Who Killed the Cat?

A deliciously old-fashioned murder mystery ,with a threesome of mischievous old ladies who find it hard to make ends meet (a problem which is still relevant today when old people whose pension is too meager have to resort to charity organisations )but whose pride is intact and who would never,in a month of sundays ,accept any hand-out.

Their landlords was a generous man who did not force them to settle the arrears on their rent;but he's just passed away and his widow is a tartar , who treats her stepdaughter like Cinderella and ruthlessly raises her old tenants' rent.Her cruelty knows no bounds :she goes as far as to kill the cute kitten , adored by her mistress,one of the grannies, and everyone.

When the hateful woman (Vanda Godsell is incredibly wicked ) dies ,the viewer heaves a sigh of relief ,but the movie becomes a whodunit : he suspects the old ladies, the jeweler (who is also the stepdaughter's uncle) ,the young girl ,her boyfriend....all have motives,in the grand tradition of Agatha Christie.Although not to be mentioned in the same breath as the queen of crime's works, the screenplay is well written ,and acting is very good.

A great little movie, the ladies were brilliant keep me watching clued to the tv.

This is a slow burning murder mystery that keeps you guessing till the end. Perhaps the final reveal is a bit quick, especially if you are used to Columbo style re-enactments of the murder, so you need to pay attention. As usual there are plenty of possible murder suspects to choose from, or perhaps it's even suicide. Although based on a play (by Arnold Ridley, more commonly known for his role in Dad's Army) this does not have the usual hallmarks, such as the action being set primarily in one location. Well worth watching. A picture credit for the cat, an on-screen natural, would have been welcome though.

When the owner of a boarding house dies, he leaves his modest property empire to his daughter under the care of her jeweller uncle "Henry" (Mervyn Johns) and her stepmother "Ruth" (Ellen Pollock). Turns out the stepmother is every bit as wicked as stereotype suggests - and soon she decides to send the daughter out to work and to up the rent for the three elderly lodgers who live with them - safe in the knowledge that they could never afford it. One of these ladies has a kitten that has an habit of getting into rooms he's not allowed in, and when he is found dead the old ladies assume he has been poisoned, and set a trap for the supposed murderess. When the matronly landlady is discovered dead in her bed shortly afterwards, all eyes point to a bottle of whisky, a jug of water and, well, just about everyone, really... It falls to Conrad Phillips ("Insp. Bruton") to get to the bottom of things. It's quite a cleverly layered little mystery this, the three old ladies reminding you of Katie Johnson, and the ending is certainly not what I was expecting. Mary Merrall ("Janet") overacts dreadfully as the daughter, and her scenes do spoil it a bit, but for the most part it's an agreeable, well and amusingly paced amalgam of stories that I rather enjoyed.

A nasty landlady is peeved because her late husband has left most of his estate to her stepdaughter. She takes it out on her boarders who are three lady pensioners. She raises their rent exorbitantly. One of the ladies has a cat which is then found poisoned to death. The boarders suspect their landlady is the killer. The landlady has been a thieving magpie helping herself to items from their rooms. For a moment the old ladies plan drastic revenge. But then the landlady is found poisoned to death anyway. This British mystery from Eternal Films has a fine senior cast. I enjoyed stage actress Ellen Pollock who plays a widow fantasizing about some rich grand past. Also entertaining is jeweler Mervyn Johns who keeps his safe permanently wide open. This is not Ladykillers or Arsenic And Old Lace but it is likely to appeal to fans of those movies.