Los millones de Ruibarbo

Rhubarb stars Orangey the cat, who apparently lived for quite a long time. This film was made in 1951. Over the years, this feline appeared in Our Miss Brooks, as Minerva, Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961) as Cat, a pivotal role in that film, and the latest credit I could find, a 1964 episode of My Favorite Martian in which the cat is credited as Rhubarb in the end credits. This may or may not have been the cat that appeared as Rusty, Elly May's cat in several episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies as well. The film Rhubarb is a neatly plotted comedy which delivers the laughs. Ray Milland shows his easy-going style as Rhubarb's "guardian". Jan Sterling is the girlfriend who is allergic to the feline. Gene Lockhart is good as always, and William Frawley appears (probably because of the baseball subject of the storyline) just prior to his I Love Lucy success. The film has sprightly direction by Arthur Lubin, a master in dealing with animals. After this film he went on to do the Francis the Talking Mule Films and Mister Ed for television (of course, of course). The film is fast moving and funny, and the DVD from Legend Films has a lovely transfer of the film. Especially fun for cat lovers.

I saw this movie as the second feature with "The day the Earth Stood Still" in 1951. It was an enjoyable tale about a feisty cat that inherited a sub-par baseball team and proved unstoppable when it came to leading them to the winners circle. The movie opens with the owner of a baseball team playing golf. The owner, Thaddeus J. Banner (Gene Lockhart) discovers that on one of the holes there is a cat that feels it is his duty to retrieve any ball in sight and disappear with it. T.J. then tries every trick he can think of to discourage the cat. Fierce dogs are run off with their tails tucked between their legs, and the cat even dismantles a cat trap. When Lockhart finally trails him back to his lair he discovers the cat sitting on a pile of golf balls that would make any duffer cry. He looks like he is trying to hatch several thousand of them.

Eventually the crusty ball club owner manages to catch the cat but he becomes curious about his feistiness and names him Rhubarb, baseball slang for a brawl. When T.J. dies, he leaves the cat the baseball team. Baseball players being what they are didn't take kindly to their new owner, but one by one they were won over. When one of the players decides to try to pet Rhubarb he is rewarded with a slash on the hand from the cat. He is also rewarded with a bonus from the front office that had been spying on the scene. It seems that they had overlooked a small clause in his contract and was to receive a pay increase. Another player makes an overture to Rhubarb, and lo and behold, he also receives a bonus. Well… baseball players being what they are, or at least what they used to be, decide that the cat is a good luck charm. They become involved in a self-fulfilling prophecy and end up in the championship series. The plot thickens when, late in the series, Rhubarb is kidnapped by the other team. The cat escapes leaving his captors in worse shape then if they had tangled with Jackie Chan. He manages to make his way across town and the team is inspired to a come-from-behind situation to win the last game of the series.

I don't know how it would play to most 12 year old children today, but in the days of innocence it was a fun movie.

If you've never seen this 1951 screwball comedy, you have missed a real gem. A cat that can fight and beat dogs, an eccentric baseball team owner who dies and leaves the team to the cat (Rhubarb), the cat's guardian (Ray Milland) whose fiancée is allergic to cats, a group of gangsters who believe Rhubarb is hurting their earnings in the field of betting (the team begins to win after they believe Rhubarb is good luck), and the dead owner's relations who have been left penniless by Rhubarb usurping them in their inheritance all mix together to make great fun for cat lovers and baseball lovers alike. Nobody remembers this one very much because it is rarely televised and also because it was made by Paramount, a studio that tends to neglect its many classic films. In fact, the expression that the Joker utters in the 1989 Batman film : "Never rub another man's Rhubarb" refers to this film, although almost everyone assumed a more unsavory meaning for the expression. The baseball team in this film starts to turn their luck around when one batter pets (rubs) Rhubarb before a game. It really is a great family movie, but not many people at all have seen this one and thus few understand what the Joker was talking about.

I saw this movie when it first was released. My hometown movie theater had Saturday matinée's for kids through early teens. If you were lucky enough to go to one of these early releases you also received a picture of Rhubarb with his "pawtograph". I also acquired a large "rhubarb colored" cat. He lived up to his name well. Many a dog left our yard rather than face up Rhubarb any longer. Over the years I have recommended this movie to many people for their children to view. Those who have managed to find the movie have been well placed. I have seen this movie listed at Blockbusters. This movie will probably also be enjoyable for those of us older folks with a touch of nostalgia.

The movie is great fun. However, younger viewers, i.e Gen-Xers may not get some of the references. The plot is about a lovable but crusty industrialist, T. J. Banner, who finds a even more crustier cat which he names Rhubarb. When the man dies, six years later, he lives his fortune and baseball team, the Brookln Loons, to Rhubarb. Ray Milland plays the dead man's attorney Eric Yeager who is assigned as guardian to the the cat. The team resist the idea of being owned by the cat until Yeager convinces them that the cat is a good luck charm. Complicating matters is the late owner's daughter who was left with nothing and Yeager's fiancee, who is the teams manager's daughter, Polly Sickles, played by Jan Sterling, who is allergic to Rhubarb. This condition prevents the couple from marrying.

This movie is a skewed window on a bygone era. What I found amusing is that a TV broadcast broke away from a game during play for a commercial. Something I've never seen. Polly's reaction was no doubt standard for fans of that era.

Watch for the ending where Sterling's real-life husband, Paul Douglas, is sitting at a park bench, as Sterling, Milland, and Rhubarb walk by.