Eye of the Cat *** (1969, Michael Sarrazin, Gayle Hunnicutt, Eleanor Parker) – Classic Movie Review 3,040

The suspenseful 1969 chiller Eye of the Cat stars Michael Sarrazin as a young cat hater who teams up with a beauty-parlour girl (Gayle Hunnicutt) to bump off his rich aunt (Eleanor Parker), who has loads of cats, to inherit the older lady’s money. 

Director David Lowell Rich’s suspenseful 1969 American horror film chiller Eye of the Cat is gripping and effective. It stars Michael Sarrazin as a handsome young cat hater called Wylie who wants to bump off his rich wheelchair-using Aunt Danny (Eleanor Parker), who has loads of pussycats.

Wylie, whose shy-seeming younger brother Luke (Tim Henry) lives with the Aunt in her San Francisco mansion home, teams up with auntie’s beauty-parlour attendant, Kassia (Gayle Hunnicutt), to try to inherit the older lady’s money. Aunt Danny does seem to be able to totter around without the wheelchair, but spends much of her time in bed, with a massive oxygen tank topping up her failing lungs. Aunt Danny has an unnatural liking for her handsome nephew Wylie and is thrilled when he suddenly turns up again. She despises and mistreats Luke, who tries to interest Kassia while Wylie is busy. But the cats have other ideas…

This is very good, slightly hokey B-movie horror fare, with plenty of the required chills and suspense, lusty performances and zesty handling. It has an engaging Sixties vibe, immediately from its credit sequence, with cat silhouettes and split screen images. Lalo Schifrin’s lively, very Sixties score is a useful asset. There’s a pungent flavour of the time and place, with some sweet San Francisco outside filming. Beautiful people Sarrazin, Hunnicutt and Parker all look a treat, dressed in Edith Head clothes, though they are sometimes shot unkindly. There’s a smell of sex in the air, with Sarrazin and Hunnicutt eroticised.

Also in the cast are Laurence Naismith as Aunt Danny’s doctor, Linden Chiles as Aunt Danny’s lawyer Bendetto, Jennifer Leak, Annabelle Garth and Mark Herron. But nobody has anything significant to do, apart from the four principals. All four characters are absolutely appalling – entertainingly so – but the script and the actors make the audience care about their fates. Note that it is the previously unknown femme fatale, Kassia, who comes to the young man, Wylie, with the murder plan, surprising him in the middle of enjoying himself with a girl.

There is also a TV version with a less horrific and graphic re-shot alternate ending.

Eye of the Cat is very neatly written with an ideal, cynical tone by Joseph Stefano, who wrote Psycho for director Alfred Hitchcock. Keeping with the Hitchcock connection, they tried to get Tippi Hedren from The Birds to play the Hunnicutt role, but she refused. It was Hunnicutt’s gain, though it looks like she had a tough time making it.

Joseph Stefano died on August 25 2006 at 84. He was the co-creator of the TV series The Outer Limits.

Michael Sarrazin died on April 17 2011, aged 70, after a brief battle with cancer.

Eleanor Jean Parker died on December 9 2013, aged 91.

American film, TV and stage actress Gayle Hunnicutt (Lady Jenkins) died on 31 August 2023, aged 80. She appeared in more than 30 films, including Marlowe (1969), Fragment of Fear (1970), Voices (1973) and The Legend of Hell House (1973). Hunnicutt married David Hemmings on 16 November 1968 and divorced in 1975, and married journalist Simon Jenkins in 1978 and divorced in 2009.

Eye of the Cat is directed by David Lowell Rich, runs 102 minutes, is made by Joseph L Schenck Enterprises, is released by Universal Pictures (1969) (US) and Rank Film Distributors (1969) (UK), is written by Joseph Stefano, is shot in Technicolor by Russell Metty, and Ellsworth Fredericks, is produced by Joseph L Schenck, Bernard Schwartz, Philip Hazelton and Leslie Stevens, is scored by Lalo Schifrin, and is designed by Alexander Golitzen and William D DeCinces.

Release date: June 18, 1969 (New York City).

Tullia is a cat actress, known for Eye of the Cat (1969).

The feline star is cat actress Tullia.

Eye of the Cat was to have starred Terence Stamp and was originally called Wyler. William Wyler had directed Stamp in The Collector (1965).

Short scenes from the film are seen in a season three 1973 Night Gallery episode called Die Now, Pay Later.

Ray Berwick provided and trained more than 50 cats for the movie and also supplied all the feathered actors for The Birds.

Ailurophobia is the persistent excessive fear or hatred of cats.

The cast are Michael Sarrazin as Wylie, Gayle Hunnicutt as Kassia Lancaster, Eleanor Parker as Aunt Danny, Tim Henry as Luke, Laurence Naismith as Dr Mills, Jennifer Leak as Poor Dear, Linden Chiles as Bendetto, Mark Herron as Bellemondo, and Annabelle Garth.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3,040

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