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The Three Lives of Thomasina

Released: 1964

Version: VHS (Disney)

Rating: G

Length: Approx. 95 minutes 

Cast: Patrick McGoohan, Susan Hampshire, Laurence Naismith, Jean Anderson, Wilfrid Brambell, Finlay Currie, Karen Dotrice

Synopsis:

There once was a cat named Thomasina. She thought she was all there was to the world. She was Queen. Cats are arrogant. Anyway, she ends up in an accident and "dies." She goes to cat heaven where Isis (or some cat god) drags her into its eyes and Thomasina awakens with no memories of her previous life until a storm near the end of the movie.

The story is also about a vet, his daughter, and a "witch."

The Review:

This is an odd old Disney flick. It begins with a little girl named Mary (Karin Dotrice) who loves her cat, Thomasina (voiced by Elspeth March) whose thoughts we are privy to. Mary dresses the animal up and plays with it a lot. You can tell it is dear to her. We also meet a blind man with his guide dog. He seems like the friendly sort but is only in two scenes in the movie. 

Anyway, Mary's father is the new vet in town and he is a rather cold man. The main reason that Mr. McDhui (Patrick McGoohan) is this way is because his wife, Mary's mom, died. So he's a grump. He doesn't have much sympathy for his patient's owners when he has to put their animals down. This gets him a bad rep among some of the townsfolk.

There's a band of three boys that shows up about now. The youngest has a frog with a broken leg that he tries to get Mr. McDhui to fix, but being a jerk, he sends the boy away. Thus, he and the other two boys go off into the woods to visit a "witch." She's thought to be a witch because she lives alone, there's weird sounds coming from her home, and she has a natural way with animals. 

She takes in the anonymously delivered frog and heals it somehow. She seems like a fun lady from what little we see of her. She knows that everyone thinks she's a witch, so she jumps on her broom and shouts incantations. It's rather amusing.

Soon thereafter, the stupid cat goes hunting for dead fish and ends up pulling a pile of crates down on itself. It is badly injured and when Mary brings it to her dad, he is busy working on the guide dog of the blind man since it had just been hit by a car. Thus, he doesn't hardly look at the cat except to tell his assistant to get rid of it because Thomasina has "tetanus" and is incurable. Whatever.

Mary and her friends go to bury the critter and the witch, Lori MacGregor (Susan Hampshire) shows up and scares them off. She finds the cat and discovers it's still alive. It seems McDhui is a moron and she manages to nurse it back to health. Thus begins Thomasina's "second life." 

Between the burial and its being healed, the cat was in lala land. It went to some kind of dream state or a heaven of sorts where there were a bunch of other cats all crowding around a cat-god, which I think was Isis. Thomasina looks into its eyes and the next thing she knows, she has a new master and no real memories. Dumb.

Thomasina doesn't like her new life because Lori doesn't treat her like she's the be-all end-all. Lori treats all the animals the same. Ha! Meanwhile, the boys, led by Hughie Sterling (Vincent Winter) go around bad-mouthing Mr. McDhui in hopes of running him out of town because he didn't save Thomasina. They think this is a good way to help Mary, their friend, although you'd think they would realize that if they succeeded, they would lose their friend too. One disturbing aspect of this movie is that Mary thinks her dad is dead since he didn't save her cat. 

McDhui talks to this cool preacher named Reverend Angus Peddie (Laurence Naismith) about his problems and the Reverend is always suggesting prayer and talking about good Biblical topics. He is definitely the coolest character in the show. I liked the way he interacted with Mary when he tried to cheer her up and he was cool in other scenes where he confronted McDhui about rejecting God.

Later on in the movie, McDhui meets Lori and helps her take care of an injured badger. Love springs and he keeps visiting her. Eventually, he ends up saving her from a group of gypsies that were abusing their circus animals. He also gets her to come to his house to help take care of his daughter who got very sick when she went running in the rain chasing Thomasina. Yes, it's another instance in movie-land where people get pneumonia from getting soaked. I don't know why Mary's father didn't get sick too...he got just as wet and so did Thomasina. They should all have pneumonia!!!

In the end, everything is great. Mary gets her stupid cat again, and her dad is "resurrected" in her mind. McDhui and Lori also get married. Blah blah blah.

The Good Stuff:

The Bad Stuff:

The Dumb Stuff:

This makes for pretty harmless fare. It's mainly good for nostalgia value since there's nothing that makes it really stand out from the other family movies of the time period or even Disney's own roster back then.

If you like cat movies, then this is for you. Personally, I'd go with Mary Poppins or some other classic.

OVERALL SCORE: 1/2