Sunday, August 11, 2019

Movie review - "Rhubarb" (1951) **

Comedy about a cat that inherits a baseball team - it's played straight, as in no fantasy, but it is a comedy. You don't get many live action films about cats because their personality is tricky to convey on screen - that's the case here. There's no warmth between Rhubarb and Ray Milland, as his supervisor.

It doesn't help that Milland has a girlfriend starting off - the film might have been better off with Rhubarb helping Milland fall in love.

There's gangsters, a pushy relative, a court case, some baseball games. But the film never took off for me. The main plot seems to be that Milland's fiance is allergic to the cat which isn't high stakes.

I kept wanting changes - Milland was an ex baseball player say, or the fiancee was a lawyer for the disaffected daughter, or Milland was encouraged to be less stuffy by the cat. It's like they don't do that much with the premise. There's not a lot of baseball atmosphere either. Milland is okay but someone like Donald O'Connor would have been better - someone more adept at double takes. It's not much fun.

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