And while it took another year for the full deluge of science-fiction projects kicked into high gear by those films’ twin success to hit theaters, their influence was already starting to be felt, with much of The Cat From Outer Space playing like a goof on Close Encounters in particular. Nowadays it is necessary to say that the collar focuses highly developed telepathic powers.” But after Star Wars and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, space was the place. As The New York Times’ review noted, “In Disney movies of another era, the collar would simply have been described as magical, like Cinderella’s glass slipper. The distrust between the government and the governed had opened up a space so wide that even movies for kids were falling into it.Ī decade earlier, it also probably wouldn’t have involved outer space at all. After all, if you can’t trust an adorable cat-from outer space or elsewhere-who can you trust? But it’s hard to imagine the movie taking the same form even a decade earlier. True, that would turn The Cat From Outer Space into a much grimmer film. (The collar also lets Jake move objects with his mind, leading to a lot of family-friendly physical comedy.) After Jake explains that he needs to return home, Frank is on the case, never questioning whether the cat could have some sort of ulterior motive, or considering whether he should turn it over to the authorities. “Jake,” the titular cat from outer space, who’s stranded on Earth but able to communicate telepathically (in the voice of veteran comic actor Ronnie Schell) thanks to a high-tech collar from his home planet. All these events seemed to confirm Americans’ worst fears, even for people who wanted to dismiss such theorizing as paranoia.īerry plays Frank Wilson, a government scientist who befriends Zunar-J-5/9 Doric-4-7, a.k.a. The notion that the government had something to hide, and that the populace was never going to get the real story, had become the new normal in the years since Vietnam, the assassinations of the 1960s, the accompanying conspiracy theories, and the Watergate scandal. (The film doesn’t do much with the casting of M*A*S*H’s two commanding officers in one film.) What’s remarkable is how unremarkable this depiction was. The stars included a lot of TV-familiar faces such as Berry, Duncan, Roddy McDowall, Harry Morgan, and McLean Stevenson. Director Norman Tokar had a long history with Disney that included live-action films like The Happiest Millionaire and The Apple Dumpling Gang. Peabody and Sherman, and wrote other Disney live-action movies such as The Million Dollar Duck (about a duck who lays golden eggs) and Gus (about a mule with an uncanny knack for kicking footballs). Writer Ted Key created the comic strip Hazel and the characters of Mr. The Cat From Outer Space wasn’t the product of a bunch of subversives wanting to instill distrust in young viewers. Olympus (William Prince) a Blofeld-like schemer who serves as the film’s primary antagonist, it leaves the Pentagon’s villainy unaddressed. While that piece refers to “the unquestionably villainous figure” of Mr. In a short review, Variety patted the film on the head: “The fun, as usual with Disney pix, comes in the believable sight gags.” “Naturally, the Pentagon wants the cat,” The New York Times noted in passing. Such was the state of things by the late 1970s that portraying the government as a shadowy, conspiratorial, possibly actively malicious entity raised no eyebrows. The film? The Cat From Outer Space, a 1978 live-action Disney movie starring Ken Berry and Sandy Duncan. At worst, they’re secretive in a way that’s in no one’s best interests, forcing the hero to deceive, undermine, and oppose them as he works for the greater good. government are treated as clownish at best. As the action unfolds, the forces of the U.S. A few minutes later, the general tells the farmers, “Wipe it out of your mind, do you understand? You’ve seen nothing and heard nothing.” Then he has his men take their names for future interrogation. “Maybe it’s on the inside,” the colonel replies. “I don’t see any hammer and sickle, do you, colonel?” one says. Soon, four military men join them, each seemingly more on edge than the last. As the livestock start to panic, a farmer and his wife investigate the mysterious light in a field near their house. Scene from a 1970s science-fiction film: A blinding light descends on an American farmhouse.
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