Eye of the Cat Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Eye of the Cat Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson June 13, 2018

Many film enthusiasts may forget that after rewriting murder on the screen with Psycho, scribe Joseph Stefano also had another screenplay in the works, the far lesser known The Naked Edge (1961). (This mystery/crime thriller co-starring Gary Cooper and Deborah Kerr has yet to receive an official DVD release.) Surprisingly, Stefano didn't have any movie scripts produced in the next seven years. He spent those intervening years penning telefilms and most notably, episodes for The Outer Limits (1963-64).

Finally, in 1969, Stefano wrote an original screenplay for Universal titled Wylie. It's no coincidence that he had San Francisco in mind for this Hitchcockian thriller about a young man afflicted with ailurophobia (morbid fear of cats) since the Master had also shot Vertigo and The Birds around Bay City areas. According to Universal's production notes, Wylie's producers were scouting locations in London for a steep hill that proved to be the picture's most memorable thrill scene. When they couldn't find a suitable one in the UK, they discovered one in precisely the same spot that Stefano wanted: on Octavia Street, the Great Falls Tribune reported. But Stefano never specified Octavia in his script. Stefano and the producers decided to film there by separate coincidences! Other locations chosen included the obligatory Golden Gate Bridge, Lafayette Park and Square, the honky-tonk North Beach, and the famed waterfront of Sausalito. It's not known at what point the film's title was changed from Wylie to Eye of the Cat but the latter was obviously better and made more commercial sense in terms of honing in on a target demographic. Prolific TV director David Lowell Rich was not the first to direct Eye of the Cat. According to the late Hollywood columnist Dick Kleiner, the project began "on the wrong paw." An unspecified director departed during the shoot because of a bad back and ill temperament. When Rich was hired as the replacement, he was permitted to reshoot "everything."

A feline preys on Wylie as he showers.

Handsome twenty-something brothers Wylie (Michael Sarrazin) and Luke (Tim Henry, in his movie debut) each face divergent financial futures. Wylie is a playboy with some money in his account that allows him to travel to Europe and entice pretty ladies such as Poor Dear (played by Sarrazin's fellow Canadian, Jennifer Leak). The brothers have lost their mother (and also father, though the film never says) and it's up to Luke to take care of Aunt Danny (Eleanor Parker in her penultimate feature movie). Danny isn't really that old but she has emphysema and two-thirds of her lung tissue has disintegrated, which has confined her to an oxygen tent in the bedroom and a wheelchair when Luke takes her outside. Danny and Luke live in a garish and beautiful baroque mansion in San Francisco. Danny's hairdresser, Kassia Lancaster (Gayle Hunnicutt), learns through conversing with Luke's auntie that she has not only wealth but also another nephew. Kassia interrupts an afterglow moment after Wylie has made love to Dear. She tells Wylie she has particular instructions for a job she'd like him carry out and gives the shaggy lad a body makeover. More specifically, conniver Kassia desires that Wylie be appointed sole beneficiary of his auntie's will so she can partake in the riches with him. She wants him to kill Danny but the problem is Danny's bed and abode is surrounded by cats and Wylie is deathly afraid of the feline!

Eye of the Cat is a fun and sexy thriller filled with beautiful vistas and actors. Within this gorgeous milieu lies a master/slave dialectic that often characterizes the relationships between Kassia/Wylie, Danny/Luke, and Wylie/Danny. I don't want to divulge the dynamics of each for those who haven't seen the film but it's a strength of Stefano's writing for making us guess what each character will ultimately decide to do. But there's a flaw in the way the material inhibits the story's progression. If the script has a glaring flaw, it's that Stefano drops too many hints and clues to each character's motives at early stages of the story. (This becomes readily apparent when one sees it a second time.)

I'm unable to determine how Eye of the Cat performed at the box office but it did play for prolonged periods in certain areas. In South Florida, for instance, it was held over for an additional week at a plaza where the first week's attendance was "considerably above average," according to The Palm Beach Post's Sherry Woods. Critically, it fared pretty well. Walter Morrison of the Dayton Daily News (OH) called Rich's film "one of the scarier 'I wish-they-weren't alive' human menageries ever assembled on the screen." Morrison claimed that it "falls short of its purport to be a tract on the times in which we live." In retrospect, I'd say that Eye of the Cat was a prescient film that forged a bridge between the cultural and sexual mores of the sixties and early seventies. Other reviewers recognized the Hitchockian touch that Stefano brought. Woods credited Stefano for developing suspense and tension to such a high degree that by the ending, the narrative has so many twists and unexpected turns "it would have given Alfred Hitchcock enough material for three shows." By stark contrast, Bruce Vilanch of the Detroit Free Press downgraded it to a child-minded thriller about crazed cats: "For about an hour, Eye of the Cat seemed like a very good way to scare third-graders. But then, as Michael Sarrazin was being attacked by 37 thrill-crazed felines [nearly 100 live cats were on set during filming], a small boy in the rear of the Michigan Theater began meowing softly and all hopes for the film were shattered."

Eye of the Cat Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Never before available on home video in any format in the public domain, Eye of the Cat makes its long-awaited debut thanks to Shout! Factory on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. Before the film opens, Shout displays in part this message: "We used the best film and audio elements in Universal's vaults." Eye of the Cat has been restored to its Technicolor glory. Hues must look the most detailed and defined as the original theatrical release prints. The problem is that Shout! did not complete one final major step in the restoration process: i.e., eliminate all the film artifacts. Small white specks often litter the frame in high quantities, though not consistently from shot-to-shot. Additionally, debris as well as little rings and blotches occasionally seep into the frame. Dirt also nicks the image (see Screenshot #15 and the third image slice in the split screen of #16.) The transfer carries an average video bitrate of 31999 kbps while the full disc comes in at 35.52 Mbps. My video score is 3.25.

Twelve scene selections can be accessed through the main menu or via your remote.

Eye of the Cat Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! has supplied a very clean-sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Dual Mono track (1651 kbps, 24-bit). I noticed very few source flaws as this was a very pleasing vintage monaural mix to hear. Composer Lalo Schifrin delivers a frightening score that made me tremble on my first viewing. The jazz maestro masterfully blends a harpsicord, piano, some percussion, screechy violins, and delicate woodwinds. It's a masterful score and unfathomably never given a soundtrack release on any format!

Shout!'s English SDH provide a mostly error-free transcription of the dialogue. I counted one missed bit of dialogue and three spelling/grammatical errors.

Eye of the Cat Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Television Version of the Film (1:41:59, 480i) - this broadcast version was essentially the only way to see Eye of the Cat before Shout! put it on Blu-ray. It has some noticeable and significant differences compared to the theatrical version. Picture quality is mediocre with wavy lines. In English, not subtitled.

• Original Radio Spot (1:02) - a clear archival recording with plenty of "meows." In English, not subtitled.

• Theatrical Trailer (2:06, upscaled to 1080) - an unrestored trailer for Eye of the Cat that appears squeezed and cropped. Presented in about 1.66:1. In English, not subtitled.

• Still Gallery (5:02, 1080p) - a slide show comprising around seventy-eight individual images that display the American and international ad campaigns for Eye of the Cat. They consist of publicity shots, lobby cards, still photographs on the set, posters, and newspaper clippings. I would have preferred that Shout! include the pages from the pressbook as a PDF since the text is quite small. Still, a classy set of vintage images.

Eye of the Cat Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

''Twenty years from now, I hope this film will be remembered as the definitive study of a young man of the late '60s." Director David Lowell Rich made this very bold statement in 1969 to a reporter and while I don't agree with it, his picture is a very good time capsule of that era. Now Eye of the Cat is ripe for rediscovery courtesy of the good folks at Shout! Factory. The technicolor photography by Ellsworth Fredericks and Russell Metty looks resplendent but is marred by too much artifacting. The DI needs and deserves a full re-master. I was craving for new interviews with the film's surviving stars but the addition of the TV cut is a welcome addition. The movie is ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED.