Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As has occasionally been the case in previous posts, I found this while digging through our flat files looking for something else. I barely remember purchasing it on eBay so it must have been quite awhile ago. For whatever reason it has been sitting and waiting to be rediscovered and shared with you all on Pictorama today.

In part, I may have put this aside because I have no idea exactly what film this still is from. At first glance I assumed it was one of the Little Rascals shorts, but on further reflection I am not so sure. I would love anyone with thoughts or knowledge to weigh in on this. Meanwhile, while dogs and pups ruled on those shorts, cats very rarely played a role outside of being chased by the aforementioned dogs – surely the cat was in part what made me buy this however. And not to say that this black and whiter didn’t play a key role in this film – nary a dog to be seen at the moment. Nice looking kitty though, I must say. I believe I bought this around the same time I purchased the photo in the post Flying to the Moon.

I wonder about cats in films like this. Just wandering through it seems – occasionally cued to chase or be chased, or are toted around like arm decoration. They don’t seem to distinguish themselves for the most part. Rarely does it seem you see the same one twice. I have this feeling sometimes that there were just cats running about the place and when it came time to need one for a scene they scooped a handy generic one up. I have wondered about cats in some of the early photos with models, such as the one in the post Painted Puss. As I think about it though, one could argue that the life of a photo studio cat was better than that of a film lot cat. After all they had to be pretty for their pictures to be taken. A life of greater leisure and care I imagine. Still, I think it depends though – those films lot cats probably had quite a raucous and interesting time, complete with mice, dogs, kids and kitty crew. More fun if you were the right kind of cat.

Painted Puss, from Pams-Pictorama.com collection