thought I’d be watching for the rest of my life. Among those movies was this damn thing. I have never really been a cat person, but I seem to consistently have them around and even have one now named TJ-Zebra. The cat in this movie gets named “Jake” because its real name is “Zunar-J-5/9 Doric-4-7”. Apparently, aliens do not give a crap if something is hard for humans to remember.
Cinematically the effects by today’s standards in this movie are pretty shaky, but I loved the old-fashioned 1950’s sci-fi look of the flying saucer in this. The camera work is also excellent with lots of nice “tricks” to really make this thing work. One of those tricks was basically copied later in the movie E.T.. The lighting in night scenes shows a lot of confidence as well. This wasn’t the case in a lot of films from the era.
Acting-wise for the 70’s it really didn’t get a ton better than this for a family film. Liz (one of the scientists) is played by the legendary Sandy Duncan (who was just featured in an episode of SCOOBY-DOO GUESS WHO in 2020). She is great for this role, but in real life is actually allergic to cats. The main character (aside from Jake) is Frank, another scientist who somehow already picked up rudimentary scientific ideas the cat understands is aptly played by Ken Berry. He was probably best known for playing Vinton Harper on the TV show “Mamma’s Family”. McLean Stevenson plays the 3rd scientist and avid gambler “Link”. He was in a ton of stuff but one show that caught my eye was a “Dirty Dancing” TV show I wasn’t even aware existed. Roddy McDowall plays a dude that is almost a villain in this movie but I completely forgot he was in it. Horror fans know him better from his role in FRIGHT NIGHT as would-be vampire slayer Peter Vincent. Harry Morgan (best known for his role as Col. Sherman T. Potter from the TV show M*A*S*H) is also very good in this, but it almost feels like this movie could have been loosely connected to the M*A*S*H universe because he’s basically playing the same character he did in that show only he’s General Stilton in this.
If you have kids, just like cats, or are in the mood for some light-hearted goofy sci-fi family fun, THE CAT FROM OUTER SPACE is a gem. I still love this movie as much as I did as a kid. I honestly wish there were more movies like this these days.
For going at least a little bit out of the box I have to give THE CAT FROM OUTER SPACE a solid 5 out of 7. I don’t want to see it’s cheese-less or perfect, but it’s still a really fun movie.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF WALT DISNEY PRODUCTIONS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
Comments
Post a Comment