The Cat from Outer Space ** (1978, Ken Berry, Sandy Duncan, Roddy McDowall, Harry Morgan, McLean Stevenson) 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,849

US army officials and foreign spies try to stop three scientists from helping a stranded Alien feline to repair its spacecraft and return home, in Disney’s 1978 sci-fi comedy film The Cat from Outer Space.

Director Norman Tokar’s 1978 American science fiction comedy film The Cat from Outer Space stars Ken Berry, Sandy Duncan, Roddy McDowall, Harry Morgan, and McLean Stevenson.

An Abyssinian ET, mundanely called Jake the Cat by the earthlings, levitates his pals, speaks in English, and pilots a spacecraft that looks like the Love Bug, in this pleasant Seventies Walt Disney Productions comedy.

In a cheeky copycat plot that the studio called ‘A Close Encounter of the Furred Kind’, Jake is trying to go home (as ETs do) before the soldiers capture him, but instead he falls for earthling pussy Belle.

Roddy McDowall as Mr Smallwood and Harry Morgan (in his sixth Disney movie) as General Stilton are the real people enjoying themselves and jollying up the film’s empty spaces, but top-billed Ken Berry (Dr Frank Wilson) and Sandy Duncan (Dr Liz Bartlett) are a bit wan.

It was shot at Disney’s Golden Oak Ranch and Santa Clarita, California.

It is Norman Tokar’s final film before his death the following year  on April 6, 1979.

It pairs McLean Stevenson with Harry Morgan who had replaced him in a different character after three seasons on TV’s M*A*S*H three years earlier. Morgan played commanding officer Sherman T Potter in all but three of the subsequent episodes. Stevenson played Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake but he decided to leave the show at the end of the third season. The producers added a final scene to his last episode in which Radar announces Blake’s plane was shot down with no survivors.

Release date: June 30, 1978 (New York).

Running time: 104 minutes.

The cast are Ken Berry as Frank Wilson, Sandy Duncan as Liz Bartlett, Harry Morgan as General Stilton, Ronnie Schell as Sgt Duffy/ Voice of Jake, Roddy McDowall as Mr Stallwood, McLean Stevenson as Norman Link, Jesse White as Gambling Dealer Earnest Ernie, Alan Young as veterinarian Dr Winger, Hans Conried as Chief Dr Heffel, James Hampton as Captain Anderson, Howard Platt as Colonel Woodruff, William Prince as Charlie Olympus, Ralph Manza as Weasel, Tom Pedi as Honest Harry, Hank Jones as Officer, Rick Hurst as Dydee Guard, Sorrell Booke as Judge, Fred Whalen as Pool Hustler Sarasota Slim, John Alderson as Mr. Smith, Tiger Joe Marsh as Omar, Alfred Soboloff as NASA Executive, Mel Carter as 1st Soldier, Dallas McKennon as Charlie Cooney, Alice Backes as Farmer’s Wife, Henry Slate as Sandwich Man, Roger Pancake as Red, Roger Price as 1st E.R.L. Report, Jerry Fujikawa as 2nd E.R.L. Report, Jim Begg as Dydee Driver, Peter Renaday as Baliff, Rickie Sorensen as Technician, Tom Jackman as Army Engineer, Joseph G Medalis as Sucker, Gil Stratton as 1st NASA Scientist, Jana Milo as 2nd NASA Scientist, and Rumpler and Amber (brother and sister Abyssinian cats) as Jake / Zunar-J-5/9 Doric-4-7.

Sandy Duncan (born February 20, 1946).

Ronnie Schell (born December 23, 1931).

Close Encounters of the Third Kind  (1977).

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,849

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