Product Description

A charming and fast-paced screwball comedy starring screen legend Ray Milland and enchanting beauty Jan Sterling. Trouble follows when an eccentric millionaire bequeaths his fortune - and his baseball team - to his pet cat! Now the team s publicist (Milland) must convince the players that Rhubarb is the key to their success, at the same time evading gangsters and avoiding the wrath of his lovely - and allergic - fiancé! Rhubarb is a hilarious comedy classic in the style of Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18969 in DVD
• Brand: LEGEND FILMS
• Released on: 2008-07-01
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 5.00 pounds
• Running time: 94 minutes

Features

• A charming and fast-paced screwball comedy starring screen legend Ray Milland and enchanting beauty Jan Sterling. Trouble follows when an eccentric millionaire bequeaths his fortune - and his baseball team - to his pet cat! Now the team's publicist (Milland) must convince the players that Rhubarb is the key to their success, at the same time evading gangsters and avoiding the wrath of his love

Review
Two of the more popular early postwar Hollywood genres were comic fantasies, often built around a popular sport (It Happens Every Spring), and comedies, also with fantasy elements, about precocious animals (The Great Rupert, etc.). Rhubarb (1951) combines the two into a pleasing if mild concoction that children might still take to, while film buffs will find much to enjoy. [...]

Eccentric millionaire Thaddeus J. Banner (Gene Lockhart) adopts a feral cat caught stealing golf balls from the fairways of his country club. Others hate the cat for disrupting their games, but Banner admires its spirit: "I like things that fight back," he says, "Like artichokes!" Banner, a widower, tames the cat, names it Rhubarb and the two become inseparable. Several years later, when Banner dies, he surprises his business associates and only daughter, spoiled Myra (Elsie Holmes), by leaving nearly his entire estate - some $30 million - to Rhubarb. Eric Yeager (Ray Milland), press agent for Banner's lowly baseball team, is named the pussycat's guardian.

At first, the team doesn't take to their new owner, especially when the other ballclubs and taunting fans begin teasing them about having a cat for a boss. But Yeager tricks the team into thinking Rhubarb will bring them luck, and lo and behold not only do they start enjoying Rhubarb's company, they begin winning games and become contenders in the pennant race. Meanwhile, Yeager's romance with Polly (Jan Sterling), the daughter of team manager Len Sickles (William Frawley, in his last film before playing Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy ) is threatened when she develops an allergy with the cat Yeager must baby-sit 24-7.

[...] The film's greatest asset, something the filmmakers may not have realized since it's so underemphasized, is its heart. Lockhart positively adores Rhubarb, and this eccentric old man's love of an initially unlovable stray is genuinely sweet. (Producer Seaton here reunites Lockhart with Frawley, who played the judge and his campaign manager, respectively, in Miracle on 34th Street.)

Later, in the scene where Yeager tricks the dumb and superstitious ballplayers (including a 20-year-old Leonard Nimoy) into thinking petting Rhubarb will bring them luck, the key actor in the scene is an uncredited Strother Martin (Cool Hand Luke). He's hilarious, tentatively approaching the notoriously vicious pussycat, delighted when the cat lets him pet it, then ecstatic when it seems to bring him good luck. This is one of those films crammed with great character types: look for Willard Waterman, James Griffith, Donald MacBride, Madge Blake, Tristram Coffin, Sandra Gould, Donald Kerr, and many others. Sterling's husband Paul Douglas has a funny cameo appearance at the end.

[...] Rhubarb isn't going to top any DVD bestseller lists but it's pleasant with something to offer classic film buffs and families looking for some innocent entertainment. No great shakes, but it's Recommended. --Stuart Galbraith IV of DVDTalk.com

Customer Reviews

Delightful and forgotten screwball comedy
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 fiancee 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.

This film is finally coming to DVD July 1. That is the good news. The bad news is that there will be no extras included.

Big league cat
Fourteen felines were used to make the screwball comedy RHUBARB; the most famous of these was "Orangey," who 10 years later was "Cat" in "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Old Wrigley Field in Los Angeles appears here; sports fans may recall this park from the early '60s TV show, "Home Run Derby."

"Rhubarb" is the story of a feisty feral cat who steals the golfball of an eccentric millionaire ball team owner, along with the man's heart. He eventually captures the golf course dweller and names it "Rhubarb," which in baseball lingo means "a brawl." After they'd spent two contented years together, the man who is now dying leaves all his money and the sports team to Rhubarb.

The players aren't too happy with being owned by a cat and they stage a mass walkout. Rhubarb's appointed caretaker, Eric Yeagar (Milland) uses some trickery to convince the superstitious team that their cat is in reality a lucky charm. Believing they can't lose makes the once faltering "Brooklyns" invincible; they win the pennant and are huge favorites to repeat in the World Series. Bookmakers overwhelmed with the number of "sure bets" decide to eliminate the source of Brooklyn's success-- Rhubarb.

Among the movie's extensive number of uncredited actors are Strother Martin ('Shorty' McGirk) and Leonard Nimoy (young ballplayer). Watch in the final scene for a cameo by Paul Douglas (Jan Sterling's husband), who uses a play on words to plug his latest project, "A Letter to Three Wives."


Bill Frawley also appeared in two other baseball movies (that starred William Bendix): THE BABE RUTH STORY (1948) and KILL THE UMPIRE (1950), which is presented here as a double feature along with SAFE AT HOME (1962) (includes cameos by the '62 Yankees).


Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 viewer poll rating found at a film resource website.

(7.1) Rhubarb (1951) - Ray Milland/Jan Sterling/Gene Lockhart/William Frawley/Donald MacBride/Orangey (uncredited: Strother Martin/Leonard Nimoy/Tristram Coffin/Don Haggerty/Paul Douglas)

A Classic Comedy Finally Brought Back To Life!
I've waited for years for this to be released on video. I don't think that it ever made out on video tape. But this DVD is well worth the wait. Beautiful glorious black & white picture and superb sound quality. Highly recommended for any classic movie buff. Watch for a very young Leonard Nimoy!