Movie review - "The Shadow of the Cat" (1961) **

Officially a Hammer movie although it was really made by independent producers under their umbrella - still, it features some names who would become familiar to the company down the track, such as John Gilling and Barbara Shelley. This doesn't have enough story for a feature - an old woman is killed by her servant, and her maid and husband are in on it. This is watched by the cat. Then we get the credits and two newcomers arrive, Shelley and Conrad Phillips. And the cat gets revenge. Yep, that's right, the cat gets revenge, knocking off the baddies one by one - forcing them into quicksand, giving them heart attacks, etc.

Revealing not only the killer but his conspirators at the beginning robs the film of any mystery - all you've got is building paranoia, and "will the others find out in time" - which, since they're not really in danger, isn't much. Shelley is pretty, there are some neat bits of the wind blowing around a mostly-deserted mansion, Andre Morrell is in the cast... but this sort of story struggles to last out an ep of a TV show, let alone a feature (even though the running time isn't much over 70 minutes it still felt dragged out).