THAT DARN CAT! (1965)

Not to be confused with That Darn Human Centipede!, THAT DARN CAT! is the occasionally funny and surprisingly dark story of an indoor-outdoor cat who accidentally crosses path with a kidnap victim who is about to be murdered!  During their brief moments together, the poor woman scratches the letters HEL on the back of her watch and slips it on the cat’s neck.  The cat’s owner (Hayley Mills) notices the message and then before you can say “Tomb Mold should release a funk album called “Give Me Sum of Dat Old Tomb Funk’.”, there’s a pack of FBI agents following that darn motherfucking cat all over town.

THAT DARN CAT! is a fun film.  I got a few laughs out of it and was especially blown away by the impressive supporting cast.  You’ve got everybody from the Bride of Frankenstein (Elsa Lanchester) and vampire hunter Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall) to the Riddler (Frank Gorshin) and Trudy Kockenlocker’s dad (William Demarest) up n dis bish!  As far as the leads go, I always enjoy seeing Hayley Mills and Dean Jones during their Disney years and they are both great here, as usual.

Medium pace, great vintage fashions (especially on Hayley), solid acting by a fantastic cast, okay story that should have been sillier and not as dark, vintage cars, zero nudity, zero gore, a few genuine smiles, not enough cat action, zero cheerleaders, not enough wide shots of the Disney backlot, a bus from “Stupidsville”, a bizarre drive-in movie theater that is showing footage of people surfing with no apparent story.

For what it is, THAT DARN CAT! is totally worth watching for anybody interested in such things.  I'd be down to watch it again.  Fun fact: according to Wikipedia, THAT DARN CAT! was the 5th highest-grossing film for the year.

Remake - That Darn Cat (1997)

FIRE (1977)

Showing up on network TV less than six month after Irwin Allen's previous disaster outing, FLOOD, FIRE tells the story of a forest fire caused by a work crew prisoner (Neville Brand) looking to make a cover for an escape attempt.  Soon, the fire is totally out of control and not only does it threaten Vera Miles' hotel and Ernest Borgnine's lumber mill, but also an entire nearby town.  So now it's up to Borgnine to drive all over the joint in his big truck wrecking into shit and saving everybody.

I liked FIRE quite a bit.  It was a big improvement over the lackluster FLOOD...the pace was quick, the acting much improved (the highlights being Miles and Borgnine), the special effects were better, impressive cast (Vera Miles, Ernest Borgnine, Lloyd Nolan, Alex Cord, Neville Brand, Eric Estrada, Patty Duke), the action scenes much more exciting, plus it just looked better. 

Younger audiences would probably fall asleep, but it you have a soft spot of older TV movies then you should definitely check out FIRE.  Recommended.